Children Of Divorced Parents Support Group
This community is for the children of divorce, both for adult children who have lived through a divorce as well as parents concerned about the effects of divorce on their children. Share your story and get advice in this support group, where there are others going through similar challenges.
My parents divorced when I was 10. Holidays and family traditions of any kind pretty much went up in smoke. In the past 20 years I've spent holidays alone more often than not. I have friends but it's just not the same. My family of origin simply doesn't exist. Nobody calls anyone. My parents hate each other, themselves, and their offspring. My mom told me she wished I were never born and never once hugged me or told me she loved me. My dad was and is a raging, drunk, violent malignant narcissist who has only gotten worse as the years go on. It doesn't help that his current wife hates his kids because she is a gold digging witch (his 3rd wife). He has a new family now and we are just garbage from a failed chapter in his life. My mom threw all of our childhood pics in the trash:(
I'm in my early 40s and have never been married, no kids, and have only had short term toxic relationships. I've been homeless and had issues with Rx medications. My depression and anxiety is severe and unrelenting. I think about suicide daily. I truly feel I have no place on this planet. The only reason I've not killed myself is that I do have some ok friends that I wouldn't want to hurt like that. Life is a prison I can't escape. I just want to take a vacation from the pain but I can't get out of my head. Fortunately I have a job that I like for the most part but the pay is terrible and I'm dirt poor.
As children we are like little computers and absorb everything. Divorce, no matter how amicable, is devastating for kids. I was programmed by a couple of selfish idiots and now I have to deal with the aftermath. I didn't connect the dots until recently. As an adult I can't believe how evil my parents acted. How could my dad look me in the eye at 10 years old and say, "I left because of you kids"? I've become a raving misanthropist and basically think humans are evil; any cursory look at history makes this an easy conclusion.
Basically I think I'm too screwed up to live anymore. Thanks mom and dad! Btw, my oldest sibling is pretty much a vegetable at this point. I give him maybe 5 years tops. We are all royally screwed up thanks to the actions of two selfish a-holes.
Today is Sunday which is typically my hardest day, Right now I feel anxiety, dread, despair, loneliness, and overall like an unwanted turd. I am tired of trying. Actually I am just plain tired! Thanks again mom and dad!
I'm in my early 40s and have never been married, no kids, and have only had short term toxic relationships. I've been homeless and had issues with Rx medications. My depression and anxiety is severe and unrelenting. I think about suicide daily. I truly feel I have no place on this planet. The only reason I've not killed myself is that I do have some ok friends that I wouldn't want to hurt like that. Life is a prison I can't escape. I just want to take a vacation from the pain but I can't get out of my head. Fortunately I have a job that I like for the most part but the pay is terrible and I'm dirt poor.
As children we are like little computers and absorb everything. Divorce, no matter how amicable, is devastating for kids. I was programmed by a couple of selfish idiots and now I have to deal with the aftermath. I didn't connect the dots until recently. As an adult I can't believe how evil my parents acted. How could my dad look me in the eye at 10 years old and say, "I left because of you kids"? I've become a raving misanthropist and basically think humans are evil; any cursory look at history makes this an easy conclusion.
Basically I think I'm too screwed up to live anymore. Thanks mom and dad! Btw, my oldest sibling is pretty much a vegetable at this point. I give him maybe 5 years tops. We are all royally screwed up thanks to the actions of two selfish a-holes.
Today is Sunday which is typically my hardest day, Right now I feel anxiety, dread, despair, loneliness, and overall like an unwanted turd. I am tired of trying. Actually I am just plain tired! Thanks again mom and dad!
But.....many people find counsel and find ways to eventually separate out what was one phase of life into it built my character up in ways.....and to know that we do not have to live out a dynamic if our parents did not handle things.
That as adults we get to choose what our own life can and will look like. It is not easy letting go of th "family" that could have been, it is a mourning and a grief, but that grief should eventually find a way to leave and be replaced with the knowledge you can make your own life.
It still validates that you would have wanted such a close family, but I do hear in your postt (along with the depression) that you have some solid friends and friends like that - whom you would not want to hurt - as you said - are your family.
A family comes in many forms and what you give tto them is support and love and visa versa, nothing is perfect, but being genuine is close to it....
So, my suggestion and hope is that you seek counsel and gain insight into how you move into a life that sees yourself as worthy and not alone- but forging and cultivating the good things you have done on your own and with friends. The other thing, volunteer somewhere, somehow for a couple hours a week, in some effort that would provide a smile, and bit of work and letting others know they are worthy.... all the best.... (had divorced parents and 2 stepfathers - have a step mother who remarried after my Dad died. Big blended family of siblings, half siblings and step siblings. And yes, some do not talk and most do and the step mom is separate relationship from my siblings that were not my dads.. Life is a challenge to juggle the relationships, but I love them all, just at times don' like some of them...: and I like myself, like my friends and like being alone at times, but not all the time, so one must reach out and I pray you find the resources and tools to do so.....