In my first year of university (doing a law degree in UK), I got into an entanglement with a LVM who was 2 years my senior. He started out being everything I wanted, the captain of the football team jock type. He was kind, sweet, supportive and would help me out with my studies/ intern applications etc. The mask slipped after 3 months, he cheated regularly and was verbally abusive. He gaslit me regularly and would make snide comments about my intelligence, body etc.. The entire time I was with him, I never felt enough and would starve myself. After he graduated, he dumped me via ghosting, I suffered from bulimia, severe depression (doctor would prescribe antidepressants) & suicidal tendencies. It took me a year and a half to pick myself up from all of this. My grades slipped and I ended up having to take a year out, get some therapy and re-take some exams.

Fast forward to now, I'm mentally well and after a year of hardwork during the pandemic, I was able to turn some of the bad s*** around and I'm now graduating with a 2:1 LAW DEGREE from a top 10 russell group university in the UK. My GPA isn't perfect (since I took some hits, actually who am I kidding I took a lot of hits) but for the Americans here it roughly translates to a B+/A-.

I also made the effort to learn about financial management, stocks and cryptocurrency. In the entire pandemic year I was able to intelligently invest USD3k that my parents gave me and turn it into well over USD100k. And all of this is going toward a house that I am looking forward to buy for myself.

Going forward, I'm definitely going to focus on levelling up, working hard, continuing with my postgrad studies and fixing my health! Most importantly, I will never ever let a LVM into my life, this was a big lesson learnt and luckily I didn't come out of it with too many life-ending injuries (metaphorically speaking). I was and am too young to date anyways (I'm 23 years old) and I probably will stay single for a few more years.

Thank you for all the FDS ladies on here for the content and inspiration. I really want to thank this sub for helping me pick myself up! It took a lot of lurking and reading to undo my pickmeisha ways and dismantle a lot of the internalised misogyny I was dealing with. Love you all and appreciate you all!