When Divorce Recovery Feels Impossible: Tips to Heal ❤️‍🩹 || DD257 || David and Rachel

[00:00:01] Welcome to Divorce Devil episode 257. What the heck? 257 episode, David and Rachel, The Mic. And today we're talking about a very interesting subject. I just thought of this about 20 minutes ago. What happens in your divorce recovery when nothing works? Exactly. Yeah. So let's go from easy to hard or hard to easy to hard or middle to left anyway. Soft to hard.

[00:00:28] So let me say first that there are a myriad of number of self-help phone numbers out there. Yeah. Suicide numbers, things like that. And we're going to have that in the show notes after we get done. So if it's that point, you need to talk to somebody, call those numbers. Yeah. And we'll have those numbers. Grief in and of itself is a dark space. Very dark space. Death, divorce, very hard to deal with, especially if you've never had those kinds of

[00:00:58] hits in your life. I know a lot of people that literally never lost a single person in their family. I've lost so many people in my family. Grief for me has become like, I'm going to do it. I'm going to have all the, I know all the steps that need to happen. And when they're there, I can recognize them. And I know, Hey, I might be stuck where you might not know if you're stuck in denial or you're stuck in a certain anger or whatever it is because you're in the middle of it.

[00:01:24] So I think you have to check in with yourself very often to be like, Hey, where I'm at? What's my space? And again, that's why I love, especially early on. I loved journaling and it was basically, I could go back after I wrote it all out. Even if it was like mindless journaling, I don't know. A lot of times you just put all the stuff that you can't process on the paper and then it's, it's visible. You can, it's concrete. You can see it and you can pick apart the things that you may not be dealing well with.

[00:01:51] One of the things that I did back when I was in grad school that got me through, you hit a brick wall and you go, man, I cannot do this. I thought about all the idiots that did it before me. Yeah. That it's doable is not unattainable. It hurts. It's raw, but there's so many people. And with the divorce recovery, millions of people have done it. Millions.

[00:02:14] If Karen can do it, you can do it. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Care's out there bugging me on the record on the pickleball court. So if Karen can do it, you can do it. Yeah. So, yeah. I think a lot of times when we're going through recovery, we want to blame someone else. We want to say, Oh, this is the reason for all the things. But once you get past that and you're not, or you can't move past that, you have to figure out a way to accept the past because now it's affecting your future. Right?

[00:02:42] So if you keep dwelling on he did this or she did that and now in this, and it was this far. And if you're not trying to heal yourself, it's not really anybody else's responsibility to heal you. It's not your responsibility to fix the person who hurt you. It's your responsibility to grow and become a better version of yourself so that you can be a great person in society. Right? We want to be the best version of ourselves for our loved ones.

[00:03:08] But if you're stuck in anger, a lot of times that's affecting the people around you. Oh yeah. Especially kids and therapy. Therapizing. Therapizing. We love therapy. So my teacher friends are like, Hey, that is actually not a word, but we can make it a word. So we have a definition. People get therapized all the time. That is when you get unsolicited therapy because someone else is already gone to therapy and thinks they can therapize you.

[00:03:35] But there's professional therapizing and there's unprofessional therapizing. Therapize you. But I have to tell you, I love therapy. Oh yeah. I love going to talk to a neutral space and them telling me, okay, you're right, but you also need to let this go. Or you're, Hey, I hear what you're saying, but hear me out. You need to work on this.

[00:03:57] And coming from someone who is not relationship invested, they don't really care how my relationship is with anybody other than I need to work on me. I am there to fix me and to help me process the things that I can't control or that have been, you know, put into my space. And I'm not sure how to deal with them, especially since I've been healing. Let me talk to you for a second. Oh, here he is. I want to talk to the people out there.

[00:04:27] You know who you are. The ones that have insurance and never used it. Was it EAP? What's it called? Yeah. EAP? Yeah. Yeah. It's like dental insurance. You don't go to the damn dentist. You don't go to therapists. You got therapized insurance. Yeah. But you don't use it. EAP, yeah. EAP. If your employee assistance, or whatever it is, provides you six sessions of therapy, go use that shit. Go use that shit. And you might learn. And go to the dentist.

