Divorce does the same thing to each person however, we all deal with it differently, and we all get a little screwed up in the process. We don’t understand the why of divorce and the direct effect on the mind, but we can see the changes in a life.
"Studies have shown that that children of divorce are far more likely to be delinquent, engage in premarital sex, and bear children out of wedlock during adolescence and young adulthood. A 33-year study published in 1998 in the American Sociological Review revealed that children whose parents divorced in their childhood or adolescence were likely to be afflicted with emotional problems such as depression or anxiety well into their twenties or early thirties." [Maher, B. (2003) Patching Up the American Family. World and I, v18 i1 p56. Retrieved June 9, 2004 from Expanded Academic ASAP]
Many children of divorce struggle with identity. 47 % of children deal with mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, or anorexia. Some children seem to be perfectly fine, until it comes to a relationship and then it’s reported they are less likely to fully commit to the other person. We do not understand the why, we just see the aftermath.
Let’s get personal.
For myself, divorce did a number on me. I was told all growing up that my father had left us, didn’t want us, and in turn, was a terrible person. Every few months we would see him through supervised visits, which then confused my 7 year old brain, because I remember pizza nights with my daddy, I remember baking cookies with him, I remember him teaching me to play sports, and here he was visiting us, so if he was such a terrible person why was I forced to spend time with him.
This confusion promptly developed into fear, that fear turned to anger. That anger turned to rage, and then counselling happened, which forced me to talk about it which changed it to hulk rage.
I carried a chip on my shoulder for many years, and it wasn’t until I was on my own and in college I sought a relationship with the man who was 50% of me.
Since then I have studied, asked, and talked with many other children who have gone through divorce, and we are all different with different levels of involvement with the parents who created us. Here are the few things I noticed were common.
1) Damaged is a state of mind.
Did it hurt us when daddy daughter dates happened and we didn’t have a dad? Yes, it did. But many of us had fill in fathers, or make over mothers. People who filled the gap. Even though I dealt with a broken home, my sister didn’t feel like her home was ever broken. With my friend, his was broken with or without divorce, but at the end of the day, we chose our happiness. Yes, life had handed us some unpleasant happenings, but that damage is a choice to bear. How did we interrupt what we were going through? Did we find people to fill the gaps, or did we wallow in self pity. These are contributing factors to the level of "damaged" we feel.2) Emotions are harder to deal with.
These don’t just come from "daddy issues". At a young age divorce rips us open to many emotions. It also rips the divorced parent open which causes the parent to deal with their problems as they are the adult, but what the parent doesn’t understand is while they are dealing, children have suppressed theirs, because of young age this creates a lasting path for how we deal with emotions throughout our lives. When we become an adult it creates a deficit in emotional intelligence which is the reason we don’t open up to anyone much about our feelings, loves, goals, or troubles. Because of this we see, “one quarter of adults, aged 18-35, who lived through the divorce of their parents struggle with emotional intelligence and comprehending emotions,"Between Two Worlds: The Inner Lives of Children of Divorce" by Elizabeth Marquardt.
3) Commitment isn’t the scary part, the scary part is the pain that follows commitment.
If I had a head ache and asked what to take for it, what would you tell me? Some of you might say Advil, some might say Tylenol. Which is better? Neither. They are both the same, yet some are very adamant that one is superior to the other, this is because in the past it has worked for you, so you will continue to take it for your headache. What does this have to do with pain? Well, we’ve seen commitment, and we’ve seen the commitment break apart, this trains our brain to have a more difficult time with commitment, because in the past we’ve seen what failed. This is another one of those training your brain moments. It engrains in young minds, and creates our adult minds.
4) Special days suck.
Yes, the holidays, mother’s and father’s days, and don’t get us started on birthdays, graduations, or weddings. They are terrible. Whether we are up front and admit it, or not, they are painful days. Why? Because at the end of the day, it’s not the way we saw it as a child. It's different then the way the media tells us it should looks. We dream of these big events, and we naturally dream of those people who have created us. I always imagined being hugged by my dad and mom at big events, and because of choices, my mom won’t show up if my dad is going to be there. Therefore, special days suck.
5) We think our divorce is the worst one out there.
"Let’s fight about whose life is worse, well, if you have both your parents your life isn’t as bad." What hurts children of divorce the most, is coming to the place in your life where you finally understand that one, or both parent doesn’t love you the way you wish they did. They are human, and there’s no such thing as parental instincts. This bubble being destroyed takes the rose coloured glasses off that some can view this world through. We don’t. We didn’t even get a chance to. It was taken from us.
6) We know we are screwed up, but we are not the only ones.
"Of the two ways to lose a father, death is better. As Robert Emery, surveying the evidence, concludes, "Compared to children from homes disrupted by death, children from divorced homes have more psychological problems."
Robert E. Emery, Marriage, Divorce, and Children's Adjustment (Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1988), 94
Studies have shown divorce is psychologically harder on children than losing a parent to death. This comes full circle to losing that love you feel you should have had. It’s painful going through life not having a mom, not having that feeling. You see in the movies they make it look like growing up with a single parent is the dream, but as a child who always dreamed, let me tell you, it’s not. We children of divorce wanted nothing more than our mom and our dad to love us, to hold us, and to help us. However divorce brought its terrible claws and scratched away at the dreams we held. So ya, we all deal with it differently, but at the end of the day, we’ve all gone through the same feelings, the same disappointment, and the same loneliness.
Life gives us all a beating. Sometimes it can give us options to find easy ways out, other times it causes us to rally together and build a better tomorrow.
The choice is yours.
Because although you didn’t have the choice when it came to the divorce, you do have the choice now.
What will you choose to do, with the shit life has handed you.
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