My sister was struggling with her studies after her breakup.

My sister and I have always shared a great bond. We share everything with each other. Interestingly, we are both academically smart but emotionally weak. I have been noticing her for a while, and she’s not herself lately. She’s one of the most active people you’ll ever meet. She excels at almost everything and gives utmost importance to her studies. However, she had been very inactive and had not been paying much attention to her studies recently. That actually made me worried because she had a lot of passion for learning and bringing about changes in society. She has been working really hard to prepare for her exams, and now that the exams are near, she’s not studying at all.

I asked her what happened and why she’d been so inactive lately. She hesitantly said that she had broken up with her boyfriend, whom she had been dating for four years. I was shocked because she never told me anything about their struggling relationship. It was very sudden for me. She later said that he cheated on her with her best friend. This was unbelievable to me, and I felt very bad for my sister. She didn’t deserve this at all. Her sudden breakup and best friend’s betrayal broke her completely. I couldn’t see my sister like this. I really wanted to support her in this situation, but I didn’t know how because she just wanted to be alone at all times.

A few weeks later, she had her first exam, and I remember she came back crying that she couldn’t complete her exam that she’d been preparing for months. That day, I realized that her situation had worsened rather than improved over time. I felt terrible because I could do nothing to help her out in her lowest moments. I tried to give her the time and space that she wanted. However, that didn’t help. She had been regularly seeing her boyfriend and best friend together in exam rooms, which made her feel embarrassed and uncomfortable. She didn’t have the courage to confront them about what they did to her. Everything was consuming her, and it had gotten so bad to the point that she ended up leaving her exams.

Her condition kept deteriorating. The worst part was that she started using substances as a coping mechanism. I didn’t know about her substance abuse until she fainted in her room. I was very confused and then the doctor told us she had been consuming substances for some time that made her body very weak. I got really mad at her and forcibly took her to our parents’ home. She did fine for a few days, but that didn’t last that long. She felt really bad because she had left her exams in between because of her friends. She was furious and wanted to confront them, but she also didn’t want to face them. She was disgusted by what they did to her.

When, even after so much time, she was not able to come out of it, I suggested that she go to therapy and see if it could help her move on effectively. She was uncomfortable and hesitant at first, but she went for it later on.

Her therapist made her feel really comfortable. The therapist asked her about her problems, gave her a safe space to express her emotions post-breakup and tried to understand the reasons behind her behaviour. Therapy guided her through letting go and moving on so that she could focus better on herself, her studies and her life. Through counselling, she learnt to be vocal about her feelings and was made to understand that it was okay to feel whatever she was experiencing. After a few sessions, I saw changes in her as she wanted to study and retake her exams. Not only that, but she also started feeling confident and ready to confront her friends. I was happy by the way she was improving herself. Therapy actually helped her a lot to work on herself again. She was not only over her past, but also started focusing more on her present and future.