[00:04:57] That's a different story. But yeah. I think I forget who said it might have been one of our guests. And they're like, you are sometimes the problem. You sometimes. Not us. Not David. Not us. But sometimes you may hyper fixate on something that doesn't actually affect you totally. And then that becomes your new project. Especially if you feel like I've healed. I've done this. I've done that. And then I'm six years out, right?

[00:05:25] So then when a new situation comes in and I can't control it now, I definitely react different than I did back then. A little bit. Now that I've gone through some recovery and some healing, I'm less willing to deal with bullshit. Right? So I think if you're not seeing a growth from when you filed for the divorce, when you've gone through the divorce, you're a year out, you're two years out.

[00:05:52] If you're still stuck before you sign the paperwork, you definitely need to do. Recovery's not at your doorstep. But you are still living in that angst and that animosity and that anger in past life. And if you don't make any progress with one therapist, move to another, man. It's just dating. Whoa. There's actually... It's just like dating. Dating sites, basically. Pick what you want, what you need. Pick one. You want a redhead. You want a big bone therapist.

[00:06:22] She's out there. Yeah. Yeah. You want a dude because you want to talk to dudes. It's fine. You want a girl. You want somebody in between. They're out there. Yeah. And you can literally therapy shop online. Better help. I know there's a lot of different things. I think, you know, I'm going to use me as an example. I am a nurse. I've been a caregiver my entire life. As far back as I can remember, I've been taking care of someone or helping to take care of somebody. I know all the verbiage that is used. I've worked in social.

[00:06:51] I've worked in ER. I've worked in a lot of different settings as a nurse. And so when talking to a therapist, I know a lot of times what she's going to tell me to do, but I don't want to listen. I don't want her to tell me that I'm fawning, Kyle. Fawning. Oh, Kyle. Thanks, Kyle. Fawning. A dude. A female. A dude. A neutral space, that safe space of someone who doesn't know your shit unless you tell your shit.

[00:07:19] And if you're not honest in your shit, you're not really getting all the therapy that you need, right? Hey, this is how I react to a situation because most adults in my life have disappointed me. Most adults, blah, blah, blah, have done that. So my safe space in my own mind and my therapist's is a lot of times people don't heal their inner child, right? Because of all the trauma and triggers and all this stuff, and they bring it into that relationship.

[00:07:47] So now you're festering with all that stuff that you haven't dealt with, right? And then you bring that into a relationship, and then a lot of those things will peek their heads out in your relationship, and then it's everybody else's fault, and it's this person's fault, and it's that person's fault. So until you can recognize, hey, I might be a fucking narcissist. Hey, I might be a brat. Oh, hey, I cheated. Or, hey, I did this. I don't trust people. I don't do this. I have so many walls you can't get in, but I'm mad at you for not trying to get into my space, right?

[00:08:16] So there's a lot of things that us as individuals have to work on and may not know that we might be the problem. So why do people, why does therapy get a bad rap? I don't want people knowing my shit. That's what I heard a lot. I don't want strangers knowing my story because I'm going to be the bad guy, or I don't want people to know about our story, our shit. It's not about other people, blah, blah, blah. That person really just wants to help you.

[00:08:43] They want you to have the tools to help you figure out your shit. A lot of times they don't tell you how to figure it out. They say, here's some tools. Let's see what you can come up with yourself, and on your next session, we'll figure out where you came. If you didn't get very far, you can always call me and be like, hey, I did this, but this seems to work and this doesn't, but I'm not sure how to use the tools. And so I know everybody thinks they're smart enough. They can do all the things. They can. I know how to fix this. I don't. There's no problem.

[00:09:11] There's not a problem until you make it a problem. All the verbiage that all the people have said to their spouse or to someone why they don't need therapy is probably why they do. I think the therapy thing for men, there's two steps. It's hard to ask for help. Yeah. You have to be strong. And you've been trained not to listen to anybody else. You've been trained to be the man. You've been trained to, boys, don't cry. No, cry. If you cry, it's a release of fucking stress.

