I’ve been waiting to write here again since about halfway through study abroad. Every time I tried to write though, it was too much, too sad, too whiny. I always wanted to just sit and type, but nothing seemed to come out right. Even now, my writing just feels rambly, but I feel like It’s more important to get my feelings out there than create some sort of nice, well-written “piece” tied up nicely with a happy ending. Anyway, I had a really hard time in Spain. At the start I felt great, traveling around, taking easy classes with the program, getting to know the people on it. But once classes at the university started, I got super depressed. I was living alone with an older woman. She was amazing, and I feel lucky I got to meet her and live with her, but I wasn’t used to living in such a solitary way. I’d lived with my family before or at school surrounded by friends. I didn’t do well being alone for so much of the day, especially since I’m not very good at actively planning my alone time. I started to feel like a failure whenever I was alone, just wasting time and feeling miserable. I didn’t take time to plan things for myself that I could enjoy so I just would scroll through the internet aimlessly, forgetting to eat until I was so hungry I felt sick. I also began to feel super paranoid about my social interactions with the people on my program, thinking I was acting weird and everyone could tell and they thought I was weird. Just this kind of social anxiety I’d never encountered before. This was all combined with my struggles being in a long-distance relationship. It was hard for me to be apart from my gf, since she’s not always great at reaching out/letting me know she cares when we’re not physically together. I found my classes stressful, and felt bad that I didn’t know anyone in the class. Days went by with me eating (sometimes hardly anything), going to class, coming home, sleeping, and feeling worse and worse.
Eventually I felt like I couldn’t do it anymore. Everything was all too much. I got to a point where I felt desperate and wrong and broken. Like no one loved me or would ever love me again. Like I would never feel ok again. Just depressed. I had felt this way a bit during the end of my last semester and also over the summer, but this was different. Then, I felt stressed from school, my job over the summer wasn’t super rewarding, and I didn’t have any friends there. But Spain was supposed to be fun. I was actually really enjoying parts of it, and I didn’t feel like there was anything actually wrong. But there I was, super depressed. And that made me feel even worse, like I wasn’t allowed to feel sad on this super amazing experience. It was so traumatic and draining and difficult, and I just wasn’t really in a place where I had the support I needed. So, eventually, I sought out a therapist.
She was able to help me kind of unpack everything that was going on. I was able to realize that just because the people on my program weren’t bad people, and they were nice enough, doesn’t mean that they were the kind of people I actually like hanging out with, and the short time we had together also prevented any actual deep connection from forming. I misread these small factors as something being deeply wrong with me. I felt that I couldn’t make friends or that there was something wrong with me for feeling bad in the larger group, when really I just need a few people with who I can have a really deep connection, and without that, I start to feel really alienated and weird and anxious. I was also able to realize that I had been making myself feel bad for the fact that my gf wasn’t giving me the attention/care I needed. I would make excuses for why she was ignoring me or not talking to me, saying she was just busy or very stressed, then when we did talked, I got upset at her when she said nothing was wrong, because if nothing was wrong, why didn’t she want to talk to me? I was able to talk to her though, and she was really receptive, especially because she knew it was a problem she had had in the past. I felt bad for not realizing it sooner, and punishing myself for feeling sad that I needed her more than she needed me, but really, I had to realize that I deserve to have someone who talks to me and checks up on me and makes me feel loved and wanted. And it’s ok to ask for that from your partner. It’s funny, because in my past relationship, I was so good about asking and telling and demanding what I needed, but because I was in a situation where I already felt incapable of being alone, I interpreted this as just another way in which I was fucked up, asking too much, being too weak and needy. I had to realize for myself that what I needed wasn’t asking too much. It’s reasonable. It’s necessary. That realization felt really powerful to me.
The funniest thing my therapist ever said to me is that in my life, all I want is a building where all my friends and family live in the same place, my gf and I share an apartment, and everyone I’ve ever loved is just a short walk away. But this building doesn’t exist, my life will never work out that way. I’ve gone to school 6 hours from where I live, made friends from all over the world, my gf’s family lives across the ocean, and many of my friends from home have plans for the future that will take them far, far away. So moving forward, for me, it’s important to put my energy into the friendships that make me feel happy and not waste time trying to get everyone to like me.
I’m still unsure of where to go from here. I know I still have a long way to go before I’m 100% ok, especially since being aware of things is only a small portion of actually getting better. I broke down when I was in paris about to go to my gf’s house for christmas. I got really really upset over a small thing, I still carried the insecurity I had about our relationship that I had built up over a semester of being apart from her, even now that we were together again. I apologized for getting upset, saying I hadn’t been feeling myself. I began to sob heavily when I tried to think back to the last time I felt like myself and realized it was before I even went abroad. I guess after that, I felt like I could start to leave behind everything that had made me unhappy abroad. With her family, I could just relax. I could be myself and be with her and not have to impress or make friends or feel like I was being judged. She was physically there and I was reminded of how much she loved me every morning when we woke up next to each other. I felt safe. And now I’m home, I’m with my family, I can try to see some of you. I’ll go back to school and see the friends I’ve made there. But I feel like this whole experience has left me torn open. I know it was important to learn these things about myself. To try to listen to what I need and give it to myself. To treat myself with kindness. To put work into the friendships that matter to me. To ask for the things that I need. But I still hate how weak it made me feel, how powerless and utterly alone I felt. And I have to be careful to try to avoid going to that place again, but also, if I find myself there, to be kind and patient with myself, the way I would be with any friend who was going through a hard time.
