I was still friends with Senni, but the relationship had started to grow tense. What once felt like mutual care began to shift into something colder, more unstable. Her words changed. Demeaning comments became more frequent and often they were wrapped in sarcasm, sometimes coated with a smile, but always cutting deeper than I could show.
I remember one day we were walking through town and saw a local artist she was doing a story on. I told Senni afterward how beautiful I thought the woman was and smart too. Senni looked at me like I was beneath her. Almost laughing, she said something like, “Do you think someone like her would ever want to be with someone like you?” I can’t know for sure why she said it, was it because she tried hurt me or what, but for me it meant that I wasn’t only worthy of her. I wasn’t worthy of anyone.
At the same time, I began to feel jealousy — and shame for feeling it. Senni would talk more and more about her conquests, and whenever we went out together to bars or parties, it became a pattern: she would hook up with someone, and I’d be left alone. Yes, I was jealous. But even more, I was hurt. I would’ve been hurt even if I hadn’t had romantic feelings because a friend doesn’t repeatedly leave you behind like that. I wasn’t her wingman. I was a person who cared deeply for her, and I didn’t understand why she’d do all that in front of me, knowing how I felt about her.
I want to take a moment and acknowledge something important here. Senni once asked me not to share certain things about her, especially regarding her flings. For almost fifteen years, I honored that request out of respect and loyalty. I was proud to keep that trust because it felt right to protect the parts of her she wanted to keep private. Now, as I write this, I feel a heavy weight. I feel guilt, because I promised to keep her confidence. But I also feel relief, because telling my story honestly is part of my healing. This is a delicate balance, but I hope it’s clear that my intention is not to hurt her. It’s to finally tell my story, to understand my past, and to reclaim my dignity after years of silence.
How Senni disregarded my feelings, time after time, felt bad but I put up with it because I really wanted to love her as a friend and I told myself being quiet was me doing that. I struggled with that. I felt she deserved better. So I put my feelings aside and blamed myself for having them. But what was really happening was that I was being erased.
At the same time there were also bigger dynamics at play. It wasn’t just about Senni. It was about a larger pattern I had already internalized: the idea that my needs were too much. That they were wrong. That my feelings were unfair. That someone like me; gay, Roma, mentally struggling, didn’t get to ask for emotional clarity or care. I had absorbed the belief that my needs were optional. That they were a burden. That her feelings mattered, and mine were just... unfortunate. Because that is how my feelings were being treated. Her public hookups, her constant talk about other people she was with, all while knowing how I felt, became a form of passive cruelty. Whether she meant it or not, she was asserting control over the dynamic. She cast me in the role of observer, supporter and a silent sufferer. And I accepted it because I had already been taught by the world, long before her, that this was my place.
The pressure kept building. I kept pretending I was fine. I kept trying to be the loyal friend, the understanding one. I kept swallowing my hurt, blaming myself for feeling anything at all. Then came the night when everything cracked open.
We had gone out. I don’t even remember where. What I do remember is how it ended: Senni left with someone again, and I was left alone, again. But that night something was different. I was drunk, yes. But more than that, I was exhausted. Hollowed out. I had spent years holding all this pain in . Not just from her, but from school, from the racism, from the loneliness, from feeling like a stranger in every space that should have been safe. That night, it broke through.
I remember calling Senni, crying. I told her I was going to kill myself. And I meant it. I was standing on the balcony of my building, looking down. I wasn’t being dramatic. I wasn’t trying to manipulate anyone. I was in pain. I was tired. I was done.
That was my depression speaking but also, it was everything else. All the daily humiliations. All the quiet rejections. All the racist jokes. All the stares. All the dismissals. All the times I stayed silent when someone hurt me. All the moments I told myself it was probably my fault. All the feelings towards her I had kept inside me.
That call wasn’t something she should have had to carry. But it was never only about her. It was the eruption of years of grief and shame and self-erasure. It just happened to rise to the surface in her presence, because I had let her close enough to see it.
After that night, I did something I was proud of: I tried to get help.
I didn’t blame Senni for my pain. I understood, even in my brokenness, that what I felt wasn’t something I could pass on to someone else. I knew I had hurt her by making that call, and I hated myself for it. But instead of running from it, I acted. I carried the weight of it. I did what people always say you should do: I went to a doctor. I asked for help.
For a moment, I felt something like hope. The doctor prescribed antidepressants. I remember thinking maybe this will help. But the medication didn’t help. Later, I found out that the medication I was on wasn’t a good fit for me. It wasn’t what I needed. Something in me knew this wasn’t right. I told the doctor, clearly and openly. I said I didn’t feel like myself. I said something was off. But they didn’t listen. I was ignored. They just kept on adding the dosage saying this will help. But it didn’t.
