Over the last few weeks I felt a melancholy creeping up again. This feeling of anxiety, that something is up. Some issue I can’t pinpoint yet, but something that I know will hit straight into my heart.

I have had these phases before, but the last one is a good two years or so ago. I worked on myself, on my confidence and self esteem. And I got much better in spotting any trouble far at the horizon, and counterbalance it before it could hit me. It is also a recurring theme, it keeps coming up again and again, in different shapes and colours, but the core is the same: loneliness. I have had terrible panic attacks previously, where I was out of my mind convinced that if I went to hospital no one would visit me. I would be alone and forgotten.

Usually these episodes are triggered by an event. It may seem insignificant at first, and I may even pretend to just brush it aside as if it was nothing, but I can never kid myself. It just doesn’t work. What was it this time around? I can feel my friends slipping away, friends who I gathered around me like a protective shield. I have a handful of very close and longterm friends, who I know I can rely on. Some of them live in the same city, some across the pond. But they are busy, they have their own lives, I don’t want to bother them with my (sometimes seemingly trivial) problems. And then I have friends who are my go-to persons in everyday life. And these are the ones fading away. It leaves me with a sense of abandonment, of not being enough to hang around. To stick with me. I know people come and go, like waves in the sea. A constant stream of acquaintances that are significant for a part of your life but maybe not for all of it. But I want more. I want deep and fulfilling friendships, I want brotherly and sisterly love, I want to feel save and secure. I live in a city of millions and still sit on the tube or train and wonder if anyone can see me.

Do you see me?
Do you care that I am here?
Am I enough for you (or do you need me to be better in some way?
Can I tell that I am special to you by the way you look at me?

You may say, one always has their family to hold and protect them. I don’t. I live in a foreign city (albeit for a long time so I call it home), with no family around. My friends are my family. And to illustrate further: I have not spoken to my mum in two years. The last few messages we exchanged at Christmas. When I went home on a business trip just over 3 weeks ago, I called my sister at the last minute and invited her out for dinner (I hadn’t seen my sister for 2 years either). It was an awkward reunion. No familiarity, no banter and affection. My sister told me that she had asked my mum to join us, but my mum declined with the excuse that she had to do some urgent housework. How I felt hearing about this? Abandonment.

Soon after the panicky thoughts started.

I tried to tell my boyfriend, well, I had to because I was sobbing inconsolably when I returned home from that business trip. He was helpless, he doesn’t know how to process this amount of emotions that I dump on him every now and then.

So here I am, desperately trying to remember the few good friends who love me for who I am, with crazy episodes and all. I try to remember that in most aspects of my life I am an accomplished women, strong, independent, vulnerable and sensitive. Trying to shake off the loneliness which seems to be stuck in my bones.

I will be fine. Always keep smiling, eh!