[ADeepSandbox]

Hello, all. I am a new member who has struggled for years with depression, anxiety, feelings of worthlessness, and many other issues. I do not have professional help, but I have decided to begin working on trying to heal from a number of very painful events in my past that have led me to this point.

I made a list of those events, and chronologically, the first was my parents' divorce when I was six years old. I have been reading articles about what children of that age experience during divorce, and picked up the book The Long Way Home by Gary Neuman - a book for helping adults whose parents divorced when they were children.

I have begun Neuman's program and although I am only on step two, which involves remembering and writing down memories before, during, and after the divorce, that alone has brought up some powerful feelings and helped me realize a lot of the grief, insecurity, fear, and lack of trust I experience may actually be rooted in this event. I have particularly uncovered an incredible amount of childhood anger at my mother that I don't think I ever dealt with as a kid, and that is almost certainly coloring my relationship with her as an adult.

I wanted to reach out to others whose parents divorced when they were young, and ask - how did you heal from that event? What was helpful to you?

My parents never fought in front of me, and one day my mother just told me that they were getting divorced. It was the same day she put my father out of the house.

I was bonded much more closely to my father than my mother as a young child, and I'm not sure why - maybe because I was premature, and my father was with me immediately after I was born but my mother was recovering from a very difficult labor? She didn't get to hold me for three days, and then she didn't know how to care for a baby at first. My dad was the one who took care of me as a newborn, though mom did learn and took over from my dad later. It just makes me wonder why I was so much more closely bonded to my dad and how that impacted the things I experienced when they divorced and he left.

Like, maybe part of why I was so angry at my mom and why I grew up insecure and afraid was because she made my "safe" parent go away suddenly? One day everything was ok, and the next, the world dropped out from under my six-year-old feet. I feel like maybe it taught me that nobody can be trusted, and when things are going fine, there's probably something bad being hidden from you and just waiting to happen.

I am interested in hearing any thoughts you might have, or want to share, about recovering from your parents' divorce as an adult. I did not get any professional support at the time they divorced and feel like I may have buried a lot of my fears and feelings about it, especially so because it was the start of a long and very painful experience involving my father. I am hopeful that Neuman's book and program will help me check this particular item off my list of things to address, and would appreciate your input.

This book sounds interesting. Can you update us as you go through and complete it?

I can very much understand. I have seen examples of what you describe as your own situation. My stepson is just such an example. He was two when his parent's split, his father getting primary custody. In the boy's case, he went through a great deal of abandonment issues. I have seen that it has affected him right into adulthood. Primarily it is a poor sense of self worth that he was ultimately left with. I could tell that despite the loving relationships he has now and growing up that the fear of being abandonned has affected them. Emotionally he has just felt not good enough. He feels shame and convinced that he is always at fault in relationship difficulties. As you have described, he has worried about relationship 'safety'.

The book sounds like it could be a great source of help. Have you heard of CBT (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy)? It works at combatting our negative core beliefs of ourselves and learning to replace them with a positive sense of self worth. I have a suspicion your book might be sourced in CBT. Still, it might be worth looking in to.

[ADeepSandbox]

Originally Posted by justafriend306

This book sounds interesting. Can you update us as you go through and complete it?

I can very much understand. I have seen examples of what you describe as your own situation. My stepson is just such an example. He was two when his parent's split, his father getting primary custody. In the boy's case, he went through a great deal of abandonment issues. I have seen that it has affected him right into adulthood. Primarily it is a poor sense of self worth that he was ultimately left with. I could tell that despite the loving relationships he has now and growing up that the fear of being abandonned has affected them. Emotionally he has just felt not good enough. He feels shame and convinced that he is always at fault in relationship difficulties. As you have described, he has worried about relationship 'safety'.

The book sounds like it could be a great source of help. Have you heard of CBT (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy)? It works at combatting our negative core beliefs of ourselves and learning to replace them with a positive sense of self worth. I have a suspicion your book might be sourced in CBT. Still, it might be worth looking in to.

That makes a great deal of sense and I appreciate you sharing your stepson's experience. I'm very sorry that he's suffered so because of it. I definitely empathize. Not feeling wanted, not feeling good enough, and always being on edge - it makes me think a lot of my anxiety problems come from this.

I would be happy to write about the book! The author is apparently a very well-known psychotherapist and a rabbi. He started a program in Florida called Sandcastles that all children of divorcing parents have to go through before the courts will allow the couple to divorce. I wish they had had that when my parents divorced! He also worked with custody cases early in his career. Between working with kids whose parents were divorcing, and the custody cases, he got a very good look at the effects of divorce and how it can impact people long-term, and also how to address it.

