Marsia's Diary
- Thread starter Marsia
- Start date
Ok, here goes. I am going to try getting back on the forum maybe once a week. I am going through a divorce and it has been just an awful, harrowing process. K and I spent 2 months in an RV with no air conditioning during a period of very high humidity in the South. Now we are back home and figuring out our next steps. I had to hire 2 lawyers because of J trying to sell our house out from under us.
The upsides of this are that I made friends with a very nice family who helped us a lot through this, and I lost 20 pounds from not being able to eat much. So I want to come back on the forum and just record my food and stress-reduction stuff and get back to healthy and happy.
The upsides of this are that I made friends with a very nice family who helped us a lot through this, and I lost 20 pounds from not being able to eat much. So I want to come back on the forum and just record my food and stress-reduction stuff and get back to healthy and happy.
Oh Marsia
Great big hug from me. That sounds so hard with the divorce and all the stress of everything.I am glad you can see some upsides in connecting with a lovely family who is helping you through it all.
I'm very glad to have you back here and I hope we all can be of some help in being a support for you as well.
Take care
Thanks so much Liza! I have missed the forum and am so glad that everyone's still here! I'm having a rather emotional day (my cat is also dying and I need to do a bunch of upsetting financial research for the lawyers) so it's really nice getting hugs and support!!Oh Marsia
I am glad you can see some upsides in connecting with a lovely family who is helping you through it all.
I'm very glad to have you back here and I hope we all can be of some help in being a support for you as well.
Take care
Oh, I forgot to mention that we are doing some pilates and yoga and I am starting back on gardening to get the yard in good shape for selling the house eventually. It felt good getting digging in while in the heat. I read that saunas help with stress reduction, and our yard in the summer is basically a big sauna!
Oh Marsia, I am so sorry to hear this! Although, I never got good vibes about J from what you wrote on here - full disclosure! I just hear 'improv group' and I know what these guys are like!
But sincerely, I am really, really sorry to hear that, especially after your mother passing away and moving across the country and everything. I know it was meant to be a new start for you. Anyway, I'm glad you are back home and back to your gardening and all that. I really hope the next chapter in your life brings you so much joy and peace. You really deserve it.
But sincerely, I am really, really sorry to hear that, especially after your mother passing away and moving across the country and everything. I know it was meant to be a new start for you. Anyway, I'm glad you are back home and back to your gardening and all that. I really hope the next chapter in your life brings you so much joy and peace. You really deserve it.
Hi Llama, thanks so much for this. It really means a lot!! K is not doing so well. This all started with us having to flee the house after filing a child abuse report, so being back here is super hard for her as far as the memories. She'll get good therapy, but it's a month and a half away, so I am doing all I can with reading up on healing with her and doing exercise and such. She is very amazing and brave and does have very good days, too. She also has the world's sweetest boyfriend, but he just went off to college, and we're looking at visiting him soon. K has a good friend here to go on fun outings with and is still doing long calls with her BFF back home, too.
Em, this brought tears to my eyes! Thank you. I agree about the bad vibes - I'd been feeling them, but stayed because I thought J was such a good dad. I couldn't have been more wrong, and that's the hardest thing to process from all this. I just did this really hard financial thing, and am feeling so proud of myself. All this has been really hard, but it's also made me a much stronger, better person. "What doesn't kill you, ...", and all that! Improv people are sooo bizarre. So glad not to have improv troupes in my house now! One wonderful thing is that I have 2 of the most amazing lawyers - these super tough but kind-hearted women who have both worked in the field for over 25 years, and they are really good at getting J to do what they ask (but even they are astounded at how he drags his feet and you need to have a threatening plan that penalizes him if he doesn't do things to get him to do anything). I would be destitute and homeless without them, but with them, I have all sorts of hope. It was pure serendipity (and a big long convoluted story) to have gotten a recommendation to the lawyers, and I am just the luckiest person in that way.
Cate
Long term member
Oh, hon. You are so brave! I am so glad you have great lawyers on your side. The sooner the house is sold the better & you & K can work out where you would actually like to live, where you both can get the sort of life you would like & that you deserve. I am sending you all of the love xoxo
Thanks ever so much Cate and Llama! Everyone who I have to tell that I am separating here goes out of their way to help, and usually gives me their card. I moved to the right place to divorce! I feel that I have been really brave for the last 2.5 months, and now I am starting to get shaky and cry a lot and need a ton of sleep now that all the adrenaline of getting us in a safe place has worn off. The house is a mess and I am supposed to be packing and getting paperwork to the lawyers, but I think I just need sleep and to just fall apart for a few days. I can't wait to travel and see where to move next. We have colleges picked out for both staying in state or out of state, and I am thinking I will move near where K is going to college so after her first year when I hope we have enough for her to live in the dorms, we can save money by living together. We are about to be really poor. Thanks for all of the love! I needed that!!!
I weighed in and am at 181 pounds. I can not make myself eat much the last couple of days, so am losing weight without having to think about it, but before that was gaining a little. I just need to get good exercise for my physical and mental health at this point and not eat junk. I don't think I should be more rigorous at this point.
I weighed in and am at 181 pounds. I can not make myself eat much the last couple of days, so am losing weight without having to think about it, but before that was gaining a little. I just need to get good exercise for my physical and mental health at this point and not eat junk. I don't think I should be more rigorous at this point.
Lovely to get into the garden and include the yoga and pilates. Nothing so healing as gardening for me!