[00:09:41] Crying a little bitch. Yeah. And I think because Kyle brought this up. Most people. Sorry, Kyle. I love you. It just triggered me. It's fine. Damn. I now know that I fight or flight. A lot of times my response was flight because I didn't want to have confrontation and I didn't want to have a fight because yelling actually physically hurts my body because my mom was a big yeller for no fucking reason.

[00:10:07] And then once I was able to turn that flight thing off, I'll fight you. I don't really want to fight you. But because I'm not running away, I will let you know. And a lot of times I don't, again, I've probably been in three fights in my entire life, but I can fight with words. And a lot of times I think because of where I grew up, you may not know I'm insulting you.

[00:10:31] You may not know that I feel better because I said all this stuff to you and you just, you still hung up on, wait, she going to fight me? She's from Jersey. She crazy. I already did. It's over. I'm like, oh yeah, I won. I feel better. Now you get no more access to me. So what about church? Church. Take me to church. Do what you want to do. Yeah. It's your thing. It's your thing. Do what you want to do. Do what you want to do. I can't tell you. How to sock to. Yeah. So I don't even know that's a word, but I can't tell you. So I can tell you. Yeah. Some people are religious. Go to your pastor.

[00:11:01] Go to your priest. Well, just reach out to somebody. I don't think people know all the resources that church has to. And even if you're not religious, a lot of churches have a divorce recovery, a divorce. That's where I went. I went to First Press and I was not a member and they welcomed me with open arms. You can Google a lot of shit. You can Google divorce group. If you don't want to go by yourself, you don't want to go therapize yourself with yourself. Go to a group.

[00:11:31] You are going to hear some stories. You'll be like, okay, mine's not that bad. My shit is not that bad. When people are like, damn, you survived that, you're good. You're like smoky, smoky in the Fridays. Damn. Damn. I want my baby. I don't know why I said that. I want my baby back. That's not Fridays. Fridays is the movie. No, I'm talking about TGI Fridays. Oh, damn. I must be hungry because they have these green beans that are like deep fried and you put them in the law. Someone sent me some TGI Friday. Divorce recovery.

[00:12:02] Okay, here we go. Okay. Squirrel. But yeah, no. And I think going back to the thing with men too, a lot of times when you have feelings, you feel weak because you should be able to handle it or you should be able to do it. But I feel like the more you guys try to feel the feelings, you're like, oh shit, I didn't know that was actually a feeling. And you become a better potential later date or future person or whatever. And working on yourself really becomes, it becomes addictive. Nope.

[00:12:31] I'm going to do that for me. I'm setting a boundary. Oh, that's for me. Oh, that's for me. I'm sorry. That's for me. Wait. Oh, that's for me. And I think when we stop, can't stop the feeling, right? Start feeling those feelings. You can be angry. You can be sad. You can be disappointed that you might've fucked up or she fucked up or whatever it is. And you can be upset that this is no longer your reality, but the quicker that you go through those emotions and stuff like that, it really helps with that grief.

[00:12:58] And I've heard people meet their new person in grief, in the grief, the grief support grief support divorce. Yeah. There was a lot of, a lot of honeys and guys. What is something that you felt stuck in besides your anger when you were going through it? Besides my anger, guilt, guilt, disappointment, all those fields. There's so many fields you get stuck. And they were like dancing. One day is guilt. Next day is anger. It was number one. They're guilty for feeling anger. Yeah.

[00:13:28] So they took turns and over time, those positions became less and less where they didn't consume me for the day. Time is another factor too. But if you've been stuck for a couple of months, you need to get some help. Yeah. And I think mine too was, I, I've talked about this before too. A lot of times in my life, the adults in my life have disappointed me growing up, especially my support group was the other kids that were going through the same similar stuff where I like the, like the Lord of the flies existence.

