Going through a divorce can be financially draining, but also emotionally draining. A massive chunk of your life is now gone, leaving the rest in disarray. It makes sense to have a million intense feelings coursing through you.

If you’re going through a divorce and are worried about your mental health, read this guide.

Establish boundaries

Put away the phone for a while. The problem with the digital age is that, yes, it’s brought us all closer together. But if you’ve ever been in the service industry, you’ll know that isn’t always welcome. If you have no link to your ex-partner, like children, then it’s time to get to deleting. Numbers, social media, etc.

Memories like photos and videos are up to you and feeling like you’re ready for that might take time, but if you don’t want to fall into a cycle, it’s time to delete numbers, or at least social media. You don’t want to see how “good” their life is on Instagram. It’s never that good.

Talk to someone

If ever there was a time to go looking for a therapist, it’s after a divorce or big break-up. Sometimes your friends simply aren’t enough, sometimes you don’t feel like you have anyone to talk to, sometimes we’re simply too ashamed to talk. That’s when you need a therapist. As good as the people around us try to be, sometimes they have simply not got the expertise to deal with things more than offering a bar of chocolate and a dating site. A therapist will be able to pinpoint what your specific problems are and can help you work on them.

In the meantime, you should also be talking to a lawyer. Divorce lawyers like Cordell & Cordell can handle all the heavy lifting of negotiating, so that it’s one less stress on your mind.

Get moving

As cliched as this is going to sound, it’s cliched because it’s true: you need some exercise. Exercise will release endorphins that will make you feel a little less depressed and a little more human. More importantly, it will give you a good distraction from simply wallowing. Depression can feel like a bad cycle. You feel bad so you do nothing, and soon you feel bad for doing nothing, piling on the pressure. If you have the ability, force yourself to get out of your house. A walk through nature will do the trick.

On top of that, exercise will give you a feeling of self-confidence and productivity. If you have a vague idea of your next moves, it might be to become “better” physically. Exercise can feel like a step in the right direction. If you want to improve your health or your aesthetics, it’s all productive as long as you aren’t forever stuck in depression.

Keep away from the alcohol

Studies have shown that with divorce comes an increase in alcohol consumption. That could be as much a culture thing as a dependency thing. Your friends come over, want to support you, if they’re young they want to take you out, and there’s usually a bottle of wine that goes along with that.

But it’s very easy to make that bottle of wine a habit when you’ve gone through something as traumatic as divorce. The best advice would be to go cold turkey until you are in a better place mentally. If you find the days getting easier, the ability to get out of bed doesn’t feel like you’re weighed down and life is just feeling as boring as it did before, then you can be allowed a glass of something good.

But it takes a long time to get to that point. And it will be different for everyone how long it takes, so use your good judgement. Politely decline the bottle of wine that friend brought round. You don’t need it anyway. They wouldn’t be coming by if you weren’t fun.

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