I’ve had my fair share of unsuccessful relationships.

Sometimes I was the one to blame. Sometimes they were. More often than not, it was a mixture of both — our unhealthy behaviour merged into one big disaster of miscommunication and feelings of resentment.

Sounds familiar?

Over the years, I’ve sorted through lots of information on relationships and psychological behaviour, and I analysed this in the context of my own experiences. …

I’ve been learning foreign languages ever since I was a teenager.

So far I’ve managed to achieve the level of a native speaker in English, a very good conversationalist in French, the basics of Russian and Spanish, and am currently studying German at a university.

And if there’s some ultimate lesson I’ve learned from all of this over the years, it’s this: Learning a foreign language makes you feel like an idiot. A complete, utter, total idiot.

I’m currently on my year abroad in Germany and let me tell you something — not a day passes by when I don’t make a fool of myself. I make mistakes, I stumble on my words because of pronunciation errors, I mix all grammar rules together, make a mess of it and throw it right in the trash bin. …

I woke up from an interesting dream today.

I was a cleaner again. I didn’t go and clean for the money per se — I just knew my best friend was going to work and I went along with her because the cleaning team apparently needed some extra help.

I already knew how to do everything because I had cleaned with this company for almost twelve months two years ago, so I just figured… I’m gonna be a good person and help, right?

Well, I managed to ruin everything. I accidentally sprayed bleach on expensive stuff. I knocked things over. …

It felt good.

Fighting, disagreeing, walking around in circles. Heightened emotions, anger, showing how much we care.

Except that our 2-hour fight about politics and small pointless things made my partner feel sick to his stomach. I made him upset, and I enjoyed it.

More than anything, I loved being upset myself. “Whatever, go to hell,” I could say at our text conversation. “I don’t want to speak with you, and I have a reason to stop thinking about you now. Pouting will naturally make me withdraw and have space. Pouting will make the pain go away.”

I don’t need to tell you that this is obviously a really unhealthy cope. …

Takes a deep breath.

I used to be scared of reading long books.

Exhales in relief.

There, I said it.

I’ve never been afraid of reading long novels because of their length or density. Many people find the sheer volume of A Song of Ice and Fire series threatening — not me. I couldn’t care less if I’d have to get through four hundred or four thousand pages, as long as I was having fun.

What was the problem then? I hear you ask.

The issue started when I began to set my yearly reading challenge goals.

I know.

It’s a bit embarrassing but it’s the truth — I refused to read long books simply because they took longer to read, which meant I was stressed that I wouldn’t reach my reading goal for the year. I was obsessed with reading as many books as possible, I put impossible expectations on myself and I rushed through every novel to be a ‘successful reader’, whatever that meant. …

Have you ever felt frustrated that your attractiveness is so deeply tied to your appearance?

I’ve been there too.

The fact that we can’t change the way we look is sometimes disheartening. No matter how beautiful we are, there are always times in our lives when we feel inadequate, deeply unattractive and like we’d rather cover all mirrors so we don’t have to look at our face. There are highs and there are lows.

It’s important to remember that everyone is beautiful in their own way, that you do have the power over how you look to a certain degree and that, fortunately, attractiveness doesn’t lie only in looks. Sure, it’s important that you take care of yourself, shower, and have a healthy lifestyle, however, lots of people might find you attractive based on how you act the most. …

Until my partner pointed out to me that I always turned to him with every problem, large or small, I didn’t have a single clue I was doing it. I did it automatically, without any further thought or self-awareness.

I was asking for his help with literally everything — from opening a can of beans to sorting out refunds for my trains — as if I was a helpless child.

Medical News Today describes it like this:

“Learned helplessness is a state that occurs after a person has experienced a stressful situation repeatedly. They come to believe that they are unable to control or change the situation, so they do not try — even when opportunities for change become available.” …

When I was 17, I believed I hated men.

I would never marry them, I felt like the chance of meeting a kind man worthy of my love was too slim to even count, and I held on to so many grudges from my past that I could choke on them.

Now, this wasn’t the best way to live, I’ll tell you that. I was constantly consumed by anger, and I only managed to start healing a few years ago.

I don’t hate men anymore. I’ve learned to empathize with them, to try to understand their struggles and to analyze why the men in my past had wronged me — unsurprisingly, almost all of it falls on the shoulders of the patriarchy. …