A Journal
I was told I should start journaling again by my therapist and I think it would be helpful. So here's my running diary. entry one starts now.
Lately things have been better than they were. I went through a period of some real bad anxiety and depression for a couple weeks and I think I'm starting to improve, slowly but surely.
I moved two thousand miles away from home for grad school, started my program, broke up with my now ex back home, went to living with four roommates who have very different personalities. I'm still not sure I'm over it, the breakup. And that upsets me, since it happened two months ago and I initiated it. I really want to be over it. I want to not care. But we were together for four years and lived together during covid lockdowns so I guess its just really hard. Especially not having a social support group here. I can't exactly go to my supervisor and be like "hello mr. supervisor I broke up with my boyfriend I feel sad :(" Like what would he do with that information besides say "that sucks". What's worse is my brain has dragged me around to try to latch on to crushes or whatever, if adults have those, and I guess I don't know, I feel like I just want to feel loved and supported again? Or not loved and supported. I just want some serotonin, to be honest. I want the excitement and joy that comes out of someone liking you, you liking someone, having a connection with another human being. Even if there's absolutely no reason to allow that to happen besides "this is an eligible person in the same room as me".
So, I turned to dating apps. That lasted three days. I couldn't handle it. It was miserable. I didn't give a shit about any of these people. All the guys would talk about was stupid stuff. Like their truck, their picture of their dog, dumb hobbies, whatever. It was... so boring. And I'm bi, too, so I was also looking at women. let me tell you, northern canada has a short supply of gay women on their dating apps.
So I deleted it all. I was even supposed to meet a guy but god, I couldn't stand the prospect so i cancelled.
I just want to avoid what happened before. I was with someone, we were... content. Met on a dating app. We were technically compatible. But something just felt wrong. I don't know if i can even explain it in words. It was like he loved me because "you're cute, you're funny" like... anyone can be cute and funny, go find someone else who is cute and funny then. Like, I gave up my college years to not only be with you, but also be a caregiver to you while you were sick, and also kicked ass in school, and all you think of me is... that I'm hot and fun. And don't get me started about his thoughts on sex. By the end I would just cry during intercourse and not know why, but the truth was because I knew he thought it was like the most important thing in a relationship (he actually said that!!! and I stayed?????? crazy) but i just felt bored and numb and ugh. It didn't feel deep. it didn't feel serious. It felt like he didn't really know me (he didn't think I was going to move for school, didn't get why I would get mad/passionate at things I cared about) I know I made the right decision breaking up. And I really don't think I can find that depth of like, mutual admiration and respect and support and complete love that I'm looking for without knowing the person first as like a friend, which is why the dating app thing just... had me fucked up.
All in all, I feel really lonely and bored though. Because I was wrapped up in my relationship for four years of undergrad, I had isolated myself from my friends back home so they don't really text me outside of a group chat, which is pretty quiet. Because adults in grad school. I'm slowly making friends here, if by friends you mean coworkers and classmates. I only talk to my one labmate through text. And we've hung out together a few times. But now she's busy on weekends because, lucky her, started talking to a guy, which is good really. just lonely for me. I'm really, really proud of myself for busting out of my shell and starting study groups and things for my classmates. Not many people show up but, people show up! and that's really good. but it does feel disappointing that the turnout isn't better, and that i've had to initiate every single time. I'm very introverted and tend to wait for people to ask me to do things rather than do the things myself. This is exhausting for me. Like, I enjoy it, running study groups and creating get togethers and team building, I really do. I just wish there were more, idk, involvement? More personal friendships out of it? If someone from my cohort, literally anyone, messaged me and said "want to hang out' I would be like! YES. Absolutely, one hundred percent. But because we're all the same damn personality type in our stem major hell, we never interact, so i know I have to be the one to do it. even if there's minimal turnout. It never feels like a friendship though. I'm more comfortable functioning through professional email. Maybe people are intimidated by me because of that, or think I'm weird but whatever I guess.
My roommates and I don't have the same interests and i mostly just cohabit as peacefully as possible. They're also all hanging with outside friends now or in relationships so they're busy with that. I'm just upset and, honestly, jealous that everyone's life is kind of starting and they're meeting people and forming friendships and forming relationships and I feel like I have to work quadruple as hard to do that with little payoff. I don't feel like I've made an impact on anyone. If someone said they admired me or were thankful for me at all? Im pretty sure I would literally start to cry.
