Step one: Recognize that you need help

Going into counselling is a heavy-footed step forward. Allowing someone into your story of issues makes you vulnerable and gives a true sense of humility. Saying that "I need someone's help" is a hard thing to do. The United States being one of the most individualist countries in the world, we are all socialized into being able to take care of ourselves with maybe the allowance of few key people in ones life. Unfortunately friends and family members are too invested to be of really good help in rough times.

Today was the first day of counselling in roughly 6 months. A lot of things have happened in this time and I decided that maybe I should learn to cope better with all of my current issues. It was just an initial intake session. These are much like sitting down with someone to say "hey, so I got this can o' worms here. I just thought I might cracking into this and we can talk about it more later. It was nice really. Facing up to life's demons can be pretty hard. After a line of questioning personal issues and cracking into said can o' worms I can just set it back down for now. I however cannot deny that I opened it.

Day one of counseling: success

Reinventing the self

Hard times strike and your life changes instantly. When events happen suddenly (acute onset) they are shown to be detrimental to ones psychological state. When things happen over an extended period of time (insidious onset) individuals tend to be able to cope with the situation easier.

Atop the list of stressful life events, marital issues encompass much of the most stressful. Divorce generally is a combination of acute and insidious onset. People tend to see the problems over a long period of time, and then the decision to actually get divorced tends to happen in a flash. At least that is how my situation worked out. The idea of this post is not to hash out issues involving getting divorced, it's to discuss life after divorce.

Divorce can be viewed as a nasty situation, or a chance to start over. I choose to think that it is like a new beginning. If not I could dwell in what could have been, the ideal life, or why the divorce happened. Those issues I have no control over, so I choose to look forward. Life is overwhelming at times with school, a daughter, a new relationship, grad school, living situation, and so on. I have two choices in dealing with all of these issues; with defeat or with hope.

Being the eternal optimist I may seem childlike even ignorant in some regards. The pragmatist in me says that positivity is the best way to cope and the resulting freedom is priceless. Tomorrow I will begin the first counseling sessions since my divorce. I am hopeful.