The one thing that no one really prepared me for was the overwhelming flood of emotions I would experience. I’m told the beginning phase was grieving over the loss of the marriage.

I laid in that King size bed in my parent’s basement for days…a bed I had shared with my husband numerous times over our 20+ years together. We loved that bed. It was like this magical bed where you literally didn’t move when you slept and when you woke up you kind of felt like you were in a whimsical movie where birds and squirrels would start talking to you soon…and you would speak their language. It was that refreshing!

Not so much during the next several days following my escape.

And so I laid there in that magical bed…my body racked with sobs and in a constant state of trembling. I knew my kids could hear my cries throughout the house. And I am sure this scared them, but this was how I needed to process the emotions I was going through. I am glad they were able to see me raw and vulnerable. Dealing with this situation not as the strong mama they had always seen, but as a woman who was broken and hurting. We all knew this was the best decision for our family, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t hurt like hell.

Sobbing. Trembling. Sleeping. Coffee. Exhaustion. Repeat.

This was the cycle I would follow for the next several days. And I didn’t try to hide it. I think it was the first time in my life that I allowed myself to feel all the feelings I was experiencing. It was terrifying, but experiencing anything new is always scary in the beginning. So many years spent burying feelings that were invalidated at every turn…my feelings never mattered. They were wrong. My opinions never mattered. They were wrong. If my thought process did not line up with his. I was wrong.

So I became a huge stuffer of all things emotional. And what happens when you stuff it all in? Eventually, you blow up. I can’t say that I actually blew up over this, but I did make a bold, drastic move that to some appeared to be an impulsive move. However, it was one that I had been planning for many years. Being isolated and in a constant state of survival mode, I had been less than honest with friends and family and my support system was almost non-existent.

Or so I thought.

It turns out that I actually had a ton of people praying for me…watching this situation unfold over the years…worried about what the outcome would eventually be. Yet, they were all unable to step in and help until I was ready to receive that help. This is something I will talk about soon…that’s a WHOLE other topic all together!

Grieving the end of a marriage that I thought would bring me my “happily ever after” was so therapeutic and lead way to a brand new experience that I would later describe as FREEDOM. And freedom, when not truly experienced, is a scary thing to walk out. I think that has been one of my biggest struggles in all of this. No longer answering to anyone else and making myself priority #1.

My counselor always likes to use the analogy of the oxygen masks on airplanes. You can’t help anyone else until you help yourself.

So true.