Stop saying I'm strong! A journey through divorce and the aftermath.

I so understand the sentiment. 
I get it.
I appreciate the support, love, and concern.
I also know it is not true.
I am not strong.
I am not great.
I am not always doing well.
I'm not always happy.

I hide.
I hide behind a smile.
I hide behind "lies" of I'm doing wonderful.
I hide behind the light of day.
I hide behind "happy" pictures posted on social media.
I hide behind "fun" times.

You don't see all the time I'm alone.
You don't see me embracing the darkness and crying myself to sleep so many nights.
You don't see me on my knees crying and cursing and pleading and making deals & bargains with the God I believe in.
You don't see the loneliness in my heart.
You don't see the endless nights.
You don't see me looking into a future that looks bleak.

Though I know encouragement is just that and can be wonderful.
I also know in the midst of pain it is cliched and trite.

Many of you don't know the depression that runs deep.
The depression I have to continually fight that leaves me exhausted and mad.
So many of you didn't see the night nearly 2 years ago that I found out about the trauma of infidelity on a heart and marriage.
You didn't see me in the middle of the night plundering through my medicine cabinet and lining up the bottles of prescriptions.  And gauging how much I needed to take to end my life.
You didn't see me open the bottles and peer inside.
You didn't see or feel the cold pills in my hand.
And you didn't see me look into my bedroom from the bathroom where I stood in darkness.
You didn't see me look towards my bed and see 2 little lives that needed me.

You don't know the pain I felt as I realized life like I knew it was over.
You didn't see me put the pills back and make the choice not to end my life right then, only because those 2 little lives needed and need me.
The only reasons I kept and keep going.

You saw the "good parts" as I tried to salvage my marriage.  To change myself into something I wasn't.  You saw the happy pictures and gushing posts about how thankful I was and what a great husband and life I had.
You didn't however see the weekend it all fell apart again.
A very close friend and my sister did.
But that was it.

You didn't see a couple struggling to make sense of their lives in a new way.  You didn't see a husband saying it just wasn't working out for him.  And that I "deserved" better.
Which by the way is such a crock of shit and a cop out.
You didn't see a marriage totally dissolve and life as I knew it for nearly 14 years, end.

You didn't see the depression creep in even more.
You didn't see the endless days of me questioning why the hell I'm even here.
And I looked at those two little lives again and I knew the answer.
But it didn't make the days any easier.
It still doesn't make the days any easier.

There are days that are better than others.
But you still see what I want you to see.
You see joy.  You see happiness.
You see someone "moving on".
Do not get me wrong.  I don't want that old life.
I don't want someone that I have to change the core of who I am, for.
I don't want someone that can't spend time with  me.

But I do want answers.  I want to cry and curse still.
I want to know why 14 years went to something that wasn't going to work anyway.
I want to know why I did "everything" right according to "religion" and still got screwed.
[These are all rhetorical questions by the way].  I know the cliched and trite answers for them as well.

There are days I feel like "screw everything".  It doesn't pay to be kind or nice or loving or do things "by the book" whatever that "book" is.
Because it didn't matter in the end.



I am not great, I am not loving, I am not compassionate, I am not so many things that people say I am.  I hide.
It is so very easy to hide behind masks.
Perhaps this is written in a moment when I'm in the deeper rungs of depression.
The times that the questions resurface about why I'm here.

But it's all true.  It is reality.  It is the aftermath of divorce.
It is ugly.
It hurts.
The choices made extend beyond just hurting me.  It affected and affects my children.
Which piss me off even more.
Hurt me.  Fine.  Whatever.  I'll deal.
Hurt my children and my heart is damaged beyond repair.

I don't know who people think I am, but I am not that person.
I don't know what tomorrow will bring.
I don't even know how I'll make it through each day sometimes.

I know I have to.  I know I don't have a real choice in that.
But for now, even though I know it's meant well, do not say I'm strong.
I'm not.
Do not say I'm great.
I'm not.
Just know my life is crazy and painful and sometimes funny and sometimes happy.
It is what it is.
And I know I am drowning.


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