A difficult time in my life (apologies for the length of the post)

Hi Guys,

I have yet another catch-up post today, but on the plus side, I am nearly finished the blog a day challenge (although I have failed this miserably!) I have plenty of excuses as to why I have failed to post, being busy with my LAST EVER university assignment and also having an extra broken laptop at the moment are the main reasons.

Anyway, a couple of my catch-up blog posts are going to be very personal. But I wish to share these with you all anyway. Somebody will have had the same or similar experience as myself at some point, and it may help for people to read or ask any questions.

So… On with the 4 catch-up posts!

A difficult time in my life

This is going to be the hardest post to write, but at the same time, I knew exactly what I was gonna write about.

I am going to write about the depression/stress I felt when my parents split up.

My parents decided to split up nearly 4 years ago, when I was 21 years old. I knew it was coming but I also denied it was happening in my head, even though I had seen the warning signs. No massive shouting matches like you would maybe expect from parents who are on the verge of divorce, more things like my Mam telling me that her and my Dad were going to get separate bank accounts.

But I decided to not listen to my head and believe that they were happy, as they were going on holiday to Barbados. The holiday went ahead, but when they arrived back, my mam told me that they had decided to split up.

It was my Dad’s decision to split, and to be honest, I never thought he would have had the balls to do it.

For about a year before they decided to split, I knew my mam was meeting men online and sleeping with them. I know this because I stumbled across her MSM messenger conversations with about 5 different men.

Now I kept this knowledge to myself for months, and then one night, I was at a BBQ of my friends and an old aquaintence of the mothers’ said something and made it click that she had been having affairs for practically all of her marriage. I couldn’t hold it in anymore and broke down to my friends and also my boyfriend at the time. The main problem here was whether to tell my Dad or not. I thought that he deserved to know, but I had invaded my Mam’s privacy. Anyway, I believe that he found out somehow.

Before they decided to split up I must have known it was coming because this was the first time I was diagnosed with depression, and put on antidepressants. I didn’t know that I was depressed, but I think my Mam did as she was the one to take me to the doctors. I was only depressed for a couple of months, but I did end off being off work sick for about a month.

Considering my parents decided to divorce in the September, I didn’t feel *that* depressed until the February afterwards. I was definitely in denial. My best friend went to work in Australia for a year, and we had to get rid of our dog, Daisy, because both parents were renting.

I felt alone, and ended off getting back with an ex-boyfriend. I wanted somebody, because I felt like my world was falling apart, everything I had previously believed in was wrong.

(I’m crying in the university library right now, wonderful.)

Anyway, I was off work for almost 6 months with stress and depression. I couldn’t get out of bed, didn’t want to socialise, but when I did, I got absolutely mortal drunk. I was not a nice person. I was horrible to my Mam because I blamed her for the divorce, and I judged her because she jumped into a relationship with her current partner within 2 months of the divorce being announced, while my Dad did not know whether he would be able to afford a mortgage because my Mam was entitled to half of his earnings.

I was horrible to my boyfriend at the time too. I am back with him now, and it is going much better now, but I was an evil bitch and I know it wasn’t my fault, but I am not afraid to admit it anymore.

Although this has been a very sad thing to talk about, a few of the most important aspects of my life did come out of the divorce.
These were:

·         To finish with the boy I had been with for 3 years and I didn’t really feel like I loved – this was unfair on both of us. But I decided that if my parents could split after 35 years together, I could do it after 3 years. So I did. I feel bad about not being in love but he deserved someone better. He is a nice lad, and he did nothing at all wrong.

·         My decision to go to university and follow my dream (this at the time was an escape plan from my current life – but I have made so many friends for life, had such a brilliant time, learned so much, and could not even contemplate what I would have done with my life if I had not left my depressive job at the council to follow my dreams)

·         My ‘decision’ to search for my first ever girlfriend. I think I had always known I was bisexual but I had never acted on it. My first girl-girl relationship ended not so brilliantly, but I finally felt like me. My parents and brother did not like it, but I didn’t care. My Mam actually thought I was acting out. But I just wanted to do what I had always wanted to do.

WOW guys and girls, this is the longest post I have ever done, and if you have read all the way through it, well done. I am very surprised. I have delved right into my life for you to read about. Maybe it was too personal, but I don’t know. Feedback??

The post has been surprisingly easy to write, I just followed a trail of thought. Again, if you wish to ask any questions, please feel free to ask.

All in all, after a few horrible years, I do feel very good now.

Love, Melissa xx