Divorce is never something we go into marriage thinking about the first time around. We are young 20’s, thinking we know everything about relationships and ourselves and really, we know nothing. Our lives have barely gotten started. All we know is the moment in front of us. I am so reminded by this as my son is on the brink of 20 and I am waiting in anticipation for him to start down his own path. Hoping with all of my might, that he doesn’t make my same mistakes and instead, spends his 20’s trying new things, meeting lots of people, living on his own, having lots of great adventures and making his own decisions, not feeling the need to be tied down to anyone until after he is established in his own independent life. Why? Because I didn’t.
Divorce is messy. No matter how hard you try to make it ok, to negotiate and be fair, respectful or considerate in the beginning, somewhere down the line it gets messy. And for the kids, no matter how kind, loving and careful you break the news, their world falls apart and that is all they remember and experience. I spent a great deal of time working with both of my kids to allow them to process this life changing event and they both responded in very different ways. My son wears his emotions on his sleeve and most of the time he was either his happy self or he was raging with anger. I could understand and wait out the tantrums after visits with dad….he was 7. Jessica on the other hand, didn’t show her negative emotions. She could verbally identify feelings she had when we talked or when we worked through a “divorce for kids” workbook, but on the outside, she smiled and appeared un-phased much of the time. What I later came to understand about Jessica is that she internalized everything she was unable to express. It showed up in the form of the Trichtillomania when she was 10, anxiety and depression as she got older and it was not until her late teens that she was actually able to start express some anger about the divorce. This was usually verbally directed at me, but passively directed at her dad. She would go long periods of time not talking to him. She would accurately describe to me how she experienced the pre-separations arguments and her fears and stress. She processed this for several years, the more maturity she gained, the more insight she had and the better able she was to share it. What I know I did right… I kept the door open and continued to communicate openly, providing empathy and validating their feelings, naming their feelings for and with them. Kids on the spectrum often appear unemotional, even when emotion is warranted or expected. I knew Jessica was socially behind and had fine motor delay, but she is very social. She loves to talk, she wants to have friends, she can carry on a conversation, show empathy for others, I had no idea back then, that she also had this delay in emotional processing and that it would take years for this traumatic event to be verbalized. Now I know and so does she, if she is given a lot of information, we jokingly note “to weeks to process and we will check in again”.
Being Jessica's Mom: Growing up on the Autistic Spectrum 