Actually, with hindsight I'm not so sure that I have gained anything. I know that I'm hurting emotionally, physically, mentally and financially, but I'm struggling to identify anything positive that has come from this situation. However that's what we keep telling ourselves, isn't it? If we've been through the mill there's got to be something to show for it.
No pain, no gain.
I'm writing this entry partly to get it straight in my own head, but also to serve as a note of caution for anyone who is thinking about making a similar move. True: my situation was entirely my own and many people would be unaffected by similar circumstances. But the way in which the whole thing unravelled still took me by surprise. I had taken every possible consideration into account—or so I thought. I signed a 6-months contract (not a year!). I have travelled extensively since I was nineteen, have lived in foreign countries, have been separated from friends and family for prolonged periods since early childhood and—quite frankly—I thought the workload would be a great deal heavier than it actually was. I should have been prepared for it. There is no reason why I should not have succeeded, aside from my own shortcomings and assumptions. And it's the latter that turned out to be the killer.
Three words summarise the reasons for my failure. These three little words reinforce each other and lead a merry dance, but there is a clear hierarchy among them. Conversely, tackling either of these three issues may have helped to alleviate my circumstances, but as it turned out each spin and twirl left me more dizzy than before, sucking me in further, until I was looking down a spiral stairway to hell. I had no choice but to leave.
The three words in question are: Isolation, Anxiety and Alienation.
