How Am I a Suicide Statistic? Divorced Dads Are High Risk
We're all on this journey alone. No matter how many loving family members or supportive friends are around us, it is our decision that keeps us walking past the open window.
Depression showed up in many ways in my life. My management of these dark moods has become part of my lifetime discipline. Long-term sadness may be something deeper and more serious. Learn how to take charge of your depressive or manic cycles with mindfulness and a good support team.
Here are a few of my latest posts about managing my moods. Your results may vary. But, here’s the answer: keep going, depression comes in waves, you just have to keep moving forward, back into the positive things in your life. Sometimes it takes someone else to help you see the good in your life.
I have written mostly about my experience of depression after divorce. But I had depressive tendencies before I was married. And I still struggle with depressive episodes from time to time. Often triggered by a traumatic event, like a job loss or a relationship coming apart, being sad can become more of a personality trait if depression is not nipped in the bud.
Mindfulness is my answer to depression and my own depressive thoughts. It is critical for each of us to learn our depressive patterns, triggers, and solutions. What can I do when I’m starting to feel the dark slippery slope of depression?
We're all on this journey alone. No matter how many loving family members or supportive friends are around us, it is our decision that keeps us walking past the open window.
I wanted 50/50 parenting. Not because of the money, but because that's how we'd raised our kids thus far, that's how we joined in our commitment to have kids in the first place. As long as the laws are written to give the mom the money and the time with the kids, the dads are going to have to fight for their rights to be equally valued in the post-marriage parenting plans.
Father's day was a day of celebration while I was married. As a single dad, it takes on a slightly different tone for me. I'm not sad on Father's Day, but I am reflective of what has become of my parenting relationship. With two teenage kids that live with their mom, my involvement is less than I would like.
I'm not a men's rights activist but am a DADS LIVES MATTER advocate. This game is rigged and the courts know it, the wives know it, and the divorce attorney's who'd rather represent the moms, know it. But that's not the way it should be.
I forgive my father for his alcoholism. I don't forgive alcoholism. And in my adult life, I can't maintain a relationship (romantic or professional) with someone who drinks heavily. It's not good for me.
I have been in relationships where drinking was more a part of our fabric. I was more of a drinker in college, and I recall many a buzzed afternoon on my roof deck enjoying some summer rum punch. Today, that sounds awful, but it's not because I don't like a buzz every now and then.
I believe that living with anger, creates an angry life. Showing the angry life to your kids is not the lesson you'd prefer to give them. Discharge your anger however you need to do it, but quit firing poison darts at your co-parent. You are liable to hit one of your kids instead.
Parenting is a journey best shared by both partners. I am strong enough to engage with love and caring and the knowledge, that somehow she believed leaving me out of the loop was the best option for my son.