Like I said my anxiety was really really bad. Like losing weight because I wouldn't go downstairs to eat for a week or so bad because I was so in my head about what other people were thinking about me. That feeling just never goes away for me. I got bullied really, really badly as a kid and i'm still working with my therapist on it. I'm trying really hard to just not care. I've started trying to not care, I've gone out shopping alone and driven off to go hike alone and those were fun things to do. I started going back in the kitchen too. It was still lonely though. I still found myself hoping someone would stop and say hello every time, though not at home since I don't quite trust my roommates, but you know what I mean. I want to get to the point where I don't need to feel like that anymore. Where I don't need the approval of others, or to worry about the approval of others, or the company of others to feel good about myself. But at the same time I don't want to completely isolate myself when I want to be making friends and reaching out and its honestly healthy after a big move to want to do that to a certain extent.
I'm just tired of the weekend arriving and feeling sadder and lonelier than during the work week. Its a saturday night and I'm home alone, watching the same movies and tv shows I always watch for comfort. dancing in my room if I get restless. sometimes i paint. usually i cry. i don't want to go to a bar alone or anything. thats really the only thing to do in town here on the weekend. I just feel so empty and lonely. I feel good when I'm working and when I'm in the lab but when I'm not I just feel alone. ill go out to the cafe just to sit in the presence of other people during the day. but at night (which is dang early up here) its just loneliness.
Maybe journaling like this will help me feel better. right now I feel like I'm screaming into the void. I think that's really all I do lately.
@casiopea3199
Hi Casio,
I, myself, journal and I have been doing this since my teens. It helps me understand areas I would like to change, and to also see where I am in life. There is nothing wrong with being Bi-Sexual your not alone there. Journal writing is like a things to do list and can help you in expressing how you feel.
Your not alone here on 7 cups and if you should need anyone to chat with please feel free to Pm me or any other listener.
Journal post 2
Tonight is really bad. Some days feel worse than others. Sunday felt incredible. I had a great study group with my classmates, I even talked with one on my way home and he was very nice. It felt like I was getting to know people and helpful.
But today I felt like I hit a big old wall. It was just miserable. I felt so lonely thinking about my breakup, so angry thinking that no one will ever love me the way I really want to be loved. I felt defeated and like I should just download a dating app and swipe on whoever and that'll be the person I'm trapped with the rest of my life I guess. Because why bother when no one is looking anyway.
I set up another study group, I pulled a bunch of strings to get us access to some anatomical models and stuff before our big exam this week and I was super excited. And people came but only for like, 15 minutes of the 2 hours booked, then they said they felt "unprepared" and left. One person even walked in and immediately walked out. I felt like such a goddamn failure. Like I scared them all away, or was too intimidating. I just wanted to help people and they were either too ashamed or just thought it was a waste of time and showed up out of pity.
I'm feeling excruciatingly lonely. The breakup thing has me losing my mind. I feel like I've messed up my whole life by breaking up with him. I feel like I thought I could be alone but clearly I cant, because I can't make friends and I can't find connections here.
I have the people who work with me in lab, but I'm the youngest by about 5 years of everyone else, 40 years in some cases. I'm trying to get to know my classmates by organizing these groups to study since our course is all just lecture and leave.
Grad school is fucking lonely. Moving is fucking lonely. My ex was right and I shouldn't have moved at all and I should have stayed. I dont actually believe that, but sometimes its hard not to feel that. I really want to be here. I really want to make a home here and make friends and love what I'm doing. But I feel so trapped in my own loneliness. It doesn't help that my roommates are all in new relationships and making lots of friends, and everyone in my lab is either married, dating, or talking to someone.
I just can't help but feel like everyone around me finds me obnoxious, and even if people did like me, they wouldn't for the reasons i want to be liked. I want to be an intelligent person, someone people can trust, but all I am is a stupid ditz who can't do anything right and people think "aw thats cute". You know whats not cute? My full ride scholarship through all of undergrad, busting my ass off through the graduate level courses so I could get to where I am, surviving having depression and anxiety for as long as i can damn remember and still making it here, already having two publications under my belt, moving to another country for school and leaving everything I loved behind to find something even better. I'm the person who gets shit done whether people realize it or not. I'm smart, i'm compassionate, I could absolutely kick ass if i needed to, and I'm tired of the only thing people seeing me as being "cute". or "funny". I'm not a fucking delicate baby, Im not here for sex and to kiss your booboos and make everything feel better because its my womanly fucking duty, I'm an absolute delight and I absolutely have the capability to ruin your life if i fucking want to. how dare people not realize that? How dare they not know or bother to know?
I've gone from sad to angry in the last two minutes. I feel like a failure and a disgrace to myself. Because I am so damn lonely! But i know I cannot give in and just hop on a dating app and say whatever, because that would be the absolute antithesis of what I know I want and need. I need to be lonely, I need to be alone, because anything I find on there, that's all fake. That's all not real. Its people looking at a profile I've crafted to draw them in, and they won't see the real person I am or know how cool I am. They won't care, they'll immediately be thinking about SEX SEX SEX SEX SEX WHAT A CUTE WITTLE BABY. Because that was my last four years and I have put up with that shit long enough. I'm so angry I would even want "love" right now because let's be clear, no one knows me well enough to really love me here yet.