The book's early chapters are very, very validating. The first section talks about the author's experience and background in working with children of divorce, and the impacts that studies have shown it can have on people long-term. Then he spends a lot of time calmly explaining what the book will help you do, and why, and validating that it's not wrong or childish to be an adult who is still suffering from events of the past even if they were 20, 30, or 40+ years ago. It basically shuts down any and all "but - but -" excuses your brain can come up with to excuse away why you shouldn't be hurting or suffering.

I have only read the first three chapters because it is a five-week program described, and I don't want to get too far ahead. I am on step two. Step one was identifying reasons that might cause people to give up on the process, stuff like feeling disloyal about looking critically at your parents' actions, or worrying about getting stuck in a victim mentality. You are supposed to write down your own responses and encouragement so if you start hearing those obstacles in your head later on, you can go back and re-read your own words to yourself to move you through.

Step two, which I'm doing now, is about writing down all of the memories you have surrounding the before, during, and after of the divorce. You have to write down what happened - not what your parents told you happened, but what you remember happening - and then how it made you feel, and how you feel now writing it down. I have poor recall of this time in my life, but what I do remember is turning out to have a big emotional impact on me.

The book is very reassuring and supportive about this, warns you that you might end up feeling very sad or angry, etc. over the emotions and memories this brings up, and offers advice for how to manage it.

Step three is about sort of putting into place an image of how the events of your parents' divorce shaped your views of the world. I haven't read much into that part or beyond yet.

I think it probably is CBT-based to some degree, but I know CBT can be notorious for being invalidating sometimes and I don't feel invalidated or like I'm being told I'm "wrong" for feeling as I do. The author is very supportive and it's, at least to this point, been all about figuring out the truth of what happened so I can have a strong foundation for understanding why those years had the impact on adult-me that they did. He talks a lot about everybody's autopilot functioning, how it's set early in life largely by your early caregivers' influence on you, and how the goal is to reset the autopilot as an adult so it doesn't take you down the same wrong turns. It's very sensitively written, encouraging, and supportive, and I don't feel blamed or like he's trying to make you move forward before you're ready - all criticisms I've heard of CBT before.

I am very sensitive to anything that tells me I'm "wrong" to feel the way I do, because invalidation is something I've struggled with from my parents and others, so I'm thankful the author is not like that.

I will keep this thread updated with the process and any other resources I come across.

[ADeepSandbox]

Wow - I wrote down and confronted the memory of when I was told about the divorce. That one got me a little blurry-eyed! The overwhelming thing I felt was that I had died. It wasn't about losing a parent or a particular fear, I just...died that day as a six-year-old. There was nothing else that could describe it.

Reflecting on that took my breath away, but it also suddenly made me respect six-year-old me so much. I was a super sensitive child and I was quiet and shy. If I had acted out more instead of being quiet, maybe someone would have seen how much pain I was in. Instead my parents pretty much just thought I was doing okay. I guess I didn't know how to tell them I wasn't.

I feel a newfound respect for myself and a kind of pride that I could have lived through dying like that. I feel like I should never let myself or anyone belittle my pain again, just because I'm sensitive.

I self-medicated for several years and tried to erase it from my memory. I started falling into addiction, but it's still there and I find myself feeling a lot of anger still. I remember seeing my parent's fight on several occasions, usually with my father in a drunken state. I had gone to therapy early after they divorced, but I was pretty young still and always had a hard time opening up. It's strange - I actually remembered events that happened much later on....it's kind of like they just popped into my mind randomly.
I've always been pretty insecure - I don't feel close to either of my parents and pretty much avoid my father (for several reasons, not directly related to the divorce).

[ADeepSandbox]

lostbynovember - I am sorry your path has been full of so much struggle and pain. Neuman's book actually shows data that young children who go to individual therapy regarding divorce issues may not get nearly as much out of it as one might hope, though the group approach of his Sandcastles program is supposed to be more effective (though of course, it IS his program, so there's something of a bias there.) I wish you well in recovering.

I realize now, looking back, I have many times over grasped at things to try and fill the hole this left in me, and many times over have ended up hurt by situations I could have avoided, were I not so desperate. I am not sure what I was desperate for, but one of the memories I have written down that also made me teary-eyed was about hugging my dad for the first time after he moved out. I am realizing that I have not really felt safe since I was a child, and the memory of hugging him brought back what it was like to feel safe.

I am starting to think maybe the book is actually a lot more psychodynamic, though I'm not an expert at telling them apart. This seems a lot like the concept of bringing up and re-feeling the stuff you avoided or couldn't handle at the time of the incident. Or at least, that's what's happening to me.

I've started feeling my first obstacle, in that I got the "this isn't really going to help me" voice in my head last night. I hate that voice. It's not going to stop me, though. I think this can definitely help me. It's already helped me reconnect with what I went through during the divorce, even though I was very young and my memories are spotty.

[Fuzzybear]