For me, it really happened without warning, in high school I was a pretty good student, seen quite well by the teachers, as a “stable” couple, everything perfect.
First post-baccalaureate year, engineering school: life’s first warning: “don’t be clever”, I had to reorient myself at the end of the year because I hadn’t worked enough, first questioning , but at 18/19, things are not going too badly: I reorient myself in a DUT where I find this status of good student, success, the “perfect” life that one can dream of at 20 years old.
Given my good results, I was offered at the end of my DUT to do an internship abroad, in the United States. Wanting to continue my course in an engineering school after this diploma, this kind of internship is a golden opportunity, I accept without asking too many questions, without discussing it too much with my girlfriend at the time, anyway it is only for 3 months, it will do. The internship is going well, I have good results, I finish top of my class, I am accepted in lots of schools, life is good.
Too beautiful, perhaps.
I remember the day when all this beauty deteriorated, I push the door of the apartment and I already feel a tension. I have been with my girlfriend for 3 and a half years at this point, we have known each other for 4 years, I know something is wrong.
She had problems in college but I felt that was not it. Obviously my first reaction is to give him some space, but I need to know.
She finally ends up saying these simple words to me: “it’s not like before”. The first feeling that comes to me is misunderstanding, we had never had any problems. So I try to free up time for her, even if it means skipping class. My academic success takes a hit but I can’t let her down, let us down.
Moreover, academic success: let’s talk about it: at this time as I said, I have been in the school of my choice for about 2 months, and the disillusionment is intense: in theoretical subjects (maths/physics etc ..) although having increased my DUT, I am far from having the level, and it is not easy to catch up with 2 years of scientific training in total autonomy, in addition to the “classic” workload. Luckily for me, the technical materials are rather simple and I manage to find a little space in my schedule to limit the breakage. Except in a subject where I have like 10% of the required background at the beginning of the module, and despite all my efforts, it is not possible to catch up.
So I’m on the next point: The only real couple I’ve had in my life is falling apart, without me really understanding why, my training is more than difficult, despite the efforts I make, it’s winter (in my mind, winter is always complicated).
The All Saints holidays arrive, we each take our holidays on our own, my girlfriend and I, and during these, she tells me that “it’s no longer useless, it’s over, we don’t want the same things anymore , our couple will stop there”.
Huge blow.
To resituate, I got together with this person, I was 17, I was in high school, I was 22 at the time, I literally built myself with this girl… I really felt a part of me that was hurting… I really, at that time, had my heart broken: pains in my chest continuously etc.
My family on my mother’s side is a large “old-fashioned” family, many children per family, often gathered around the grandparents who federate, who transmit their values.
One day, as I come out of yet another hour of class where I just had time to take the notes written on the board (so it will take 1.5x the duration of the class for me to understand these notes)(ah yeah and with these couple stories, it goes without saying that my school level hasn’t improved), my phone rings: My grandfather is in the hospital, we don’t know exactly why, but we’ll get some info soon: that never gives pleasure, but being someone very Cartesian, I don’t worry more than that: at his age (about 80 years old), health concerns are commonplace.
Apparently it would be a problem with the intestines, nothing alarming.
One evening, while I was chatting with a friend by text trying to develop a strategy to “win back” my ex (with whom I still live, 3 months notice: a happiness of psychological torture), he confided to me that in his opinion it is useless: he saw her with someone else no later than 2 or 3 days ago, and no doubt: it is not someone from his family or what. I’m beside myself, a mix of sadness, anger, incomprehension, fatigue… I’m freaking out (we swore to always tell each other everything, even that kind of thing, and I believed in it all the time). time) and I smash things in our apartment: I literally go through a door and several pieces of furniture fly.
A sleepless night on an uncomfortable sofa happens, I don’t go back to class the next day, I’m totally destroyed, I do my business, I load my car, but I can’t get in and drive: I have nowhere where to go.
I have partials the week after and I don’t know many people in the city.
Of course, I haven’t had many explanations about the situation, and it doesn’t seem that I will.
I call my mother and quickly explain the situation to her (she already had a lot of info, but now she’s flabbergasted (like me, she thought my girlfriend had personal problems, etc., but not that it was this kind of “worries”)) she will find me an apartment.
A few weeks go by, first week of exams, on a Thursday:
I finish an exam and go home to spend the afternoon there. She was there, we hadn’t seen or spoken for a few weeks because I had told her to leave the apartment and go to friends of ours while the situation evolves, it was really a torture to live sets.
We chat a bit and my phone rings:
My grandfather’s concern is actually more serious than it seems: a large tumor in the intestine, one in the lungs, and a lot of metastases all along the spine. He is condemned, he has 2 or 3 months left at most.
Two weeks before, he changed the roof of his garden shed.