I'm clearly having a good night. I'm going to go cry now and hope this makes sense at my therapy appointment tomorrow.
Journal entry three:
I'm at home for the holidays and it's been quite the experience. Let me catch you up to speed.
1. My supervisor's life in lab completely fell apart for personal reasons. His mental health tanked and now he is in and out. In a way it helps to know someone else is going through these things and he isn't judgemental about my own struggles with my mental health. However it also leaves me without a lot of direction and support and I'm trying to start up a project for my thesis right now.
2. Still don't like my roommates. I know there's nothing I can do to change them, or to change my living situation. I'm trying to go back after break to take a more chilled out approach to them, not engaging but still allowing myself to be present in the living spaces and not feel stuck inside my room and miserable. I may also feel clean my room and also buy myself a mini fridge to give myself a little bit of space for when I am feeling overwhelmed going downstairs.
3. Im hanging with a classmate. We're friends I think? It's hard to tell. To be fair Im the one giving really mixed signals to the poor guy. I was really lonely on a weekend and asked him to hang out since he'd been to a lot of things I planned for class. Then I think it turned into a date? but I couldn't tell. Kind of hard with a language barrier... Then he asked me to hang out again. Now he's sending me messages asking how my vacation is going. He's made no romantic move at all but alarm bells go off in my head that he's interested. I feel confused mostly. I'm still not over my breakup. I'm still really upset when I think about it and that's going to stick around for a while. I'm not ready for a relationship and I don't even know if I'd want one with this guy. But I'm definitely ready for a friend and I don't want to lose the only one I have by doing anything drastic.
4. I come home for the holidays and everything just feels bad and wrong. There's family struggles with my grandparents. They've gotten really bad anxiety wise since covid and I can tell it's aged them significantly. Then there's actual covid, and not being able to go out and do things with my parents because it really isn't wise right now, and my "friend" from my class letting me know that everything is closing back home now and I'll have to isolate when I get back and they're locking down again.. it's just really really tiring at this point. I want to feel like I'm living a normal life again. On top of that my parents keep talking about how they want to move sometime in a few years and I can't stop thinking about how if this covid thing continues this could be the last time I ever see my home. The home I grew up in and the town I love and all that could all be gone, with no reason to go back, at any given moment.
All in all I think I'm so stressed and anxious because in my life I don't have control. I'm just floating around seeing where life takes me and trying to grab on but every time I do something falls apart, like my supervisor's stuff or my family being a mess or my parents wanting to move or covid picking up. I feel so little control and it makes it really hard to feel like an adult with autonomy. I want to feel like I do have control, and some things are good and going well, and that I'm at the very least content. At this point it's the question of how to live with being out of control.
Journal Entry 4
It's been a few months and things are changing a lot. It's crazy.
I found a partner. Like a great one. Like someone I met and instantly connected with. It was like as soon as we started talking I knew he was the person for me. It was absolutely crazy. I love him more than anything in the world and we're only a few months in to knowing each other. He is smart and funny and most of all so so so compassionate and kind and honest and emotional. He genuinely wants to get to know me. It makes me want to cry just thinking about him because I love him so much.
He is struggling a lot right now too. It's hard for me to watch because I don't want the person I love to suffer. He deserves so much happiness and he doesn't know how much his presence is infectious and lights up a room. He's everything to me. I know I can't change brain chemistry, and I know all I can do is be supportive, but it can be hard.
It changed my world. It changed my life. It changed me getting to know him. Because finally there is someone in the universe who wants to be with me, actually me, not in an immature way, but in an emotionally available way. I was so despressed when I moved here. So depressed. So sad. So anxious and scared. And now I am so lucky I have someone special and wonderful I can share life with. Who likes looking for frogs in the summers, and hiking through mud, and who points at the sky and smiles when it rains or it's cloudy. Someone who hugs me and loves me even when I am not my best. I love him so much. I will do absolutely everything in my power to make sure he is the most loved person in the universe.
I'm still sad and anxious. That hasn't completely gone away. But I am at least less so than I was. I feel better about being able to make friends. I think I can hang out with my labmates a couple times even next month, which is exciting.
I just don't know what to do when I'm feeling anxiety and don't want to hurt my partner. Today I was very stressed, and I'm worried he felt upset or unappreciated. I told him in t sorry a million times, and said thank you, and how much I appreciate him and his support. I hope he believes me. I hope I didn't ruin this. He deserves better than the stress I put on him when he is already struggling himself.
Overall I would rate my mental health about a 5/10. So much better than the 2 I would've given myself in the fall. Hopefully it stays that way and continues to improve
