great advice from an old friend

so i have a friend that went through a divorce and gave me some great advice to help me with my future one. i post it here so that you two may read and use her wisdom, thank you d. she asked to remain annon.....

"Honestly, the single best thing I did was go into therapy. My reasons for getting married, who I chose, the tone and character of my marriage and divorce were completely braided into some serious family issues that I was only dimly (and I stress dimly) aware of. I really don't think I could have untangled the whole mess without professional help. For me, it would have been far to complicated and scary to do it by myself. My therapist also helped me maintain a sense of humor, and that was invaluable. So I would say - if anything, do this if you can at all afford it, even if you think you can't, try. I think you'll find a pretty wide range of fees out there and hopefully someone you can afford.

I found that I had to sometimes avoid certain people who I felt were pressuring me to get over it, move on, put it behind me - whatever. Grief takes its own time to work through and there's not much point in hurrying it along. Often-times I found that this pressure to move on was simply someone else's discomfort with feeling like they didn't know how to help, of having a problem they couldn't solve. They meant well, but it didn't always help. Besides, not trying to rush the whole process really helped that whole business of sorting through my life pretty thoroughly and my relationships since then have been a lot healthier for it.

What else...oh yes, I slept - a ton, 12 hours, 14 hours a day and I didn't give a shit. And I ate well. Divorce is a trauma and psychological trauma is very much like physical trauma - it requires a lot of rest and good nutrition to heal. Sounds cheesy, I know, some people don't need it, but I did.

I had to accept the fact that I was going to be crazy for awhile. My day to day ability to function normally was wildly inconsistent and that too is quite normal. Some days I was great, and some days I would look at my shoes and not really understand how they worked. Some days I was certain the worst was over, and other days I felt like I had discovered a whole new continent of awfulness. I had no clue at all who I was (file under "therapy") and felt foreign even to myself. I guess my point is this, try to be as accepting of and gentle with whatever you're going through at any given moment, odds its quite normal.

Looking back I also remember that I drank too much - or at least way more than I would feel comfortable with today. I'm extremely lucky that it didn't turn into full blown alcoholism, but still, even now I keep a very close eye on how much I drink. I was viciously angry at my family for a good while and I'm not too proud about how I treated them. I'm also certain that I was quite the nut-job with my ex, not too proud of that either, but that too happens. Everyone does something (or lots of somethings) that makes them cringe later, the more I can laugh at myself, the less I cringe - for the most part anyway.

I do hope there is something in this that is of help to you. Be kind to yourself and know that it will get better."

she added this in a second email and so i ad it at the end because i didn't want to break her stride from the above. i preface this by agreeing on the friends part, and plan to start a support group once my LA move is complete. anyone who wants to join should shoot me an email through this.....

"Also, slip this in if/where you feel like it fits. I should mention pleasure (so important! how could I leave it out!). Just experience it. I do not mean of the Vicodin with your Bordeaux variety. Find things, lots of thing, that bring you pleasure and do them. Big things, small thing. Make a list if you have to. It's easy to get acclimated to feeling wretched all the time, you have to remind yourself that you have an enormous capacity to feel good."