Men What was the worst year of your life? And how did you recover form it?

Last year really.

I had just started university, and had a relationship with someone overseas (A looooong way away), I was quite confident and an overall happy person, being very sociable and driven in what I wanted to do. I didn't want to be 'that guy' that goes to uni and breaks up with their partner, so I kept with her despite the consequences, even if it seemed weird to people. This proved to be a big mistake, the timezone differences meant that I had to go to bed late and wake up early, then nap during the day. The people I lived with were also jerks and really not my type of people, which sapped my confidence a lot. I found myself losing track of my hobbies, performing worse academically, becoming less and less sociable. generally not taking care of myself at all. What really made it hurt was that during easter I flew off to see the person who I loved at the time, but she cheated on me (Made out with a guy then went on 'midnight walks' with him) and made my life a misery whilst I was over there. By the end of it I was completely broken, I was acting completely out of character and I got an eating problem during it. I would barely eat, sometimes for days, and the times in which I did eat I'd vomit it back up. It's an awful feeling to be proud that you finally ate something for the first time in a few days to just throw it back up.

After all that happened, for a while I just sort of sat and thought. Mostly about my life choices, and why everything happened the way it did. I cut off contact with everyone who made me feel bad, I stopped talking to my ex, I had a contract to live with the flatmates next year in a six bedroom house (Don't know what I was thinking at the time, I guess just under-confidence) but I managed to get out of that over the summer by swapping myself with someone else.

Just before the summer I started hanging out with a different group of people that I liked but had never gotten to hanging around with. They immediately accepted me and were really great. I also picked up the bass and singing to get back into hobbies and formed a band with one of them. During the summer I funded my own holiday to Italy and had a bit of a casual fling with this really gorgeous Italian/Belgium girl that was going to do fashion in Manchester. I also met heaps of people over there which were all amazing. I got back and spent the rest of the summer being social again, and working on myself. I even picked up writing again (An old hobby). I had done really poorly performance wise on my last few exams because of the stress before the summer, but I managed to pass! Bingo, I was into second year. (And luckily the first year grades don't count, you just need above 40%)

I ended up living with the group of people I really liked, started working out at the gym, studied a lot more (On my way to a First) and do a lot of random stuff that I wouldn't have done beforehand. There are times when I still feel sad, I don't blame my ex for leaving me. I wasn't the person she once knew, I barely talked and when I did it was frankly just stuff that had no bearing. I can blame her for the way she acted though, I was falling apart and she made it so much worse.

I've had the chance to be in a relationship a few times since then, probably the one I got closest too was the Belgium/Italian girl in Manchester, but I just can't do that right now. I don't want anyone to affect how I act, I'm doing my own thing, going towards my own goals. I don't want to become attached to someone just to go through that again.

In all honesty, the best thing to do is start small, and build yourself back up through sheer willpower. Do what you know would help you and make you feel good in life, cut out the bad parts aswell. I no longer talk to my old flatmates, but while I'd usually feel at least a little bit sad about it, I don't at all. It may not seem a lot at first, but if you treat life as just one big journey to get better in all your aspects, you tend to find yourself moving forward and being a lot happier. Stagnating was an awful experience.

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