So, this is my first post here. Feeling extremely confused and lost at the moment, but I'll try explain this as best I can... it's a bit of an epic story so put the kettle on...
I left the UK at 19 after an injury finished my career as an amateur jockey. Not one to sit round & feel sorry for myself, I decided to clear my head & I went to Romania and took a job there. I was very happy in Romania for over 6 months but felt that 'something' was missing. So when the offer of a job in Egypt came up, I took that in the hope I would find that something there. I didn't, so within another 6 months, I moved on to the United Arab Emirates...
THAT was where I found what I'd been looking for. Despite the places I'd been, the people I'd met and my 'confident, worldly' persona around strangers, I had a warped view of myself & those insecurities would come out when people started to get to know me better. This meant I was lonely no matter where I went, not even any friends, never mind a relationship. I literally went to work and came home. That was my life. However, in the UAE, I met a fantastic bunch of people! I was out every night, BBQs on the beach, beers on the speedboat- just perfect :) They not just accepted me for who I was, they loved me for it. There was also a particularly troubled horse at work who I managed to get through to & even though I had wonderful human friends, he became, well, my best friend I suppose. I couldn't wait to get up in the morning, I had a good job, I was full of confidence.
14 months went by. Then suddenly, everything changed. 3 friends left for Dubai, one went to South Africa, one went to Thailand- suddenly it was just me left on my own with nothing to do in the evenings. Still, I had my cool horse, so I was ok. I stuck in an offer to buy the horse being that he was now the only thing tying me to my location & the offer was accepted, so I began looking for another position. I was offered a wonderful position, with very high wages, free accommodation and various other benefits. How ever, the day I went to leave, I was organizing transport for my horse to be moved & a manager came to me & said he was really sorry but the paperwork hadn't been dealt with correctly & the horse still belonged to the company so i couldn't take him. I asked when I could... they said "never".
So, completely broken by this point, having lost my friends & the one thing I REALLY loved, I consoled myself with the fact i still had a nice job to go to & felt sure my sacrifice would be worth it. WRONG. Having had no friends for months, my social skills had become just as terrible as they had been years ago so I didn't make any friends. A couple of customers were even heard to ask "is the new horse trainer speaking yet?" which of course made me even more self conscious & shut my mouth even tighter. Then, another twist, my boss was called into caught for offences against a former employee- he'd not received any wages in the 3 months he'd worked for her. I plucked up the courage to talk to my colleagues and found out that not only had not a single one of them ever been paid, they didn't even have any visas!!! The one guy had been there 8 years & was trapped because he couldn't afford to pay the fine for working in UAE illegally without a visa & would be stung at the airport. I realised I was in a hopeless situation so I called a cab that very night & disappeared to the airport, not even telling my employer- yeah, I absconded.
I've been 'home' for about 2 months now & the stress of everything has seriously affected me. I get panic attacks every time I try to go out the door, I don't speak to anybody other than my parents because I can't even make eye contact with people, I cry myself to sleep every night (well, at 4/5am being that I have insomnia also) and the worst thing, I don't even love horses anymore. I feel angry every time they're in the media or somebody mentioned them. I don't like much of anything anymore in all honesty, I just sit inside all day, dreaming about "the good old days". I don't feel like I can ever be happy again because if I TRY to be happy again, somebody is going to come & take all the happiness away again- I can't deal with that. I don't wanna waste my life, but I don't want to do anything either. I feel like everybody else has moved on while I've been abroad. Everybody's getting engaged, having babies, getting married... I'm a sad singleton (as always, never had a relationship despite being intelligent & attractive- my lack of confidence puts people off) still living with my parents having failed in life.
I don't know what to do anymore, how to get my life on track or even if I want to. Just feels like there's nobody I can talk to being that nobody wants to talk to such a depro individual even if I did have friends.
I left the UK at 19 after an injury finished my career as an amateur jockey. Not one to sit round & feel sorry for myself, I decided to clear my head & I went to Romania and took a job there. I was very happy in Romania for over 6 months but felt that 'something' was missing. So when the offer of a job in Egypt came up, I took that in the hope I would find that something there. I didn't, so within another 6 months, I moved on to the United Arab Emirates...
THAT was where I found what I'd been looking for. Despite the places I'd been, the people I'd met and my 'confident, worldly' persona around strangers, I had a warped view of myself & those insecurities would come out when people started to get to know me better. This meant I was lonely no matter where I went, not even any friends, never mind a relationship. I literally went to work and came home. That was my life. However, in the UAE, I met a fantastic bunch of people! I was out every night, BBQs on the beach, beers on the speedboat- just perfect :) They not just accepted me for who I was, they loved me for it. There was also a particularly troubled horse at work who I managed to get through to & even though I had wonderful human friends, he became, well, my best friend I suppose. I couldn't wait to get up in the morning, I had a good job, I was full of confidence.
14 months went by. Then suddenly, everything changed. 3 friends left for Dubai, one went to South Africa, one went to Thailand- suddenly it was just me left on my own with nothing to do in the evenings. Still, I had my cool horse, so I was ok. I stuck in an offer to buy the horse being that he was now the only thing tying me to my location & the offer was accepted, so I began looking for another position. I was offered a wonderful position, with very high wages, free accommodation and various other benefits. How ever, the day I went to leave, I was organizing transport for my horse to be moved & a manager came to me & said he was really sorry but the paperwork hadn't been dealt with correctly & the horse still belonged to the company so i couldn't take him. I asked when I could... they said "never".
So, completely broken by this point, having lost my friends & the one thing I REALLY loved, I consoled myself with the fact i still had a nice job to go to & felt sure my sacrifice would be worth it. WRONG. Having had no friends for months, my social skills had become just as terrible as they had been years ago so I didn't make any friends. A couple of customers were even heard to ask "is the new horse trainer speaking yet?" which of course made me even more self conscious & shut my mouth even tighter. Then, another twist, my boss was called into caught for offences against a former employee- he'd not received any wages in the 3 months he'd worked for her. I plucked up the courage to talk to my colleagues and found out that not only had not a single one of them ever been paid, they didn't even have any visas!!! The one guy had been there 8 years & was trapped because he couldn't afford to pay the fine for working in UAE illegally without a visa & would be stung at the airport. I realised I was in a hopeless situation so I called a cab that very night & disappeared to the airport, not even telling my employer- yeah, I absconded.
I've been 'home' for about 2 months now & the stress of everything has seriously affected me. I get panic attacks every time I try to go out the door, I don't speak to anybody other than my parents because I can't even make eye contact with people, I cry myself to sleep every night (well, at 4/5am being that I have insomnia also) and the worst thing, I don't even love horses anymore. I feel angry every time they're in the media or somebody mentioned them. I don't like much of anything anymore in all honesty, I just sit inside all day, dreaming about "the good old days". I don't feel like I can ever be happy again because if I TRY to be happy again, somebody is going to come & take all the happiness away again- I can't deal with that. I don't wanna waste my life, but I don't want to do anything either. I feel like everybody else has moved on while I've been abroad. Everybody's getting engaged, having babies, getting married... I'm a sad singleton (as always, never had a relationship despite being intelligent & attractive- my lack of confidence puts people off) still living with my parents having failed in life.
I don't know what to do anymore, how to get my life on track or even if I want to. Just feels like there's nobody I can talk to being that nobody wants to talk to such a depro individual even if I did have friends.
via Social Anxiety Forum http://www.socialanxietysupport.com/forum/f35/losing-everything-249202/
Posts
