Dear Dr. Norquist: Never have I felt powerless and with no hope in this life. Sometimes I have contemplated suicide and I feel as if life has no reason to be.
Dear Dr. Norquist:
(This question has been edited from a longer letter due to space limitations)
Never have I felt powerless and with no hope in this life. Sometimes I have contemplated suicide and I feel as if life has no reason to be. I am thirty-two years old and have four kids. I have been married twice and I have two daughters from the first marriage and two others from the second. My misery began when I divorced my first husband. I met another man, married him and had two daughters. But I was very unhappy and one day I just took my children, a few things and left him. I still remember that afternoon and felt this sense of deep peace and freedom. Everything was running smoothly, but I felt this immense loneliness and desperation every time I saw my first husband picking up the girls for visitation. No matter what I did, I always felt this agony.
Two years ago, my first husband had a problem with his second wife, they separated for a while and he became part of the lives of my two older daughters and me. As of a year ago, he’s been living with the girls and me. In the first few months, I think I was the happiest woman alive, but my joy turned into a gloomy state. I know that he is with us, but I don’t know about the future. He has a son with his second wife, he’s still married to her and I’m not sure why he is with us anymore. I have never felt such a deep sense of helplessness and doubt. I’ve been so scared so many times that one day he will not come home. I feel depressed, confused, weak and very vulnerable. I see myself completely in chaos emotionally. I don’t even think clearly anymore. My kids seem to be complete strangers. I cannot seem to relate to them because I’m always engulfed in my fears. My mind is out of control because I worry and my thoughts are the worst enemies.
Every day there is a fight at home. During the day I think and think why he said this – maybe he means something else. [I tell myself that] he probably feels sorry for me, and then I feel used, abused, manipulated. This anger just takes over. Whenever I fight with my ex-husband, he threatens to leave and I find myself totally helpless, asking him to forgive me and begging him not to go. I’ve come to the point of checking every inch of his clothing, smelling every inch of his shirts and even analyzing every second of our lovemaking. If something seems or sounds rare or strange, I jump from rage to tears to hatred to desperation to helplessness and terror.
Why do I feel that God, whom I used to praise every day back when I was seventeen and wanted to become a nun, is not there? Life is very scary for me. Please tell me what to do … sometimes I feel as if I’m becoming my own worst enemy.
Dr. Norquist responds:
I do not believe that God has abandoned you. Rather, your pain, fear, and depression are making it difficult for you to experience God’s presence in your life. It’s like there’s a storm all around you, and you cannot see the sun. When the storm clears, you’ll recognize that the sun was always there.
You have lost perspective on your life, and have become obsessed with one thing only – your insecurity regarding your ex-husband’s fidelity and love for you. In your mind, this has become paramount. In a way, this has become your God. Step back and ask yourself, is this really what is most important in life? Is this really where contentment and fulfillment lie? It appears your earlier desire to devote your life to God through becoming a nun has been turned toward a desperate need to find security through a failsafe union with your ex-husband, who is still married to another woman. He cannot fill that emptiness inside you in any consistent way. The desperateness of your need makes the relationship untenable. You must find a way of filling this need from within, perhaps through rekindling your sense of connection with God.
Try to harness your mind. Practice letting go of fear inducing thoughts, and disciplining your mind to focus in a positive direction. This takes patient, consistent effort. We love to lavish in our worries, as if this somehow protects us. The result of our worrying is that we bring ourselves down, and we experience whatever we are worrying about as if it were actually true. It’s like asking for trouble and misery. So, discipline your mind, and life will feel much lighter and easier.
When life feels this bad (“I feel as if life has no reason to be”), this confusing and out of control (“I jump from rage to tears to hatred to desperation to helplessness and terror”), or this hopeless (“never have I felt powerless and with no hope in this life”), you need to seek professional help. When life is this out of balance, it’s very difficult to find center again without help. I’d suggest that you start by seeking psychotherapy and psychotropic medication to help you to calm the storm surrounding you long enough so that you can see the horizon, and feel the sun’s rays again. You are a strong woman. If you put your heart and mind to it and seek the help you need, you will find your way to better times. Feel free to write again.