I’d been out partying all night, two new friends were visiting Berlin, and during their visit we’d all hooked up now and then. One of them invited me back to his hotel a couple of times, but I politely refused because I simply didn’t feel ready to share a bed with someone. The last night we went out, I knew there was no escaping going back to his hotel, and so I did. After we had sex, he put his arm around me in bed, and nodded off to sleep, I couldn’t hold back the tears. While I heard his breathing suggest that he’d fallen asleep, I quietly cried to myself in his arms. It felt like a stranger had invaded my space and I was somehow pretending it was him. By him I mean the guy I’d broken up with a couple of weeks prior. I’d been looking for distractions, so had taken more drink and drugs in those weeks than all the previous months of 2018 combined. My highs from MDMA were just levelling out my extremely dark emotions and only brought me up to a more human level, while my friends got super high around me, I just felt less depressed for a moment. The crash was horrendous though. The deep dark depression that followed this moment of liberty was traumatic. I cried hard and fast. I’d been crying so much over the previous weeks that my sternum had started to hurt, I had a pain radiating across the front of my ribcage from the hunching over action of breathless tears. I felt so helpless, and stupid. Break ups are meant to get easier with time, I should have learnt my lesson by now. I was only seeing this guy for a short while, but for some reason it felt longer. I had invested my time and money, travelling across Europe by plane to see him. I had envisioned us together, and done all the foolish things someone of my age isn’t meant to do. When we decided it wasn’t meant to be because of the long distance, it broke me. The feeling of loneliness took every inch of oxygen out of my lungs, it left me feeling exasperated and hollow. I’ve felt like a shell ever since. I look for distraction in the every day, but nothing can fill the gap. I partied hard, and disappeared into darkrooms. Sex was a way to escape. If a guy showed me any sort of interest or affection my skin crawled. You can stick it in my ass or mouth, but don’t give me a hug, it hurts too much. The anonymity only became more of an escape. I hooked up with multiple men in a day. One night I knew I wanted to disappear, I bought an 8 pack of beer, and drank them all one by one at home on my own. I then got dressed, and went to a club. I went straight into the darkroom and got fucked by multiple strangers, one after the other. When I felt like I’d had enough I left the club, cried all the way home, and then cried myself to sleep. My heart was broken, and I didn’t know how to fix it. It felt like it was one too many heartbreaks. My therapy wasn’t helping, in fact she made me feel worse. Her coldness towards me made me feel even more alone, and like she was just another blocked route for me to escape. Being 30 and having been through so many breakups in my life already, I wonder if there really is a point. It took me so long for my heart to open up again after my last heartbreak, I would guess around 3 years. It isn’t a conscious feeling, it’s something you can’t control. I knew I’d opened up emotionally again this year because I kept having romantic interests, one after the other. I knew that that meant I was emotionally open to people again, I was an attractive, confident single person, that looked happy and ready, and I was. Then only a few months after meeting and falling for someone, he realises he’s not in love and doesn’t want a relationship, and I’m back to the dark and unavailable Sam I was for years before it. The sadness has been overwhelming, and I’m doing everything I can to escape it, booking holidays, going to the gym, partying, but all it takes is his face to pop into my head and it’s like my blood turns black and I feel like I don’t exist again. I don’t exist right now. I really don’t.