[00:13:58] No one can mess with us because we all had crazy parents and learning that the most honest people are the youngest people. But now it's adults should be able to protect you and talk to you and not want to tear you down and not want to talk shit about you and not want to do these things. And it really comes back to me going, you know what? I eventually left. I had the guilt of leaving, but I also found this new sense of, I've never really taken care of myself.

[00:14:28] I've never really stopped and says, you know what? I understand what you're saying, but I have to be selfish and take care of me. And now in this thing, I am really sick and tired of people treating me shitty. And I'm such a nice person where I'm just going to be like, yeah, no, you've lost access. Okay. I'm going to not make a part because Kyle feels like I'm a fawner and don't want to make people upset. I'm ready to make people upset because it's not, it probably won't make me feel better,

[00:14:57] but it's going to make me feel a little better. It's going to make me feel like, okay, now I'm an adult, Rachel, little Rachel needed someone to protect her. And guess who that is? That's older Rachel. So I think what has to happen in recovery is you have to be selfish enough to say, this is what I need. These are the boundaries I need to set. This is why this doesn't work for me. And if you can't respect that, you don't get the access to me anymore because I'm not

[00:15:23] that broken little girl who needed my relationships to protect me. I think that's a perfect place to start. If you get stuck, take care of yourself. Yeah. Start working on yourself. Go get your nails done. Men, get your toes done. But just go take care of yourself. And that's a good foundation because you can't do anything else without taking care of yourself. Yeah. And I hear from both sides. I wasn't allowed to watch my shows because sports was on, or I wasn't allowed to watch this because they, they always did this.

[00:15:52] Or I went out and I found a place that was watching the football game that I wanted to watch. Okay, cool. Or guess what? Make time to do those things that you used to do. Old hobbies. If you liked playing, as I always said, he played soccer with a bunch of friends and he loved doing that. And I feel like I started playing volleyball again because I love volleyball, but I could do it in a different setting where it didn't have to be competitive. I love to draw. I love theater. I do theater at our school.

[00:16:20] And these things take my time from having to worry about things that are going to affect me negatively. And I think what that also does is teaches you to be alone, be alone in your hobby, be alone. You can go out of your space and the people that all know your story and go out and pick up a, do a pickup game of pickleball, do a pickup game of whatever you like to do, or go ride your bike or go walk to garden of the gods, go do something that you used to

[00:16:49] do or to do, or want to get back into, or try a new hobby or maybe get a pet. I don't know. So the subset of taking care of yourself, a big thing, I think to shock you out of it is to go do something that your ex didn't like to do. And you did. Or it was, yeah, I don't want to do that with you. Go find that trigger for her or him and go do that shit. Oh my gosh. I saw this. Go eat some Italian food.

[00:17:15] I saw this really cute, innovative way to figure out what someone like a person, like a new person or a personal relationship. This guy goes, oh my gosh, we're going to go to your favorite restaurant. She was, oh my God, are we really going to? And then she said the name of the restaurant and he goes afterwards, we can go to, she was, and then she said that. And it was literally like the date was planned because he's just her favorite restaurant. What she was feeling. Yeah. What that person was feeling that day. Oh my gosh, I really want tacos. I really want this. Or, oh my gosh, we can go get ice cream. So a lot of times we have to listen.

[00:17:45] We are not good at doing that for ourselves and we are not good at asking for help, especially when we're going through it or especially if you're needy. I don't feel like I'm an, I feel like when something happens to me, I shut down, I go into my space, I figure it out. And then when I come back, I'm hoping that you're still there. And a lot of times some people are, and some people aren't, but those people that have been there, you know, they're going to be there no matter what. And we've talked about some of my, some of the people I didn't have as best friends

[00:18:13] are now my best friends because they left the fucking cookie on my desk and said, this is a protein cookie. You need to eat. Here's a shake. You need to eat. Hey, you need to do, did you eat today? Did you do this? And it wasn't, how are you feeling? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Or, Hey, did you hear this dad single? Or, Hey, did you do that? Or, Hey, did you want to know it wasn't that it was the simple gestures of, I don't want to try to fix you. I want you to heal how you want to, but I'm here if you need me.

