[Spirit.]

Hi,

So it's been a while since I've even thought of talking to someone about things that have been happening with me. I'm sorry if this is long.

Let me start from the beginning. A year and a half ago (28th May, 2015 IST), I lost my father. He suffered a massive heart attack and there was nothing anyone could have done. He had just made it out the front door before he collapsed. This was sometime around 2am in India. Only my mum and brother were there and they'd alerted my neighbors who were just coming out to help when it happened. I wasn't there. I was in London doing my Master's course. I had received a call around 10pm and well, everything that happened after, I have exceptionally vivid memory of. Just everything. Fortunately, I had family living in London and my cousin came to get me to spend the night at her place.

I couldn't be there for his funeral either. I didn't get tickets and more importantly, I wasn't willing to allow my mum and brother to wait for me to get back and sleep in their rooms while dad was in an ice box in the drawing room. So I insisted they have the funeral without me. In India, we have a period of mourning and a series of rituals during the mourning period. I had gotten back about 2 days after, on the 31st of May I think. I genuinely don't remember. I didn't meet anyone who came to visit, except a couple of friends. After all the rituals were complete, the only friend I wanted to meet was my now boyfriend. He was always so supportive then. He had just come back from another city, back home, too, after getting done with his course. He visited me a lot and took me outside and invited me to his place and made a hell of an effort to help me feel better. He never asked me about dad and waited until I was ready to talk about it. We had gone on a short trip with his brother and friend, during which I had spoken to him about dad.

We had come back and it was a little while after that we got together. More than just always being the person I was comfortable with, I never had to pretend to be anyone else with him and I truly couldn't have been happier to be with him, and still feel that way. After about 5 or 6 months - I had taken an extension from uni to finish up my course from home (my dissertation) - when I had completed my course, I was suddenly quite lost and started to feel excessive amounts of depression and at some point of time, while I was talking to him in the middle of the night, I had a panic attack. Since then, I've been experiencing anxiety. He was absolutely gracious about it and took more effort than necessary to help me. I should also mention that he was studying and still is, to become a civil servant and it's an incredibly difficult exam here. When he hadn't gotten through the prelims on his first try, it really made a big impact on him and he wasn't doing well. What with the anxiety I was going through and what he was, it was very difficult to talk about everything. I blamed myself a lot for distracting him and making it hard for him to study and concentrate because of my anxiety - how much I needed him, my being dependent on him, etc.

in October, he had told me he had to move to Delhi, to study, as it would help him study better as he had more access to study material there and less distractions and such. At that time, I didn't know, but my anxiety just became worse because I suddenly felt so far away from him. I didn't know that all it was, was that I would miss him being around. On top of that, he was going through his own dilemma. more than that, he had to put his dog down, mid-december and that really took a toll on him. After he moved to Delhi, beginning of Jan, we haven't had the time to talk, we haven't been able to communicate.

While we were going through all this trouble, last year, he was talking to me and told me not to constantly cry and be emotional because it was starting to make him anxious and he was already having it tough and he was saying he didn't know how he was feeling about me and whether we should be together, etc. I had spoken to him before we left and he told me that he still loved me that he wants us to be together, but I've just been so worried about talking to him, thinking that anything I say could upset him and he's been so aloof. He then told me he felt really out of place there and kind of alone. I told him that no matter what I'm there for him and I apologised for making him feel bad about everything, but that he was really important to me and his studies too. We've been making progress and things have been getting better. But this week, my anxiety has been off the charts. I've been getting so much better - anxiety wise, over the past couple of months, but I don't know what happened this week that it came back mild and today, I almost put myself in a lot of danger on the road, while I was riding. I don't know how to handle this, whether I can still talk to my boyfriend about me being anxious or just generally, try and fix all of this. I don't want to overwhelm him or give him reason to worry when he's so far away.

It's just that I still feel so unsure how he feels about me and whether he still wants me around and everything else. I tell him a few things every now and again, but we haven't had much time to talk because he's trying to get into a study schedule which hasn't been working the way he wants and he's still adjusting to everything. I don't know how to handle this situation. And I don't know how to talk about this to him. I don't want this to affect him, but I really need to talk to him. I also know he hasn't been doing that great but he doesn't feel like talking about it and I'm okay with it, but really worried. I care about him a great deal and I know he does about me, too. I just feel so anxious about whether he will continue to, because he's family. and I don't have it in me to deal with losing him, especially having lost dad. My family has been everything to me and losing dad really pushed me to a point where can't bear the thought of losing anyone else, when my small family is my whole world and more.

Edit: I spoke to him and he said that I could tell him anything without apprehension, but I'm finding it hard to get the words out. I'm really scared. I don't want to ruin everything