Ciao,
Today my blog post comes from a place of necessity, I need to get these thoughts out of my brain and onto paper as a form of therapy. I need to express my frustrations and talk about how much I am struggling with my life at this moment in time in the hope that my clarity will return.
For the past few years my life has felt very out of my control, I really began to struggle with life in general in my second year of university. I broke up with my boyfriend just before my second year began and this plunged me into a very dark hole. I didn't really enjoy university in my first year and being heartbroken in my second year did nothing to help this. Even planning a year abroad didn't ignite a passion for my degree and I spent so much of my second year at university sleeping and binge watching comedy programmes. Little did I know my third year at university would be even harder than I could imagine and in ways I never dreamed in my worst nightmare. My Dad's illness and eventual passing away were without a doubt the hardest thing I've ever experienced and probably will ever experience again. I've changed substantially as a person as a result of my struggles over the past few years and this is having a massive effect on my life now.
I was lucky to never endure any hardship over my childhood and teenage years. I am very aware that sadly many people have to grow up through adversity and painful situations. I will always be grateful that my first 20 years on this earth were blissfully untroubled. I am also aware that I by no means have an awful life but I have learnt that this doesn't mean that it is unacceptable for me to be unhappy and that it is not selfish for me to struggle with the place I currently find my life. There are many aspects of my life that I am unhappy with, some are in my control and others are not and I am still learning to accept the things I cannot change.
I have never been a pessimistic person but over the past 6 months, since returning to university I have been increasingly negative. I have so many days, like today, where I don't get out of bed, I don't attend my lectures and I don't even care. I struggle to get up everyday and go and sit in lectures which I don't enjoy, in an environment that makes me feel inadequate and chips away at my confidence slowly. I have days where I feel like I can do the work, I will pass my degree and that it is all possible. Equally I have days where all I want to do is walk away from it and do something which makes me happy again. I only have weeks left until I am finished and will never have to attend a lecture ever again. I should be sad at the thought of this but I am excited that finally I will be free of something which has felt like a burden for the past four years of my life. University has definitely not been the experience I expected, I am walking away from it with a best friend who has supported me more than anyone I know and with better knowledge of myself as a person, for which I am grateful. Everything else you supposedly gain from university, I don't feel I have and if I could go back and make a different decision I would. I cannot wait to be free of my obligation to uni, I will be proud to have completed it despite my circumstances but I honestly can't wait for it to be over.
On top of feeling trapped by my university degree I am also struggling with being without three people who have been a massive part of my life. I am lucky to be surrounded by a supportive family and several amazing friends but I am without people I have relied on for many years and this is something I am struggling with. I am still grieving for my Dad who was more than just my father and whose absence affects me every single day in one way or the other. I have been through a rollercoaster relationship which has been on and off continuously for the past four and a bit years and has now come to an end. I am hundreds of miles away from one of my best friends and go months and months without seeing her. I am so used to having these three people in my life every single day and to be in a position where I am now without all three is very strange and often painful, especially while I am struggling with other aspects of my life.
Dealing with these things is problem enough without my severe lack of confidence. I know that to most people I know I come across as very confident but I have reached a point where my confidence has been severely damaged. I have no body confidence whatsoever and am struggling to get back on track with weight loss and healthy living, I am feeling the effects of this in my mood and energy as well as my confidence. As well as a lack of body confidence I am lacking confidence in my own ability. I feel so far behind so many of my peers at university and have now reached the end of my degree and am clueless as to where I want to go next. Both things are affecting my confidence and I feel aimless and daunted by my unknown direction in life.
Each individual issue I have is manageable, they are not life threatening and most are not permanent but when all of them are weighing down on you it is hard to see how best to move forwards. It feels like my sky is full of little grey clouds which on some days allow the sun to peak through but on others merge together into a gigantic black rain cloud which floods my life and threatens to drown me. It is sometimes almost impossible to remember that it doesn't rain everyday and that even when it does you can use an umbrella to protect yourself while you wait for the sunshine. I know my life will get better, the journey is hard and I'm sure it will have many bumps along the way, I just need to persevere and always remember that I am allowed to have days where I hate the world, as long as I get up the next day and carry on.
Ciao for now...
