I remember in the beginning of my divorce standing in my doctor’s office.

At that point, I had been in the emergency room several times with surface blood clots. I have a very non-invasive blood condition which unless I was to have surgery, was a smoker or took hormone replacements shouldn’t be a problem. At least, that is the way it has been described to me. For the most part, I should barely know I have it.

Enter the financial and emotional games of divorce and my body was telling me quite the contrary.

Now mind you,  it was not the actual detail of simply getting a divorce. It was the brutal games which were being played all deemed fair in the mind of my spouse because I finally left.

My internist (and I paraphrase) looked at me and said, “Colleen, some will say stress can’t aggravate a condition like you have only I am of the mindset of those who do believe it is the continued stress you are under which is provoking it.”

I agreed.

Primarily because there had been only one other time where I had experienced these surface blood clots (besides one pregnancy) and also in a cluster of multiple ones within a year and a half time period. It had been during the time frame my husband had begun a new uncharacteristically bad behavior.

Fast forward to the time of the divorce and the same out of control and primarily unpredictable factors were in play again.

My internist urged me to get this divorce expedited.

Can divorce affect your health?

The answer is yes when the divorce is prolonged and abusive and includes financial and emotional bullying and places children in jeopardy.

Think about it on the smaller scale.

People experiencing difficult divorces can lose or gain extreme weight, have hair loss, experience facial breakouts, high blood pressure, anxiety, sleep deprivation and more.

Some people may encounter one of these and some multiple.

Either way, extreme divorce is extremely bad for not only an individual’s emotional health – also their physical health.

You would think the spouse holding the cards would acquiesce after multiple hospital visits. This is just not the case. Instead, they will rationalize it is the person who just tends to be stressful. They will not acknowledge the trauma incurred of constant creditors calling, children suffering, and mortgage companies knocking on the front door. All things which magically never occurred until an attorney was retained.

There are no easy answers.

If there were this would not occur. In my case, the prolonged stress came simply from making a joint decision to stay at home with our children.

If I had worked full-time rather than part-time these past ten years I would never have been able to be a prisoner to another.

Occasionally, I hear stories of those who have undergone either dramatically vicious or extended divorce who have health concerns.

Awareness needs to be elevated and changes need to be made to those who tie up the legal system when they should be sitting in a counselor’s office getting assistance for their pain and anger.

Rather than viewing their spouse as their ‘opponent’ in a game they are determined to win regardless of the emotional and physical cost.

All because they cowardly believe a financial win IS actually a win.

 

(Photos  courtesy of Pexels)

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