Reclaiming Life: Justin's Path to Healing After Divorce

Justin, a 41-year-old father of two, first learned about Tulia through friends and Facebook last year. Initially, he faced challenges in reaching out for help due to his wife's surveillance of his communications, which caused tension and stress. After managing to leave his difficult home situation, Justin reconnected with Rumbi from the organization in November 2020, seeking assistance for his severe stress, depression, and anxiety, which had led to suicidal thoughts. Tulia prioritized his emotional wellbeing, referring him to therapy with Dr. Christine Tazarurwa, helping him regain his confidence and self-esteem, and encouraging him to find meaning in life for the sake of his children. Justin reflects on the progress he has made, stating he is learning to embrace the possibility of love again and healing from his past trauma through programs like "Success After Divorce." He attributes his transformation to the timely support he received and strongly encourages others in similar situations to seek help rather than suffer in silence. While he sees no areas for improvement in the services offered, he acknowledges the difficulties presented by the pandemic and appreciates the organization's quality of care during those challenging times.

How did you first hear about Tulia ?

From friends, from Facebook I heard about them and contacted Rumbi to seek help for my situation that I was going through. That was last year.

It was hard at first to contact Rumbi because I was still with my wife then and she would stalk on my phone. So, the first time I contacted Rumbi, she got to find all the messages I was texting and she wasn’t happy about that it, we spoke to Rumbi for some time because she didn’t want me to seek help. So, it didn’t go well with her.

So, it was a struggle to get in contact with Rumbi but she kept all the messages from that time and through to the time that I managed to leave the house, that’s when I started to get things on track by contacting Rumbi again. She was patient, sometimes I would go silent because of the situation back home, but Rumbi was always there for me whenever anything would come up.

I finally contacted them in November 2020, speaking first with Rumbidzai and then I got a call from Thelma.

What was your situation like before?

I was going through stress, depression and anxiety disorder.  So that was the situation, I couldn’t cope. I couldn’t deal with my daily routines, things were just upside down and I had a lot that was going on in my mind and I had some suicidal thoughts as well. Things were not really good to be honest.

What steps did Tulia take with your situation?

My priority was my emotional wellbeing. They assisted me to go through therapy, and referred me to a doctor.

I started gaining my confidence and my self-esteem that I had lost, because I had suicidal thoughts and that’s the first thing that I tried to deal with positively; to have a meaning of why I should still be alive, and to consider my kids.

 What improvements or highlights have there been?

It really went a long way to assist me as to regard how important life is and to think positively.

I’m healing due to what I went through. I came to a point where I’d lost confidence in relationships like getting married again and having someone to share life with. Something I’m trying to improve and thinking positively about is this: there could be someone better out there, people are not the same, people are different and I can’t paint everyone with the same brush.

I’m trying to regain that momentum and think positively. In quotes I can say ‘It’s hard to believe in love again’, it’s something that I need to change so that I can try to see how I can move on with life.

Currently Rumbi has introduced this program Success After Divorce. We are learning a lot through that.

 Would you recommend the service to others?

Tulia was a life-saver in my life, I don’t think I would be who I am today without their help. Maybe I could have taken my life, to be honest but they came at the right time.

I didn’t see myself that I was in need of help, I thought there was no way I could accept help of any nature or something like that.

Even if I was told to seek help somewhere else I was in a denial to say, “There’s no way there was any option in my life.” But somehow, I don’t know how it happened for me to be connected to them, but I didn’t resist that.

I recommend people to seek help immediately, not to suffer in silence. There are people out there that are willing to help, organisations that are willing to help. So I would recommend people to seek help as soon as they can.

In which ways could Tulia’s services improve?

To be honest I don’t have any negative thing that noticed that needs to be improved. It’s only that we’re going through a pandemic and I understand the situation would be quite different otherwise. It was really hard for things to be dealt with normally according to what would be done if the situation was okay, but I was really impressed considering the circumstances, they maintained the right standard of care.

Please note: The names and identifying details of the clients featured in these testimonials have been anonymized to protect their privacy and confidentiality.

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