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I was brutal with expectation on myself. On top of that, I chose one of the most difficult paths in education and living as an expatriate in a country that is not as friendly as mine.
This is my story as an ongoing survivor.
I had my violent battles with loneliness, anxiety and coping disorder. But I possess a tough, unfriendly exterior that it fools even my family and close friends. Unless I initiate it, no one has a clue that I am suffering.
I struggled throughout the first year of getting my Master. I excelled in my studies but I was excruciatingly alone and I craved human affection dearly that I gradually lose myself. I was having an identity crisis by the end of the first semester.
I met my first fling around this time. Let’s name him Y. He was a North African by descent and he particularly detested his former religion. There was nothing of him that I like – he has a terrible body odour, narcissist, in-compassionate and antipathetic.
We had a huge amount of bickering excessively on insignificant things. I am not sure how I came to be close to him; we had nothing in common, but we became something very akin to friends with benefits. I lost my guarded chastity to him after a couple of months together.
Around the same time I met my first boyfriend, K. He lives in a neighbouring country and the distance between us is the reason why I kept seeing Y in the evenings and weekends that I was unable to pay K a visit.
The affairs with them both deteriorated my former integrity as a moral person and I fell deeper down the rabbit hole. It worsened with the fact that both think that they are the one that popped my cherry. Yes, I lied in order to keep both relationships alive.
I promised myself, again and again, to end things with Y. I did not like him, not one bit, why should I keep seeing him between classes? It just did not make any sense in my mind. And I knew that after my last physical moments with K that he was my first love.
But, again and again, I broke my own promise until Y departed somewhere quite faraway for his internship. He asked me to come visit him in his city yet till this day I never do; I consider this as an achievement since I was once an avid people-pleaser.
Things between me and K began to crumble soon after Y left – K responded shorter and shorter to my texts and called me so less frequent that I remembered two weeks of not hearing his voice. My heart was broken but no tear was shed, and I began having anxiety attacks almost every night. Nevertheless I shot him text after text, ungrudgingly asking if he was okay, how was his family and his job…
At this point I was not seeing Y for two months and K for four. I had not contacted my mom for weeks and I had not a single close friend in the city. I felt something new, something painful in my chest that only now I know it was depression.
K and I promised to see each other for one night in his city. I was looking forward to this – I missed him tremendously. Night after night leading to the meeting I dreamed of him and I longed him so much that I did exactly one thing that he saw as his deal breaker – I sent a message to his friend on Instagram.
You might pity me and sided with me. But I knew very well in the hindsight of my action of what was coming. He broke up with me – in the most cowardly way, by ghosting. I genuinely respected his decision; if he no longer had feelings for me, there was no use of dwelling in a sluggish relationship. But till now I wish there is closure for us both, so I could learn from my mistakes. There must be more than just texting his friend.
Today I am in a much better place – I sought help from a psychiatrist, took an anti-depressant, moved city, had an internship in a big company, made a couple friends from soirees and workplace and found my man who I am very fond of and admire as an equal. We had an intense compatibility from the get-go and I see future with him as my husband and a father of my children; which none of this occurred with my exes.
I still receive texts from Y and I show them to my boyfriend without fear. I no longer have nightmares and tribulations from anxiety and depression. Biggest of all, I never have to contemplate any call, text and behaviour from my current significant other as he never failed to show me his feelings, hope, fear and insecurities in a respectable manner. I know, only very recently, how a true, mature love feels like.
I am still young, growing and learning how to love someone, but if I can give a little advice for you is: if someone loves you back, you do not have to chase – he/she will make you know. And you’re not alone, you never are.
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