Scheduling sadness

I knew that when my marriage abruptly ended it would be completely understandable for me to fall apart, sink into a deep depression and go full hermit. Here's what I'm doing to avoid that.

I’m trying really hard to be pragmatic about managing my feelings.

As I keep wanging on about, I’m to my earrings in a gobsmacking surprise divorce after nearly three decades of marriage. Now, 5 months later, the initial shock is wearing off and the reality of being a single woman is starting to settle. And I’m beginning to like it. A lot.

Being independent and functioning on my own for really the first time in my adult life is of course presenting challenges, but there are loads of strangely reassuring joys too - it turns out I can carry, on my own, my giant 110lb dog from the back of my car to the sofa, after he had a general anaesthetic at the vets and was totally off his nut. I no longer feel nervous being alone in the house at night, a house that was once bustling with activity. I can work the hours that suit me - all night if I want to. I can get rid of cluttery boxes full of nostalgic shite that were kept for the purposes of ‘archiving’. In short I can do whatever the fuck I want, whenever the fuck I want to, now I am at the centre of my own world.

I knew from the beginning that I would have to keep a close eye on my feelings. I have clinical depression, I’m a recovering alcoholic and I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (prospective new boyfriends please form a queue - men LOVE that shit!). But I felt secure that I wouldn’t let myself compromise 8 years of sobriety and I haven’t, which is something I’m very proud of, but these things can’t be taken for granted.

So I decided to consciously adopt pragmatism alongside in-depth and continuous reflection of my emotional state - I have a lot of therapy and I’m doing a Psych Masters at the moment - I think it shows.

I know that it would be completely understandable for me to fall apart, sink into a deep depression and go full hermit - closing myself off from communication with friends and the world outside my front door. I was, I am, determined not to do that. But being pragmatic about it, I also know there there will be times that are just so difficult that the logical thing to do would be to retreat into sadness - that would be okay. I just had to make sure that I didn’t stay lost in that sadness. So, I scheduled these times. I planned for them.

The first was the initial shock. I gave myself two weeks of just surviving. I didn’t feel like a failure if I couldn’t get out of bed. I gave myself credit for the little achievements - having a shower, getting dressed, eating a sensible meal. Under the circumstances just getting through the day was a pretty massive win.

At the end of the first week I posted about my change in circumstances on Facebook and it was a huge shock to everyone - I knew it would be. While I have lots of followers on Twitter, TikTok and Instagram (about quarter of a million in total), I keep Facebook for people I know in real life and have personal connections with, as well as my privacy settings on maximum. I figured that I would find it too difficult to tell people individually about my devastating news so this would be a more emotionally efficient way of doing things. However, I didn’t just share the news (the Disney version of events anyway, only my closest pals have the uncut version) I told my friends what I needed from them. What I needed was to be invited for nights out, trips to the cinema, coffee, a walk in the park, an adventure at the seaside, an adventure of any sort really. I needed to make plans in order to avoid shutting myself away, which was what I instinctively felt like doing. The response from my friends, some I haven’t seen in person for 35 years, was breathtaking. I felt overwhelmed by love, support and kindness. And it’s this huge wave of love that has kept me afloat at a time when sinking seemed inevitable.

My next strategy was to schedule trips or events to coincide with the first time of something I would experience alone - my ex’s 50th birthday or our wedding anniversary, for example. It wasn’t that I was avoiding these milestones. I was acknowledging them, but consciously distracting myself with something positive.

I’ve made plans for future milestones that I’ll experience in a different way to how I have over the last 3 decades  - my birthday, day when our decree nisi is due and when our decree absolute is granted and the marriage is officially over.

But there is one big occasion I am dreading - Christmas.

I fucking love Christmas. I usually start getting excited about it in August and by mid November I’m in a festive frenzy. On the first of December I turn our house into a gorgeous Christmassy wonderland and then we begin our family advent calendar tradition. I go all out on advent calendars - some years I made personalised versions for my ex and my son, hiding 24 individual presents in the house and making the whole thing into a treasure hunt - clues and everything! There are so many traditions that we as a family of 3 created and went back to every year. The films we watched, the board games we played, the Christmas Eve steak and chips.

My dad has dementia, lives in a nursing home and coming towards the end of his life, my son now a young man, has his own exciting stuff going on at the other end of the country, and my husband has left. So I can’t do that shit this year. I just can’t. I am alone now in this house where all our family memories were made.

The prospect of Christmas is just too sad for me.

I have scheduled having a day getting really upset about it and making a decision about how I want to spend Christmas, some time in October and my son supports whatever decision I make. I’m trying not to think about it just yet, though I have started looking at options.

I am beyond fortunate to have lots of invitations - a family Christmas with one of my best pals and her gang who live in New Jersey, hooting and cackling through it with another of my best pals in Cumbria, a crazy hedonistic party week with a group of gay men pals and drag queens in the Canary Islands. Or I might take myself away somewhere to have a time of quiet reflection somewhere far away and gorgeous -  the Caribbean, a Greek Island, Australia.

While the scheduling of feelings isn’t necessarily the right way for everyone, blending logic and emotion is working for me - reminding myself that the appropriate response to insert ‘difficult new thing that comes with the breakdown of long marriage’ here, is to feel like shit, and I will probably feel like shit, so what measures can I put in place to anticipate and manage those feelings?

I dunno. It’s all new. I know this is a really precarious time for keeping on top of emotional and mental health, but I’m trying. And for the most part I’m succeeding.