I tried to take responsibility for my health. I did everything they tell you to do. But the help I got was surface-level and impersonal. It didn’t see me. Not as a full person. Not as someone carrying more than just chemical imbalance but real, lived pain from racism, exclusion, and emotional neglect. Even then, I told myself it was probably my fault.
At first, I tried to keep my depression a secret. I didn’t want my classmates to know. I didn’t want to be seen as unstable, or weak or as just another stereotype. But after that night on the balcony, I had to take a break from my studies. And that meant I had to tell someone.
Jens was the first person I told. I thought he would understand. In the beginning of our studies, he had opened up about his own struggles with anxiety, and I had supported him so I believed empathy would go both ways. But instead of offering me empathy, Jens chose to write an article about antidepressants that felt like a slap in the face. He called them “happy pills,” reducing my survival tools to a joke. My pain, which I had barely managed to name out loud, had been turned into something cheap. It wasn’t just that the article was hurtful. It was a betrayal. I had trusted him. I had confided in him.
This was yet another reminder that my inner world was not seen or respected, not by friends, not by classmates, not by the very people I trusted. The article wasn’t just hurtful; it was a cruel performance of detachment, a way to fit in with a class culture that dismissed me. My pain didn’t count.
And yet, even in the chaos, I held onto Senni. Despite everything, she was one of the few who saw me as human. I clung to that hope. But when her words turned cold and her actions hurt me, I realized I wasn’t just losing a friend. I was losing a fragile safe space in a world that constantly tried to erase me.
People blamed me later on for being obsessive towards Senni. But it wasn’t obsession. Senni mattered to me in a way that’s hard to explain from the outside. She wasn’t just a friend. She wasn’t just someone I had feelings for. She was a lifeline.
In the chaos of that time — the racism, the exclusion, the constant sense of never fully belonging — she was one of the very few people who seemed to truly see me. Or at least, that’s what I believed. Not once, not a single time, did she use racism against me. When others in class dismissed my work or looked through me like I didn’t exist, she didn’t. She laughed at my jokes. She listened when I spoke. In her presence I felt human, not a stereotype. I held onto that. Maybe too tightly. But it meant something. It gave me something to believe in when the world kept trying to shrink or erase me. I needed someone. And for a time, she was that someone.
And yes, I loved her but not just in a romantic way. It was more layered than that. I loved her as a friend, as someone I wanted to protect and make laugh. But I also longed for something deeper. Maybe because, with her, I glimpsed the version of myself I wanted to become: someone accepted, someone seen, someone allowed to feel without fear.
So when things began to change and when sarcasm replaced warmth, when her public flings grew more pointed and more frequent it wasn’t just a friend turning distant. It felt like a piece of safety being ripped away. Something I thought was solid turned into quicksand beneath my feet.
That’s why it hurt so deeply. That’s why I kept holding on. Not just to her but to the hope she had once embodied. Even when her words cut into me, I told myself it was my fault. That I was the one asking for too much. That people like me don’t get to have people like her. But the truth is: I wasn’t asking for too much. I was asking for honesty. For friendship. For care. I was asking to be treated with dignity. I was only asking the bare minimum.
I couldn’t control the fact that I had romantic feelings for her. I tried everything to move past them. I wanted to love her as a friend. I wanted to protect her from the weight of my feelings. But having feelings didn’t mean she could ignore them completely. It didn’t mean she could treat me carelessly. You can’t walk around someone’s love like it’s not there and then act surprised when it hurts.
I never wanted to hurt her. I took responsibility for my pain. I didn’t try to put it on her. I just needed her to treat me like I mattered.
And sometimes she did treat me well. But sometimes she treated me with coldness or even with contempt. I could never be sure where I stood with her. I understand now that this was one of the core problems in our relationship: the cycle of uncertainty that breeds self-blame.
When someone treats you well sometimes and poorly other times, it creates a powerful emotional trap. The moments of warmth keep you hopeful, clinging to the idea that the good version of them might return. That hope makes it incredibly difficult to leave, or even fully acknowledge what’s really going on. This inconsistency often pushes the other person, me in this case, into and endless loop of self-analysis. I kept asking myself what I had done to cause the coldness or hostility, even when there was no clear reason.
But at the same time I can’t deny that my own feelings towards her, especially my jealousy, made things hard for her. I know it wasn’t easy for her to be close to me when I was depressed. She asked me once to seek professional help. But what she didn’t fully understand was that I already had tried. Several times. But I hit a wall in the public health care system. And I couldn’t afford private therapy.
Still, I carried and overwhelming sense of guilt. I felt guilty for my depression. I felt guilty for needing too much. I even felt guilty when she physically attacked me.
It happened during a tutor training weekend. We were sitting in the hotel room of some students, waiting for them to head town to a hotel bar with us. The TV was on, and we were just sitting there, maybe chatting a bit. At one point, I noticed she had something dark near her upper lip. Maybe ash or make up but she didn’t smoke or use make up to my knowledge. I looked at her face trying to figure out what is was. Before I had the chance to say anything, she suddenly, out of nowhere, hit me across the face with her open palm and said, “Don’t look at me like that.”
