Divorce and Adolescence: How My Parent’s Divorce Impacted Me as a Teenager and How I am Finding Healing
Title: Resurrection of Christ
Artist: Anonymous (Greece)
Image Attribution: Walters Art Museum, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
I was eleven years old, going on twelve when my parents officially separated and got divorced. I didn’t understand at the time what divorce even was, let alone what it would do to our family. At that young age, you are just barely beginning to grasp the whole concepts of relationships, marriage, divorce and separation and what they even are. It was confusing at best as well as scary and merely devastating at the same time, though I didn’t know how to put it into words or even express it. For years, I denied the pain and I denied how profoundly it had affected me until the day I decided that I wanted to heal and until that day when our Lord showed me that healing is possible.
After my parents separated, what came was my dad moving out to stay with a friend, me feeling torn and stuck in the middle at the same time, new dates and eventually a new marriage, parental conflicts and disagreements about what was best for me, and so many complicated dynamics among it all. We all were in and out of family therapy for a time, I went through times of feeling unsure of where to go and who to side with. Do I go with Mom or with Dad? Is Mom right, or is Dad right? The world as I had known it was slowly, but surely crumbling beneath my feet. I didn’t know what was happening, let alone what I should do or which parent I should trust.
As a teenager, I began to experience mere anger, seemingly without any other emotion or feeling that I had no control over, and had no idea where it came from or why it would get so out of control. There were so many occasions where I would yell and scream at the top of my lungs at my parents and had many nights spent in bed violently sobbing. Now that I am a bit older, I realize that much of that suffering is tied back to my parents' divorce and to the complicated dynamics and brokenness of my family. This was a tomb that I suffocated inside of for years throughout much of my adolescence.The hurt, the anger and resentment, the sorrow and the confusion of it all, and yet I buried it. I denied the hurt for so long, and I now realize that I was being told how I felt rather than ever really being listened to about how I actually felt, is what it felt like about the separation, the divorce, the remarriage and the many other outcomes of the divorce, such as the constant arguments over me. I couldn’t take it, but there was seemingly no way out. At sixteen, I fell into depression for the first time, which would continue on and off over the next couple of years, getting better and getting worse. In and out of that tomb, carrying and lifting that cross, which would leave many splinters that became too much at times, it was soon decided that I should leave and get away with the hopes of improving my struggles with a fresh start.
When I turned eighteen, we decided that I should go to live with my dad. My mom, her new husband and I had moved to a town about two hours away from where I grew up, but I moved back to my hometown where my dad was still living. Within the time of making that decision, so much felt at stake from finishing high school to the new living arrangement, to how often I would see my mom, who feared that my dad would say something that would make me reject her.
After a year of my dad and I living together, I had to leave at the last minute as his true colors began to come out. He became controlling, mean and verbally and emotionally abusive. That would get triggered when he felt disobeyed, stressed, or not followed like a sheep. That was the moment when my relationship with my father became strained.
It was at that point that with the help of my mom and a therapist, using the tomb analogy, I began to move the stone and finally saw a sliver of light on what had been paining me for so many years in silence and denial. This still was not a linear road though, in fact there were many rocky bumps. I was angry. Angry at my parents for having me! Why did they have a child if this was how it would turn out? Why did they have to put me through so much pain? Where did I belong? With Mom or with Dad? I continued to suffocate inside of the tomb, stepping back inside to the dark and stuffy tomb where I couldn’t see and could barely breathe. The tears of anger and depression continued to flow, but I now realize that that is a part of the healing process—it can sometimes look like loud sobs, streaming tears, and gasping breaths. With therapy, learning and gaining knowledge and perspective, self-care, and my faith, I embarked on my healing journey when I decided no more.
I didn’t want to live in the tomb anymore. I didn’t want to live as my teenage self going into adulthood carrying all of this baggage from my past. I have decided to own my story and to own my past because I have found that that can be one of the first steps of healing—owning your story, even if there is pain. It can truly set you free. I am not defined by my parents' divorce, I am only defined by the truth that I am a daughter of God, the Almighty Father. I am not a child of divorce, I am a child of God. I am so grateful that the Lord has shown me that healing is possible and that I do not have to live in the darkness of the tomb anymore, that I can heal and move on with my life redeemed in Christ and feel whole again. Jesus can turn our wounds into love by His grace alone. He can heal them so that they won’t hurt as badly as they once did. Even though I know that I will not be completely healed this side of eternity, I still have hope. Though I still carry this cross to this day—some days it is heavier, some days its wood leaves splinters, but I embrace it all, for I now realize that embracing my suffering brings me closer to our Lord who suffered for me. We have no sufferings that God doesn’t know. Divorce and all of its pain are of the world, but God has overcome the world. Just as Jesus turned water into wine, He can also turn our wounds into love, our despair into hope, our rough calluses into tender compassion. He can give us the strength we need to step out of the tomb and into His kingdom, for our good and for His glory.
Though I am still on my journey towards healing that I realize is not linear and has many bumps, I know that Jesus and His Mother are walking the path right alongside me holding my hands. When the cross is too heavy, our Lord shoulders it with me as He knows how heavy such crosses can be! I now store up all of my hope in the resurrection and I choose to open up my heart so that He may heal me on the journey to wholeness in Christ and to sprouting new life in Him as I embark on my journey towards wholeness in healing and redemption in Jesus Christ our Lord.
About the Author:
Isabel is a young adult child of divorce; her parents divorced when she was eleven. She is passionate about her faith, writing, traveling and living well. She is so grateful to have found Life-Giving wounds and to be sharing her work to find healing with the hopes of building community with those like herself.
Reflection Questions for Small Groups or Individuals
If your parents divorced by the time you were a teenager, how did your emotions impact you?
What advice, or words of comfort, would you offer to a current teenager going through similar emotional turmoil?
How did Isabel's post speak to you?