Also been there. Two years like Formidable and still recovering too.
Honestly looking back the first year was pure shock, second yeat has ben the healing. It depends on the circumstances. Mine was a suprise abaondonment from a man I thought worshipped the ground I walked on. Was like a death to me, but probably worse.
I am going to snip and quote here from Cheryl Stayed writing. It was one of her letters to a chap who lost his son, but I felt the words spoke to me...
I don’t know how you go on. I only know that you do. And you have. And you will.
It’s your life. The one you must make in the obliterated place that’s now your world, where everything you used to be is simultaneously erased and omnipresent.
The word obliterate comes from the Latin obliterare. Ob means against; literare means letter or script. A literal translation is being against the letters. It was impossible for you to write me a letter, so you made me a list instead. It is impossible for you to go on as you were before, so you must go on as you never have.
The obliterated place is equal parts destruction and creation. The obliterated place is pitch black and bright light. It is water and parched earth. It is mud and it is manna. The real work of deep grief is making a home there.
You have the power to withstand this sorrow. We all do, though we all claim not to. We say, “I couldn’t go on,” instead of saying we hope we won’t have to.
More will be revealed. Your son hasn’t yet taught you everything he has to teach you. He taught you how to love like you’ve never loved before. He taught you how to suffer like you’ve never suffered before. Perhaps the next thing he has to teach you is acceptance. And the thing after that, forgiveness.
Forgiveness bellows from the bottom of the canoe. There are doubts, dangers, unfathomable travesties. There are stories you’ll learn if you’re strong enough to travel there. One of them might cure you.
You go on by doing the best you can, you go on by being generous, you go on by being true, you go on by offering comfort to others who can’t go on, you go on by allowing the unbearable days to pass and allowing the pleasure in other days, you go on by finding a channel for your love and another for your rage.
***
There is plenty more on that if you want to Google. Not for one minute comparing divorce to loss of a child but the way she speaks of grief and loss and moving forward definitely helped pull me through.
I am so so sorry OP. I do know how it feels. My life as i knew it was aldo gone in a flash and I will not say it was easy- but yes, you do go on and you do heal and there is a trade where the pain and sorrow takes from you but also gives something back in ways time will reveal for you.
The best advice is to let yourself feel it. Be kind to yourself (so important). Get counselling. Post here. Try and eat and drink a little. Try not to believe you can't go on -because you will find that there is sunshine at the end of the storm. But the storm is so very bad right now I know it's hard to see anything beyond it.