First of all, the year I started uni (2017) was also the year my boyfriend broke up with me. I moved to Worcester for uni in September and he broke up with me several months before in February. It was not a good time. I didn’t know how to deal with it and still don’t to this day. Ever since then I’ve just been pushing it to the back of my mind because if I do think about it I just simply cannot function. I’m now only coming to realize that I have to move on but I’m finding it impossible. Even one little thought about never seeing him again and my eyes start to water and I start to choke up. The thing is, I don’t even know why I care so much, it’ not like he treated me perfectly, he always criticised me for my weight and generally just wasn’t that supportive or helpful, not forgetting extremely impatient with me. This isn’t really the main reason why my university experience has been so bad.

The main reason is that of loneliness, and not being able to move on from my ex just emphasizes my loneliness so much more. I’ve never really needed/wanted a large group of friends, all of my life I have been pretty lonely or not having many friends at school because I was “different” (in relation to my weight). My current situation is this: I have a best friend who I have known for 16 years who lives back in Birmingham. I have my “friends”, or as I prefer to call them “peers”, from my uni course. (Yes, I live in university managed halls, I have moved once because I did not get along with my previous housemates, my current ones are just extremely anti-social and hardly come out of there rooms)

I don’t really talk to my best friend a lot, I don’t really feel that close to her anymore honestly, she definitely doesn’t know anything about how I am feeling. I really don’t see her that often, so that probably doesn’t help. My peers from uni commute so I don’t really get a chance to get to know them outside of uni, plus I am pretty much the opposite of them and apart from university we don’t have much in common, therefore we don’t really talk to each other much unless it’s about an essay or anything uni related. The truth is I’ve never really felt comfortable talking to people about my emotions and feelings, especially not girls, I always feel like I have to be extremely cautious when around girls because of how judgmental some of them can be. I generally prefer the company of men, usually, because I tend to have more in common with them (video games, anime etc) however because my last relationship completely destroyed any confidence I had, I find it extremely hard to make friends with anyone. I joined the gaming society at my university which is 90% men but I just feel like I’m really not interesting or like anyone wants to bother with me because I look boring or because of my weight. My weight has been an ongoing issue since I have been young, I have always been aware of it but it has only been in the last 7 years I have realized I need to do something about it. So far I have not been successful, at all. I recently got a personal trainer and I joined a gym in September, I’m not really losing enough weight for me to feel satisfied, I really want to lose all my weight by June but with my current mindset, I don’t think it’s going to happen.

I thought my first year of uni would be where I would grow up and make some actual friends and finally make my way to being somewhat happy, but it’s all just gone downhill. Funnily enough I have meeting with a counsellor tomorrow, so I should hopefully be able to get a few things off my chest then, but I don’t have high hopes for it, I have seen several counsellors and been to many sessions of CBT and none of it has really started to help me in any way. Also yes, I have been on several types of medication, the medication had some effect on me but I generally just felt the same most of the time.

I cannot find the words to explain how isolated, lonely, stupid and stuck I feel. Somtimes things are just way too hard for me, like today something set me off and I cannot stop feeling like this, and I just want it all to be over.