I hope you can take that space to have some good cries and good sleeps as you process all of this. It is a helluva lot to go through!
Good idea to not be over-rigorous and to just try and stick with some healthy habits as you maintain the weight-loss. I am sorry that the loss of weight was through stress but it is good to see it as a positive side-effect of a really hard time.
Llama
Well-known member
Weight really isn't the most important thing right now. I hope you can soon find the time and (mental) energy to nourish yourself again. Falling apart for a bit after months of stress sounds perfectly normal! I'm so glad you're finding yourself in supportive surroundings irl and I hope you'll soon find a wonderful, affordable, safe new place for you and K to live.
Thanks everyone! Today I just felt like a ton of bricks and cried and slept with my cat, and I feel a lot better now. I just ate a nice baked chicken drumstick and some brown rice stir fry, and I actually had an appetite. K and I looked more carefully at each college program that she's interested in and we talked about the different options as far as where we live. It is really great having a close relationship with K. I don't know how I'd make it through this without her.
I agree about weight not being important now, but I do need to work on my health and stress reduction, and I really don't want my weight to creep back up. It does feel much better fitting into my clothes well, and I feel like I don't want to lose that psychological boost. After 2 months in an RV, my muscles have shrunk substantially and I don't meditate regularly anymore so need to make sure we do exercise that relieves stress and hopefully gradually get my muscle tone back.
We just got back from buying local plums and peaches and purple tomatoes from a farm stand we love. It was a good day because crying and resting really made me feel a whole lot better.
I agree about weight not being important now, but I do need to work on my health and stress reduction, and I really don't want my weight to creep back up. It does feel much better fitting into my clothes well, and I feel like I don't want to lose that psychological boost. After 2 months in an RV, my muscles have shrunk substantially and I don't meditate regularly anymore so need to make sure we do exercise that relieves stress and hopefully gradually get my muscle tone back.
We just got back from buying local plums and peaches and purple tomatoes from a farm stand we love. It was a good day because crying and resting really made me feel a whole lot better.
Thanks Cate and Llama. I realized a couple of things when I woke up this morning. I am being too materialistic, and am worrying myself sick about money. I am also not looking at the opportunities of starting over, and am so focused on the negatives that it's making me unable to function, and I don't want to go down that route. It was really super good to have a couple of days to cry and sleep though. It was really necessary. But I need to learn from this experience. Why I stayed in a tense situation so long is that I kept thinking of how hard it would be to be on my own financially with a kid, and how I was better off staying until K graduated. But staying made me depressed and tense and then I ignored how I felt and wasn't aware enough to see that K was also depressed from dealing with J, it wasn't all from her insanely demanding, uncreative school like I thought. I just got too focused on the negatives to see what was happening, and now I don't want to make major life decisions while being upset and scared instead of being both hopeful and practical.
So today I did a gratitude practice and I'm trying some relaxation exercises from a person who works with trauma. Yesterday I intuitively also looked at places I've always been curious about moving to like Cape Cod and Maine. There is actually a 9 month training program in Maine that I could do to become a teacher, which is something I have always been interested in. I don't know how well I would do with being cold that much of the year, though. I have very fond memories of sketching with my mom and landscape painters we met on Cape Cod, and it would be wonderful just to go there and visit to see if I'd like to move back. K wants to go to school near her boyfriend, who really seems like a childhood sweetheart type person. They are very serious about each other. She could go to his college - it's the best in the state for her major, but the schools in the next state over are way, way better. If she goes goes to the good school in this state and lives with her boyfriend, I might move somewhere to settle down long-term, but if she wants to go to school one state over, she needs to establish residency for a year first so tuition isn't horrible, and I'll go with her and we can share a place. At least that's the tentative plan.
Today's plan - do yoga for anxiety, clean house, do yucky paperwork, and do something nice for myself.
So today I did a gratitude practice and I'm trying some relaxation exercises from a person who works with trauma. Yesterday I intuitively also looked at places I've always been curious about moving to like Cape Cod and Maine. There is actually a 9 month training program in Maine that I could do to become a teacher, which is something I have always been interested in. I don't know how well I would do with being cold that much of the year, though. I have very fond memories of sketching with my mom and landscape painters we met on Cape Cod, and it would be wonderful just to go there and visit to see if I'd like to move back. K wants to go to school near her boyfriend, who really seems like a childhood sweetheart type person. They are very serious about each other. She could go to his college - it's the best in the state for her major, but the schools in the next state over are way, way better. If she goes goes to the good school in this state and lives with her boyfriend, I might move somewhere to settle down long-term, but if she wants to go to school one state over, she needs to establish residency for a year first so tuition isn't horrible, and I'll go with her and we can share a place. At least that's the tentative plan.
Today's plan - do yoga for anxiety, clean house, do yucky paperwork, and do something nice for myself.
I think with the benefit of hindsight, we can see a lot of things that we felt we ought to have done at the time. But you can only be where you are and the main thing is that you are out of it now and the future will be a lot brighter. The money thing will sort itself out. Training to be a teacher could be great!
Cate
Long term member
It will take a while for you to recover from this stress, M & it would be good to go slow with your plans & do some healing. At times I have made myself sick with worry about money, but it's not worth it. If you can hang on to your RV it might be good to be able to travel around to see where you would like to stay longer term. You'll work it out though & you will be OK. Sending you & K lots and lots of love xoxo