It's Time

I haven't written in some weeks now... furthering myself from this hobby of mine because I thought I was happy. Going to the gym, studying relatively well and seeing friends regularly - it seemed like the holiday had done me some good and for a while it was good.

A few things have happened since. Last week, my friend LR and I had to present a case to the specialists and our colleagues on viral infections, which were not taught very well in our degree thus far. All students had to present and we all have been for three weeks now. LR and I presented last week and we were anxious. The presentations so far were quite good and the standards very high. We went in with a smile and presented our 6 night's worth of research, notes and important points. It was all going quite well until the students asked questions we didn't know the answer to and the specialist decided to test the extent of our knowledge by asking us to attempt them. Most of the time we were corrected, but the questions went on for 20 minutes and  it really was demoralising for me because it kept ending in I'm sorry I didn't look that part up or that's a very important question and I didn't look it up. But in the end, we were reassured that it was a good talk. I still have mixed feelings about it.

The most concerning thing now is my girlfriend. She has been through a lot of stress lately - exams, assignments, assessments, job interviews, honours, literature reviews and God knows what else. This has been going on for about 2 months and I have kept my own sorrow, stories and events to myself since. Especially since during my surgical placement she asked me to stop talking about the daily things that affected me - they were overwhelming.. too much. And that's fair. So I stopped talking about myself, my concerns and my feelings. Eventually, I started realising that there was a serious problem with this.

Since I refrained from talking about myself, my girlfriend took advantage of that - she didn't ask me much about my days and enjoyed the attention she received from me about her day, work and study. I helped her as much as I could - picking her up and dropping her off, buying her food and drink, offering to read her work, study with her and be an audience to her presentation rehearsals. But in the process of all this, I was left out. So was my family.

Not going into too much detail, I started feeling quite unwell these past couple of weeks as her attention toward me has been minimal. She doesn't call often or message. When she does, we're talking about her and how she is doing. She also complains that her mobile phone cap is exceeded and I can't comprehend where all that credit is going considering talking to me is free due to our contracts. She tells me she's out studying with her sister, friends or on her own.. but I just can't understand how she's able to do that for 12 hours a day, several days at a time. If I look at one factor at a time, it seems reasonable - but when I put it all together into how my girlfriend is behaving toward me - it doesn't seem right.

I started losing sleep. I lost my appetite and couldn't study. I didn't feel motivated to get in touch with my friends or to pay my bills on time. I started getting scared about all the work I have to do with research, the end of year exams and my professional commitments.

The last few days - my whole life seemed to have changed. I was doing absolutely no study and work was only something I was doing as a necessity, not as a vocation to help others. I started distancing myself from my family and my friends - I didn't want to take phone calls, or make them. My eating habits have gone haywire and I have been eating more unhealthily in the last few days than I have this whole year.

She asked me to call her this morning because I told her I wasn't well. After talking about my loss of appetite for a while, she realised that maybe there was more to this than my appetite and asked: do you want to start an argument or something? - it sounded like she was expecting me to be angry with her.. so it's almost as if she knew she was doing a few things wrong. So I told her I wasn't angry; I was feeling neglected.

Neglected? What the fuck do you think I've been doing all this time? You're so selfish!


... ?

Talking to my 'soul mate' about the fact that I feel alone and left out made her think I was selfish. And normally, I would feel very guilty about that given her situation of exams and work. But I couldn't believe she lashed out at me when I told her what I did. It infuriated me.

Stop playing games with me. If you have an issue with me or anything, why don't you spit it out instead of keeping bottled up all this time?


The answer to that was simple: because you've got a lot on, I just don't want to be in the middle of all of it and I've ended up there anyway. 


So what do you want?


Well, with that attitude, I was NOT in any mood to tolerate anything.

Well I called you because you asked me to and to tell you that I am not well, feeling sad and down. I bring up that you are the reason that this is happening and you call me selfish. I don't think you care about me - I think we should break up. 


When she's pissed off, she says anything and that makes me very angry because her words do more than sting, especially when I'm feeling as vulnerable as I am now.

Let's break up then! I'm sick of your bullshit. 


That's what I get told when I call my soul mate to tell her that I'm feeling down, upset and hurt. So I simply agreed and hung up the phone.

I thought we had something going. But as time has gone on - it seems that this was mostly about her. My studies, my life and my worries are but 4th or 5th on her list of concerns.

I never envisioned it would come to this. I was hoping we would get married, have children and take care of each other. We have spent the last 4 years developing what I thought was something beautiful.

But now, the foundations of the 4 years have been shaken, probably beyond repair.

I will not contact her. But somewhere inside me, I hope she attempts to sort it out... but in the same place, I know she won't.