Week two of living alone is almost over... I’ve managed to feed myself (almost) every day; sleep; keep on top of chores; sit my exam, go to work and am starting work on my essays today.

I am surrounded by wonderful people who love and support me. I have a meaningful life in Bristol and that’s enough to keep the suicidal ideation at bay most of the time; I am very thankful.

I am taking a more active role as a guider and working towards my leadership qualification at breakneck speed. I love my job and the children I care for, and am so excited to be staying with them through to at least the end of 2020. I’m able to focus more on university and will be applying for my masters soon... as long as a graduate with a 2:1 (that’s the very realistic goal!).

Life changed massively over the past few weeks but I think I’m adjusting okay. Living alone is kinda lonely, but it’s better than the stress that being unhappy in a relationship brings.

I wonder how it felt, to sit and listen to me get passionate over women’s rights and toxic masculinity... knowing that you had literally sexually assaulted someone and abused a position of power. I wonder how it felt, to lie directly to my face about what you did... knowing that if you told me I would not only leave you but report you to the police myself. I wonder how you reflect on it, whether you regret it, whether you’ve ever thought about apologising... whether you would do it again.

I wonder how you conceptualise it now, do you think of it as sexual assault? Or just a girl who took things too far and got you into trouble? I wonder how you justify it to yourself to sleep at night? I wonder if you even realise the potential impacts of what you did.

Because I was right... that niggling feeling that I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life with you started then. And I thought it was because you lied to me... because you’d betrayed my trust; but actually it runs so much deeper than that. You betrayed the fundamentals of my being, my beliefs, my identity. You perpetuated the issues in our society that I have dedicated my time into changing. You made a young woman feel vulnerable, scared and violated.

I feel like a failure because I missed my last lecture. I downplay my mental health so much these days and can just be #bossbitch most of the time, doing everything I need to for my future and on the whole feeling alright. But today was a shattering crash back to reality that sometimes these things happen, sometimes I can’t meet the expectations I make for myself, and sometimes I need to stop.