[00:18:41] And those times, that's what you need to do for yourself too. You need to show up for yourself in little pieces. Little steps. So in addition to eating Italian food, one thing I used to do, and this is crazy. Like I Dutch oven myself. I got your face straight. You'd be like, man, that's a good one.

[00:19:07] Because you can't Dutch oven your ex, your assumed to be ex-wife because she doesn't go for it. But you're like, man, is that a good one? That's a good one. When did this podcast become a fifth grader? What do I mean? Fifth grade. Fifth grade. Hey, do what you want. Okay. And then go for a long bike ride. That's not the only thing I did. Okay. I didn't sit in a bed and fart all the time. You cropped us people. Dutch oven people. Cereal day. Did you Dutch oven yourself while you were cereal day? Because that's really weird. Cereal farting. Oh my God.

[00:19:38] What is happening? This is why we need, yes. God, your face was priceless. Did he say, I literally was like. Did he say Dutch oven? Did he say Dutch oven? Or like. Yes. Did Dutch oven you cook in? Or, you know. That's kind of small. That doesn't hold all the rules. But then, other than that, we're going for a bike ride. Talking to friends. Reconnecting with people you haven't seen in a long time. That was a big one. Yeah. Say, hey. How you doing? People are going through shit while you're going through shit.

[00:20:06] And when we're, as humans, we're self-absorbed, right? So, the only thing we can think about is our grief and our, this is terrible. Can you believe what he did? And blah, blah, blah. Sometimes, at some point it gets old. I can tell you. At some point I'm like, I don't want to fucking talk about it anymore. Oh, yes. And then, we've also talked about in the beginning. Oh, I'm Rachel. I'm divorced. Oh, I'm Rachel. I have three kids. I'm divorced. Oh, it's I'm blah, blah. Yeah. But, it will get better. Accept your new identity. Yeah.

[00:20:34] But don't wallow in it. Yeah. And I think you can, at the tiniest steps, you can do pros and cons of my day. I only cried for 12 hours instead of 13 today. And we've, I think we talk a lot, like, here's how to fix it. It's not always going to be fixed right away. And don't be defeated if it's not fixed right away. You can know in five years, you're going to be like, oh, god damn it. Shit. Maybe I shouldn't have said that. Or I feel guilty that, or look at this new life my new partner, my ex-partner has.

[00:21:04] Or blah, blah, blah. And all the things that may make you mad, or sad, or regretful, or all the things. Get past it. Move on. Especially, people don't want to fucking hear it anymore. Just move on a little bit. And if you get stuck, assess yourself. Say, okay, you know what? I am stuck. The only person that can stick me is me. I can't control what other people are doing, but I want to be better. I want to feel better. I want to do this.

[00:21:31] And sometimes you might need the therapist to say, hey, you got some really bad anxiety or depression or this. You might be bipolar and be one of the reasons you got divorced. So just all these little things that can help by going to get help, going to do. And it might just start with, hey, I know you went through a divorce. How did you get through this part? Hey, I listened to Divorce Devil Podcast, and Rachel says, fuck forgiveness. Set boundaries. Don't let people talk to you. Don't let people try to bring you down. And don't put people in your pocket spaces.

[00:22:01] And fuck you, Kyle. And I love you. But fawning is a thing. All right. So parting words under one minute. That was your parting words. Yeah. So my parting words is be kind to yourself. Accept being in your negative space, but don't wallow in it. Don't wallow in any space. This is too long. You already did, George. It's mine. Go ahead.

[00:22:31] He's dust loving himself. No. Repeating the same fucking thing over and over is insanity. Let's not become insane because of divorce. This too shall pass. It's a chapter in your life. Your book is amazing. Make sure you get the parts in your life that are not just this. Millions of people have survived. Yeah. Over 60% of the population has survived. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Love ya. Love you. Bye. Bye.