Feeling Alone at 21

I’ve finally learned to accept that I feel alone. When I’m by myself, I start to overthink my whole life and why I’m so unhappy. Some of the things I think about include:

1. Why do I feel alone?
2. Are my friends really my friends?
3. Will I ever get better?
4. Should I really be in a relationship?
5. Should I break up with my boyfriend now, rather than have him seeing me as a burden later on?
6. Should I just disappear?

I know there are more things that I think about, but I'm going to begin explaining how I started feeling alone.

It all started in year eight, I made a video that accidentally got seen by some of my friends. They told me that they wouldn’t tell anyone (clearly that was not the case), but somehow it got spread around to all my peers in my same age group. This is when the bullying began. I would get name called in class from behind me and cyber-bullied by people online, mainly from guys. I didn’t tell a teacher because I was afraid that they would tell my parents and that they wouldn’t see me the same way. So I just kept it to myself, I didn’t tell anyone including my best friends. I began distancing myself and dealing with the bullying one day at a time. During that period of two years, I began to start feeling the effects of depression, I didn’t know I had depression until I was in year 11. I just knew in that time that I didn’t want to be here anymore and just preferred being alone so I didn’t have to hear comments about me.

Fast forward to year 12, the bullying ended but the feeling of unhappiness continued. I got a boyfriend in year 12 and I thought that would give me some happiness in my life, it sadly didn’t. During that time I had a falling out with my best friends and my relationship with my boyfriend went from great to being okay. But after I graduated from secondary school and started university it went from okay to bad. During this, I still had a hard time making friends and my grades weren’t that great in my second year. But it finally got from bad to worse in my last year. I got even more depressed and finally realised that my boyfriend wasn’t good for me. I never realised how controlling he was as a person, he didn't like the way I dressed. I normally wore jeans and he hated the idea of guys looking at me with them on and also hated that I didn’t wear dresses. He felt more like a teacher than a boyfriend, making me learn things he wanted me to learn and not seeing how I wasn’t enjoying it.

It finally clicked in my head that I didn’t love this person anymore in August of 2017, but in my head, I wanted to try and make it work. It sadly didn’t change, so I decided to break up with him in October. That didn’t work, he started crying, then I started crying so I gave him a second chance. But still, nothing changed, even when he visited me I didn’t feel a connection with him. So I finally broke up with him in March of 2018, it was the hardest thing I ever had to do since I had never broken up with anyone before and we were dating for three years.

You would think the pain and depression would end, it sadly didn’t. What I should have done was take a break and be single, but I managed to fall into another relationship. This person was able to understand the pain I was feeling and had similar issues in his previous three-year relationship. But I found out this person was more depressed than I was and I basically couldn’t help him in his times of need. As a result, he broke up with me three times in the six weeks we were together. The icing on the cake was that he properly broke up with me the day after my birthday. I was devastated and I didn’t understand why he told me I was making him feel worse about himself. I had a feeling it was something else, so I become mentally unstable. Writing my dissertation became such a struggle, I couldn’t concentrate and focus on doing well. I eventually found out the real reason he broke up with me was that he had feelings for another girl. I was more devastated. My dissertation didn’t go well, I luckily managed to study for my exams and overall managed to get a 2:2 as an overall grade for my undergraduate. The only thing that made me happy was that I got my place at my master's course.

This leads to the present, I’m still dealing with the things I’m feeling. But I hope soon I will be able to go to a therapist to talk about my feelings. I’m currently in a great relationship, but I feel that I may eventually become a burden to my boyfriend. The worse part is that this person was previously my friend.

I hope to try start opening up about my issues, I’m just worried that I’ll become a burden to the people that are around me. All I wish is to have my boyfriend hold me when I just feel depressed or anxious. Just having someone to care for me when I wouldn’t be able to do it myself. I lastly hope one day I will be free from the pain I’m feeling.