I collapse, second blow, but hey, at his age it had to happen sooner or later: no one lives forever. (Here it is the rational person in me who speaks, in truth I did not have this hindsight right away)
Almost in stride arrive the Christmas holidays, the whole family gets together, without my grandfather suddenly: it’s weird.
He really had this role of patriarch and his absence is noticeable. I go to see him at the hospital, but it’s not him anymore, he must have lost 30% of his weight since the last time I saw him, he is pale, his cheeks sunken, he hardly speaks anymore … Surely not the image that we want to keep of his grandfather.
Let’s move on to Christmas parties where everyone asks you “why are you all alone this year” (Oddly I hadn’t made a press release to announce our breakup).
Here I am again, at the beginning of January in an empty apartment, alone, with the horrible feeling that a part of me has been torn away. It’s hard.
Second part of my upcoming partials: I only have the subject left where I have the most difficulty, my pet peeve, I have no mind at all for revisions, it’s a failure in advance , and probably a repetition (or a failure) that is looming.
One Monday, they called me: my grandfather died. I’m falling apart again, even though I expected it.
The conclusion at this point is as follows:
I’m 22 years old :
I have already repeated once, my year looks more than complicated to validate and obviously in the school where I am, repeating this year is not customary, especially when you come from “outside” like me. (Finally, to restore the facts afterwards, it would have been largely possible in view of my case, but I did not know it at this precise moment).
I am no longer myself insofar as I have literally lost my other half. And I don’t even really know who I am anymore (it seems weird to read, but people who have already experienced it will see exactly what I’m talking about). I only think of her, I sleep between 3 and 4 hours a night because as soon as I close my eyes I only think of her. It’s serious.
I just lost my grandfather, and I really feel like I didn’t “take advantage” of him enough (we lived 550 km away for 16 years…). I feel a lot guilty about it, it doesn’t help to find “who I am”: I don’t like myself or anymore.
This guilt makes me question myself, and I begin to make myself “guilty” of the whole story of my relationship that broke up:
I haven't been good enough, not up to it
Faced with this observation (which goes to my face in a few hours), I collapse. No way to go back to class (the least of my worries), I’m in all my states, I withdraw into myself and cut all ties with the outside world for more than a day.
I decided not to go to class during the days that followed, I zoned out in my apartment without doing anything, without sleeping…
And finally after several days, I see that I received an email. An email from a school teacher, student welfare officer or something like that. The content of the email is approximately as follows:
As the juries are approaching soon, we remind all students that if an element outside school life may have influenced your results, if you have something to point out to the team, or simply to discuss, you you can contact me or any other member of the school team.
At that time, I already had problems in my life, but this is the first time that I am so low, before I had always managed to make sense of things. I think a lot, not a fan of the concept of excusing or justifying my school failures. Anyway, after a long reflection, I decide to contact the teacher to request an appointment. I’m a little in a mood “revolted against this whore of life, as long as I got fucked, as much as it serves me”.
In the end, the appointment she offers me is in quite a long time, in any case too long for me, so I decide to contact my course manager who is a teacher that I appreciate and in whom I think I can confide.
He sees me in his office the next day, really not knowing what to expect.
I arrive, I think I must be at 5 hours of sleep in several nights and I lost close to 9kg in 2 months.
I refer to the email, explaining that I’ve had “a lot of trouble recently” and that “I want to share it” with him, to get his point of view, and above all, to talk about my partial, which takes place the next day (It’s a Thursday noon, I learned of the death on Monday, the partial is Friday afternoon, the funeral Saturday morning, 600km away, I’m clearly not in a state to drive, let alone at night And for nothing in the world I will miss it).
I start to tell my story, basically the same story as before, it’s very hard for me, but I also see that he is starting to understand what I’m going through.
After I finish telling, I’m tired, I think I used my last strength, my last tears to tell. But he clearly understood.
He comforts me as best he can. But above all, I see that he understands, and it feels good.
He reassures me that it will be considered in my results, that my reaction is totally human, excusable.
I am excused for the partial of the following day, I will pass in a next session with the other absentees. He encourages me to go to the funeral, skip school, and enjoy my grandfather one last time. What I do.
The funeral is “good” I don’t really know how to explain it, but it was so important for the whole family that we really all found ourselves, sad, but welded and were really able to exchange, share our memories everyone with him, crying but also laughing!
For the rest, in order to shorten this already much too long story: I was able to recover from this death, I finally passed my partial a few weeks later, on the advice of a close friend, I ” rebuilt” by investing myself in the association of my school, in a sports club, by playing sports. I validated this year, the one after, and I am now a graduate.
Regarding my relationships, I think the word “chaotic” must have been invented for that, between bandage relationship, “not to be alone” relationships, and toxic relationship, I had my share. I don’t know if it’s related to this story or to the accumulation, but today, despite a facade of “end in train”, I have a basic pain, a lack of self-confidence and a ” false assurance” that eat away at me. But it is okay.