I was shocked. I said “Ow” and asked her why she did that. But she just turned back to the TV, calm as ever, like nothing had happened. I went to our room and grabbed a cold beer to press against my cheek because it was hurting. When I came back, she just looked at me and asked why I had the beer can on my face.
I remember being utterly confused. I didn’t know what to think. And so I blamed myself. I told myself she must have thought I was looking at her lips in some inappropriate way, and this was my fault because I had feelings for her. But the truth is I don’t even know if that was it. Maybe I had some facial expression she didn’t like. Or maybe she was just angry about something and I was the easiest target. Later that night, she also started to pushing me, out of the blue, and then suddenly stopped, as if nothing had happened.
The fact that I kept blaming myself feels now absurd to me but then, it actually made kind of sense. It was a coping mechanism. My mind blamed itself because it was the only way to make sense of the irrational act. Self-blame gave me a narrative I could cling to, because the alternative, that someone I cared deeply about could harm me without reason, was too destabilizing to face.
Later I told Jens and Mikko what happened. They just laughed. To them it was funny. Something light. Just a weird story. Once again, my classmates failed to see me or the seriousness of the harm I had endured. This time it wasn’t just emotional harm. This was physical violence. But for them it was nothing. A joke. Their laughter wasn’t just insensitive. It was a profound invalidation. It sent a clear message: even physical violence against me could be trivialized. Once again, my rights were erased. Their reaction normalized her violence, reinforced the idea that her actions were acceptable and I was someone deserving of them.
Now when I see this all in a broader context of racism, exclusion, my mental health challenges being treated the way they were, it all starts to make sense. The mistreatment I had already endured made it easier for others to dismiss or excuse even further harm. It made it easier for Senni to act towards me the way she did. So this moment of physical violence, denial of it and the laughter that followed, wasn’t isolated. It was a part of the pattern of dehumanization and “othering” I had been subjected to all along.
And the fact that I blamed myself, that too, was part of the pattern. When you’re repeatedly shown, explicitly or implicitly, that you are the problem, you start to believe in it, even if you don’t want to. You see, we have this need to understand people around us, a deep need to make sense of the actions those close to us. And when their behavior doesn’t make sense to us, it’s no wonder we turn that confusion inward. We blame ourselves because it feels safer than facing the truth: that the people who we care about, the ones we thought cared about us, can also hurt us.
And in the midst of all of this turmoil I tried to build my future. I tried to study, to work, to live. I studied at Oulu University of Applied Sciences for almost three years. And yes, good things happened. And yes, there were times with my classmates when I felt good. But the racism and exclusion always returned, like waves. Even when things seemed calm, they were there, ready to rise again.
At first, I lived in a student housing complex. But many exchange students lived on the upper floors, and some of them — not all, but enough — treated the building like a nightclub. They had a party horn they used to signal when the partying would start. It sounds absurd, but it was real. Most nights, I couldn’t sleep. When I finally did, I’d often wake up from the noise again. I was exhausted.
Eventually, I knew I had to move. Around that time, my classmate Camilla was also looking for a place, and she suggested we become roommates. It made sense financially, so I agreed. I remember Senni warning me that it was a bad idea. I didn’t understand why then. But she knew the dynamics in our class.
So me and Camilla started searching for a flat together. It wasn’t easy. Then we finally found a good one but the deposit was two months’ rent. I couldn’t afford it. Camilla said she’d ask her dad to cover the second part and I agreed even though it didn’t feel so good. One evening, we were sitting on a terrace with classmates when Camilla said, casually, that her father wouldn’t pay it because I was Roma and he didn’t trust Roma people. She said it like it was nothing. I still don’t understand why she said it.
Eventually, we did find another place. I met her father once when he was fixing something in her room. I was getting dressed for a job interview and nervously asking Camilla’s opinion on what to wear. Later, when I came home from the interview, Camilla told me, smiling, that her dad had made some comment about me. Something like “Wasn’t she a strange gypsy, trying to get a job and everything.”
Again, she smiled. Not because she believed him, maybe but because his prejudice amused her. It was absurd to her. To me, it was my life. My Roma identity had surfaced once more but this time not in the classroom, but in my own home that was suppose to be a safe place. I didn’t even have that anymore. Even there in my own home, I was something to be commented on. A spectacle. A “strange gypsy,” pretending to be normal, pretending to belong, pretending to deserve the right to try. It wasn’t just a comment. It was a reminder of how deep this runs. Of how easily people laugh off our dignity. And of how even the people closest to us can fail to understand the weight we carry.
And then it suddenly happened: Senni found someone. Not a fling, but a person she seemed to really like. And they started dating. That person was Samppa, and Samppa was in our class as well.