How to Navigate Divorce Grief: Depression

Nothing had gone right for a year and a half. Everyone kept saying to give it time. It will get better. Time heals all wounds. I gave it time, it wasn’t getting better, and my wounds only seemed more profound.

It was a divorce. Everyone saying those things had never been through one, so they had no idea what I was going through.

The fact that it was my first real heartbreak didn’t help. Usually, I would have just turned my back and walked away, as I did every time I had been dumped. This was a divorce, however.

Having a daughter meant walking away wasn’t an option for me. I was going to be forced to stay and face it all down.

I can’t express how difficult it was to have my heart broken and face the perpetrator daily while everything was still raw. Anyone who has gone through it recognizes the hell I’m referring to.

For anyone else that hasn’t experienced it, I hope you never have to. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

Things started to pile up slowly as the realities of my new life settled in. The divorce was awful enough. We had also been living above our means. I was now in a house that I couldn’t afford to pay for. I couldn’t afford the bills for it either.

I was losing the future I thought I was going to have. I lost part of the time I would have generally had with my child due to custody. I was taking loss after loss, and they were coming quickly.

Eventually, it all shattered, and a familiar friend moved in. Depression.

Depression is the fourth stage of grief. Elizabeth Kubler Ross introduced us to the five stages of grief in her famous book On Death and Dying. The five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

The stages don’t necessarily go in order. This is because everyone experiences grief differently.

Those who are unfamiliar with depression think of it as this deep sadness. That’s partially true, but it’s also much more.

Depression will look like different things to different people depending on who is experiencing it. Some people will cry nonstop at random times. Some will feel completely drained of energy and find it hard to get out of bed. Some will lose all interest in the things they once loved doing.

I shut myself off from the outside world as much as possible. Everything I enjoyed doing before no longer interested me. Life just became a repeating cycle of misery and coasting. I would wake up, go to work, mindlessly watch TV, and go to bed. I had no drive for anything.

Weekends were the worst for me. When I didn’t have my daughter, sometimes I wouldn’t leave my house between getting home Friday after work and returning to work Monday morning except for walking my dog. At least when I had my daughter, I was inspired to get out of the house with her.

This is where I got stuck.

Even now, I can’t recall too much from that period. It lasted for a little over a year. It was 2010. I don’t know if I don’t remember much from that year because of how I felt during that time or because nothing worth remembering happened.

This is where I learned that I had a habit of trying to eat away my emotions. I would eventually weigh the heaviest I had ever been, 250 pounds.

You don’t have to control your thoughts. You just have to stop letting them control you. — Dan Millman

I was diagnosed as clinically depressed a little over 20 years ago. It is still something I face from time to time. I’m not sure it ever goes away for good. I‘ve tried many things to beat the depression during this time. Medication, therapy, herbal supplements, acupuncture, reading about ways to destroy it, exercise, and meditation.

No one thing has worked on its own. Being predisposed to depression meant I would struggle more with this stage of grieving. If you have had issues with depression before your separation or divorce and haven’t worked on coping healthily, it will batter you.

I hadn’t developed a sound coping system before my divorce and suffered more than I should have.

Through trial and error, I learned that cognitive behavioral therapy works best for me. Medication did work early on but seemed to stop working after a while, making me feel more emotionally numb to everything.

I’m not advocating against medication; I know it helps many people. For me, it was best to combine it with therapy. Try not to think of medicines as a one-stop cure. There is always an underlying cause of depression; it is best to unpack it with a therapist if you are struggling.

I can get under the hood with cognitive behavioral therapy and look at my thinking patterns and thoughts. This allows me to see how my thinking is wrong and how I can correct it.

Often, with things like depression and anxiety, we get stuck in these thought spirals that feed off incorrect types of thinking. Each wrong thought provides more and more fuel to the fire until things grow out of control.

Only when we started paying attention to our thoughts and thought patterns can we regain control and consciously try to change them. The longer you’ve been on autopilot, the harder it will be.

Being able to notice incorrect thinking when it occurs, pull yourself out of it, and replace it with better thought will change your life. It’s beneficial not only for depression but also anxiety, low self-esteem, and other things that can lead to depression.

I’ve reiterated the importance of not suffering in silence in all of these divorce grief articles I’ve written. If you struggle to get past things and every day is becoming a blur, please get help. Find a therapist, counselor, or support group.

Many people are going through what you are going through, and your story can help others. Please share it.

If I had to guess, without any proof, I’d say most people get stuck moving between depression and anger. The moving back and forth makes you feel worse about yourself. This is the time to be kind to yourself. There is nothing wrong with you if the process seems too slow.

Heartbreak is hard. Divorce is hard. A lot is going to change.

I’ve heard rumors about “friendly” divorces where two partners decide things aren’t working and go separate ways. But I’ve never actually seen one.

I’ve generally seen ones where one partner is left hurting and faced with the difficult decision of continuing as if nothing happened or working on themselves to learn and grow from the experience. The ones who continue are usually doomed for failed second marriages.

The ones who decide to do the work transform themselves into something spectacular that even they don’t recognize. That previously hurt version of them becomes a distant reflection in their rearview — a forgotten memory.