As we are certain you can imagine, going through a divorce can be incredibly stressful. Stress is a powerful thing, capable of causing serious mental and physical trauma. This trauma is very real and thousands of people are hospitalized annually due to the impact of stress.
In this article, we are going to be sharing seven surprising ways divorce affects your health. If you are currently going through a divorce, we would recommend trying to stay as calm as possible and seeking professional help if it is available.
1. Divorce leaves you unable to deal with your emotions.
On a normal day, we can go through a plethora of different emotions. We could be laughing in the morning, crying in the afternoon and having a fight in the evening without ever batting an eyelid.
Unfortunately, divorce can leave you feeling numb and unable to deal with your emotions. This sense of numbness is incredibly risky. When you feel numb, you might try to do things that are totally out of character just to feel something. This is a normal form of behavior when people are going through a divorce because feeling something is better than feeling nothing at all.
When you are going through a divorce, you need to go through the motions. You will naturally go through a period of mourning for your lost marriage. Any terrible decisions made, you will need to accept for what they are.
2. Divorce can leave people struggling with anxiety.
Divorce can be an anxiety-inducing event. When you’ve walked the path of life with another human, it can be difficult even thinking about what it would be like to walk that same path without them. What will it be like to wake up alone? What will it be like to sit and eat meals on your own?
Naturally, all of these thoughts can produce severe anxiety. As humans, we don’t always know how to deal with the unexpected. We depend on our partners for so many different things, including for comfort in our times of need. To no longer have access to a form of comfort that we have grown so accustomed to is horrible.
If you are experiencing this form of anxiety, try not to worry about it too much. It is only natural to fear the unexpected. When you don’t know what will happen to you, you’re going to get a little bit anxious. If your anxiety begins to rule your life, we would recommend sitting down for a chat with a medical professional.
3. Heartbreak is very real.
According to Good Men Project, a lot of people think that heartbreak is just a romanticized term. In reality, heartbreak is a very real topic. In recent years, studies have shown that both men and women are more prone to developing cardiovascular disease when they have gone through a divorce.
Chances are this statistic is linked to the stress that is associated with divorce. Women tend to succumb to heartbreak more than men, but they also tend to experience more stress during massive life changes. Many women who are currently middle-aged have had to depend on their partners a lot during different stages of their lives.
4. People can develop new addictions.
When every inch of your body feels numb and weak, you are going to look for happiness wherever you can find it. When you find something that resembles happiness, you are going to try to hold onto it for as long as you possibly can.
Unfortunately, this leads to a lot of substance abuse problems among people who are going through divorces. Some turn to alcohol, others turn to drugs. Generally speaking, men are more prone to developing addictions than women are at this point in their lives.
Losing a spouse is a traumatic event and it is going to have a massive impact on your emotions. A substance abuse problem won’t make your spouse come back, it will just ruin your life. If you start dabbling in different drugs, we would recommend going to get professional help as quickly as possible. Otherwise, you might end up with a lifelong substance abuse problem.
5. You may experience an identity crisis.
According to Online Divorce, If you’re currently going through a divorce, you might find yourself wondering who you are. You’ve grown so used to being recognized as part of a unit, with your name always being paired with that of your partner.
A lot of men and women experience an identity crises when they go through a divorce. They might find themselves questioning who they are, whether or not they look the way that they want to look, and what they can do to make themselves happy. Some people will change their entire wardrobe and everything that they can change about their appearance in an effort to “fix” themselves.
In reality, there is nothing to fix. There is nothing wrong with the person who is going through a divorce.
6. People who are going through a divorce often have erratic sleep patterns.
When you’re going through a divorce, you might find yourself struggling to sleep. Part of this is because we get used to sleeping next to someone. When you’re so used to having another person asleep next to you, your bed can feel quite alien when you finally have to go to sleep on your own.
Some men and women report that they suffer from bad nightmares when they are going through a divorce. This is worrying because nightmares that are bad enough can make people resent going to sleep. Over time, this can cause insomnia and other sleep-related conditions.
When you’re not getting enough sleep, things can become quite dangerous. If you are currently suffering in this way, we would recommend avoiding driving and not operating heavy machinery. This is for your safety and the safety of others around you.
7. Your weight can change drastically as you go through a divorce.
A worrying pattern that we see regularly in people who are going through divorces is drastic weight change. The direction and amount in which the weight changes can vary quite a lot.
Some people believe that their divorce is happening because they are overweight. This isn’t true, but it can cause them to eat less and overhaul their diet. Some people lose weight because they simply lose their appetite when they’re distraught.
On the other hand, some people gain a lot of weight when they are going through a divorce. This is because a lot of people turn to food for comfort. Food is high in calories and easy to access. When you’re miserable, it can be easy to look for happiness in unusual places. But you won’t find real happiness at the bottom of a hot chocolate or in a quart of ice cream. Instead, you need to let your body go through the motions.
Dealing with a Divorce
As you can see, going through a divorce can affect people on a mental, physical, and spiritual level. Some people who are going through a divorce manifest their symptoms internally, others externally. You won’t always be able to see when someone is truly struggling while going through a divorce.
If you know someone who is currently getting divorced, we would simply recommend trying to be there for them as much as possible. It’s important to realize that a lot of people become self-destructive when they lose their partners. Try not to get too mad about this. Once the worst is over, your friends will become the people that you recognize again. Sometimes they just need a little bit of help getting over the first hurdle.
Remember that medical advice is always available if you are going through a divorce. If there is anything that you are worried about, please seek medical assistance.
0 Comments