If I Could Help One Person — Part Seven

It was not easy being a single mom.

I was only twenty-four when I had my first son, twenty-seven when I had my second, and divorced by twenty-eight. My husband was ten years older than me, and whether that age gap played a factor in the divorce, I honestly cannot say. What I do know is that shortly before and after my second son was born, I was in the grip of a horrible bout of postpartum depression. It's hard to know if I'd still be married today had that not happened. I was in a fog — just surviving.

The divorce was one of the most painful experiences I have ever been through. That is why, to this day, I have never remarried. The wound ran that deep. I carried an enormous amount of guilt for raising my boys in a broken home — guilt that sat heavy on my chest every single day. Between that guilt and the shame of my substance use disorder, I struggled terribly with discipline. I never wanted my sons to experience hardship. Thank God my boys were relatively well-behaved, because I was barely holding myself together.

And Then There Was My Father

I had been caring for my terminally ill dad for three years before he passed. He had been struggling with alcoholism for as long as I had been alive — in and out of sobriety, fighting a battle he could never quite win. Ultimately, it took his life. He passed prematurely at sixty-two from cirrhosis of the liver. It was a brutal, agonizing end, and watching it happen — watching someone you love slowly destroy themselves — is a particular kind of torture that I would not wish on anyone. There are no words adequate enough to describe it.

"Watching someone you love slowly destroy themselves is a particular kind of torture that I would not wish on anyone."

When he finally passed, there was relief. I know how that sounds. I know it can seem harsh or cold, but after years of watching him suffer, I had nothing left. The weight of caregiving — the appointments, the fear, the helplessness, the grief that started long before he was actually gone — had taken a profound toll on my health, my spirit, and my sense of self. His death sent me spiraling.

The Anger I Couldn't Put Down

I did not have the proper support system around me to grieve the way I needed to. I held that pain inside for years. And with that pain came something I was not prepared for: anger. Deep, burning anger toward the people I felt had failed me — the ones who had not shown up, had not seen what I was carrying, had not offered the support I so desperately needed and craved.

Just like that, it was over. My father was gone. And with him went the last thread of whatever support system I thought I had.

"That anger turned inward. And with it came a deep, dark depression — one that would last for nearly three years, rendering me barely capable of taking care of myself, let alone my young sons."