MLC Purgatory

[AntoniaB]

Ok let me just say first, I'm very very sorry. Second, you will survive this, because everyone here does. I was "fetal" when this happened to me. I nearly checked myself into a psychiatric facility because I was suicidal. My family and friends took care of me until the therapy and the anti-anxiety meds could take over enough for me to function. 3 months later, I was off the medication, still in therapy. 9 months later, I am thriving as a single woman. I am now divorced as you can see from my signature, and I'm still trying to process everything but compared to the pitiful creature in shock I was less than a year ago to now, it's night and day.

So if I could do it, so can you.

I think the tendency we all have in the beginning is to try to fix everything at once (I still struggle with that even just in regards to my whole life) but when you are in the earliest stages of shock and trauma and denial on some level, you need to prioritize first and foremost, and just keeping yourself rested is the number one thing.

If you have to take a sleeping pill, take it. If your doctor won't keep prescribing them, get into therapy and get on some kind of low dose management meds like anti-anxiety or depression, whatever your doctor recommends. Get your sleep, get your rest, eat as normally as you can. Try to get yourself into routines about things. It's almost like you need to just focus on meeting your basic needs so you can stay strong for yourself and your kids.

You will feel like there is this fuse running out, like he lit the fuse, and it's traveling down that wire, and if you don't do things NOW and if you don't fix it all NOW that it will all explode.

It already exploded, in a way. I think that no matter what we face post "bomb", post-affair discovery or post-separation, nothing is ever as "explosive" as the initial shock and recognition that things are a mess in our marriages. So stop feeling like if you just "tackle this" or "do that" that you can stop things from happening. In a way it may be that the worst has happened already.

Things are going to happen. There isn't much you can do about that. The only thing you can control is your reaction to things, and the best thing you can do right now is get a handle on your basic needs for food, rest, chid care, and sleep.