I Was Left Feeling Hopeless
2 minute read.
This story was written by an anonymous contributor at 17 years old. Her parents separated when she was 17. She gave permission for her story to be shared.
HER STORY
As long as I could remember my parents would always fight. However, my dad’s mother, my grandmother, died of cancer in 2019 and my dad has increasingly become more of a workaholic and can be very temperamental.
My parents were in marriage counseling starting in 2020 and when my older sister went away to college in 2021 our family dynamic shifted and there were fewer distractions to keep them from fighting. I was jealous of my sister who was able to get away from that fighting. My whole life but especially in the past few years this has been a huge problem.
My parents have very different communication styles and my mom has a lot of childhood trauma. They would put me in between their arguments a lot and I was always left feeling hopeless. In July 2022, they separated with uncertainty of whether or not they would divorce. I’m going into my senior year of high school, and even though I have wanted my parents to separate my whole life, this was the one year I didn’t want them to because it’s my last year at home.
HOW THE SEPARATION MADE HER FEEL
I was not surprised, and I saw it coming. I was relieved, so when I became really anxious and depressed I was really confused. But then I had to be okay with not being okay. I think it really brought back up a lot of things I pushed aside when I was a kid that I thought weren’t big problems because my parents downplayed things as to make us feel like things were okay. I think that made me embarrassed to feel sad about it, like I was being dramatic. But your podcast has helped me validate my feelings.
HOW THE SEPARATION HAS IMPACTED HER
It’s really messed up my mental health so far and makes me think that nothing is permanent or secure.
HOW TO HELP YOUNG PEOPLE FROM DIVORCED OR SEPARATED FAMILIES
I don’t really have any right now, I’m just trying to navigate things for myself. But I think what I would say is that don’t feel bad for feeling bad, or for feeling relieved.
Even though divorce and separation is so normalized—like half of my friends parents are divorced, we don’t really talk about how hard it is that much and I think that’s kept very hush hush and “it’s not really anyone’s business”, but that is very isolating. We need to have more open conversations about that.
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