Chapter 6: Application for French Citizenship via marriage

I was feeling very low from my inability to complete the CAP Cuisine, which really killed any hope of going down the route of opening a café in Lannion. I decided to try and focus on applying for French Citizenship. My main obstacle was the DELF B1 level in French. (I was telling my friends that I was really low. I really didn't like France. It was really bad. I'd tried on multiple occasions to try and explain this to Greg, but he really didn't get it. He said he understands but I know he doesn't/didn't because he keeps coming back and questioning my reaction (which he sees as over-reaction) to things in a way that shows he really hasn't understood my problem. I was having panic attacks before June 2023 - and put on antidepressants and sleeping pills by the French GP. I really had the feeling of drowning and that everyone was watching me struggle and instead of helping they just kept asking "what are you going to do now wayway?" as I hit wall after wall. I was exhausted, everything was exhausting, and I felt I had exhausted all my options. I wasn't sleeping, I hadn't slept in months, even when I did sleep, I just woke up tired. I wanted it all to stop. I had very dark thoughts. I considered hanging myself from the beam in the living room, I considered just walking into the sea and letting myself drown. Most of all, I really wanted it all to stop. I wanted to go to sleep and not ever wake up again. I remember telling my mum that in January 2023 when I came back for Chinese new year, she asked me not to go back, but I forced myself to go so that I could try and finish my CAP cuisine qualification, but that didn’t workout. In the end, I thought I would at least try and finish my 6 month contract with Fugro, so that I could get some unemployment rights in France, and started talking to my employer about transferring my contract to the UK. And I moved back to London 28th November 2023.... However, it turns out that I did not complete the mandatory number of hours necessary to allow me to access unemployment benefits in France as it is based on the number of hours worked, and as I was working 80% of full time I didn’t qualify.

My depression really affected my work and I had to be signed off work 05/09/2023 – 06/09/2023 (Arret de travail 05/09/2023), 25/09/2023 – 09/10/2023 (letter from Dr Mélin 10/10/23) and again between the 20/10/2023 – 27/10/2023 (Arret de travail 20/10/2023).

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