I'm a female student doing an exchange in the last (second) year of my master's degree at a new university in a different city/country. My parents have been divorced since I was still a toddler. Since that time, I have seen my father only twice. During this time, I have been living with my mom until two years ago when I moved out of our house into an appartment in the city where I studied. My mother also remarried recently.
Before my parents got divorced my father was very unattentive towards me, he didn't care for me and he never paid any attention to me generally. He behaved the same way towards my mother as well. My childhood was not a happy one as it was full of arguing and physical abuse. When they got divorced, things got a bit better from that perspective but we were still arguing with my mother almost every day from a very young age until I was about 19 years old when we moved from the place where we lived at the time to a bigger place where both of us had more space and room for each other.
Around the same time we moved out to the bigger place, I also started with college. I was studying hard and finished my bachelor degree with a very good GPA. Then I continued doing my master's degree where I'm in my second year currently.
I was also a dancer since I was around 7 years old and was dancing until my 19th year. I also danced profesionally for two years during my bachelor's degree.
When I was 16 years old I tried committing suicide for the first time. I had a major argument with my mother about some school-related things. I consumed a big amount of pills to end my life. My mother intervened and I ended up vomiting the pills in the end. Nothing happened after this, nor me or my mom did seek counselling or any other expert advice. Both of us had been constantly arguing throughout my childhood and both of us threatened to each other that we would commit suicide.
The second time I tried committing suicide was when I got into an argument with my mother again about some college-related topic and the same thing followed – I ate a big amount of pills and my mother drove me to the emergency where I was helped. After this episode I was prescribed Zoloft antidepressants which helped me I think, as I did feel somewhat better when using them.
Before trying to do end my life the second time, I started visiting a
therapist. We mostly talked about my dancing, college, my mother, and my self-esteem.
That was the back-story, now to my current problems:
As stated above, I'm currently doing an exchange in another city with my boyfriend living in another country. We see each other around twice per month. I feel very lonely in this new city because I know very few people and don't have many physical friends over here. In the past, I have been busy with doing things (college, different activities, dancing) my whole life. In the first year of my master's degree I had a lot to do and I was extremely happy because even when I felt lonely I could distract myself with work and I didn't have time to think about how lonely I am in reality (despite I actually had friends in the first year which I could call and hang out). I need physical company of people to function normally. When I started thisexchange I had a lot of free time because I had very few courses and my internship needed a lot of time to properly take of so I had a lot of time to think about. The thing is, these feelings of loneliness and being completely alone have become paralyzing at the moment. I actually have a lot of things to do for my internship and in the past if I had this much to do I would be extremely happy because I wouldn't have to think about my loneliness anymore, but now it doesn't help. Despite having a lot to do, I'm just thinking about how lonely I am.
What do you think I should do? I don't want to feel so lonely and don't know what to do about it
