“The divorce left me devastated – I couldn’t eat and had insomnia for years”

A woman who helps people through divorces says she had insomnia for years and struggled to eat because of the trauma of her own breakup. Divorce doula Farhana Hussain, 47, faced years of illness after her 15-year marriage disintegrated.

She spoke about her situation in response to TV host Rylan Clark, who recently shared his ordeal of experiencing “stroke-like symptoms” after his own divorce. Farhana urges health professionals to seriously consider the physical implications of separations.

The mother-of-three said the sleepless nights plagued her for years after her divorce, leaving her deathly tired and reducing her to a state where she barely ate for six weeks. He completely lost his appetite for half a year, culminating in a dramatic weight loss.

This former senior leader at a primary school, from Tunbridge, Kent, said: “My doctor recognized that the weight loss and chronic fatigue were a symptom of the trauma I experienced following the divorce and referred me for counselling. .

“It was terrible – I was working with counselors who hadn’t really experienced the trauma and pain that comes with divorce and heartbreak because they hadn’t experienced it themselves. I needed someone who got it, because they had been there.

“I needed energization from within so I could start focusing on my physical health, which was depleted of all the energy and fuel from lack of sleep and food. Rylan Clark’s recent story about the physical impact of his divorce struck a chord with me. symptoms and I see many of my clients struggle with physical health issues as well.”

Farhana, who was with her ex-partner for 18 years and married for 15 years, began divorce proceedings in 2012, which was finalized in 2019. “The physical symptoms were really pronounced from the beginning, which was a real shock to me,” she revealed. .

She described how her trauma manifested physically through severe insomnia, saying: “The way my body manifested my trauma was through very severe insomnia – I lived on three or four hours of sleep a day for for about a year, I felt physically unable to sleep. .”

In addition, Farhana found herself unable to eat, explaining, “My throat just felt constricted and physically I couldn’t swallow. It wasn’t just a lack of appetite, I physically couldn’t bring myself to chew or swallow.” .

In March 2013, Farhana sought help from her GP, who told her she had lost too much weight and that her BMI was dangerously low.

“I switched from a male to a female doctor after that and she was much more understanding,” Farhana said. “She linked the physical symptoms I was experiencing to my divorce – which was not something I had actually considered or thought about before.

“People think that when you go through a heartbreak after a long relationship, it’s just an emotional, mental thing, but we don’t talk enough about the physical side and the physical manifestations — not many people make the connection.”

Farhana was referred for counseling in April 2013 and was offered antidepressants and medication for her symptoms – which she refused. She said: “Talking about the past and how I got here just wasn’t what I needed at that time.”

She added that the talk therapy was “terrible” because she was working with specialists who did not understand the “trauma and pain that comes with divorce and heartbreak”.

She left therapy shortly thereafter and, with nowhere else to go, tried to manage her symptoms on her own. After years of insomnia, in September 2017, Farhana met a “spiritual healer” and says everything changed in that moment.

She said: “I came across a spiritual healer in September 2017 when I went for a facial – until then I just accepted that divorce is something that just breaks you up and leaves you a victim of your circumstances forever”.

After four years of struggling to eat and deal with insomnia — while raising three children — Farhana finally developed strategies to deal with her divorce trauma. She now helps others struggling with similar post-breakup experiences as the UK’s first ‘divorce doula’. She focuses on physical strategies including breathing, engaging in good daily habits and focusing on self-care.

Farhana shared her experience, saying: “I remember struggling to breathe when I was trying to process my divorce – you’re in such a state of survival and panic. When you can’t breathe right, you can’t think right and it becomes a vicious cycle that you get caught in that really affects your sleep, affects your health. There are so many different physical things, often rooted in the amount of stress and emotional trauma you’re experiencing.”

She has seen clients who have had kidney problems, unexplained bowel problems, blood problems, skin conditions and post-divorce anemia.

“I support people to work with their physical bodies,” she said. “This is the kind of support I wish I had had 12 years ago – it just wasn’t available at the time.

“Medication and therapy aren’t the only two options – the right support has transformed my physical and emotional health and I now try my best to pass that on to the people I work with.”