Hello, I am writing for the first time in despair, I read a lot of Expat.coms and shared stories with people. At the moment I even get professional help which to my opinion, doesn't help. I considered myself as a very strong woman who could concur the world nothing was considered an obstical... until now.
Here is my story:
I was born in the Netherlands and when I was 3yrs moved to Israel. I grew up in a town in the middle of the desert until my 16th, also in the town itself my parents used to move every 1-2 years then my parents decided to move back to holland due to better schools. I moved to a city for the first time, I hated it, I hated the architecture, the tall brown buildings, the people are much more introvert compare to the Mediterranean open extrovert culture I grew up in. As I didn't speak the dutch language I had to learn speaking, reading and writing it. My Mother helped me a lot as its her native language.
I went to a dutch speaking school and was very frustrated with the language for the first couple of years. I missed my best friend and family there terribly and I hate the dutch weather, lots of gray days and rain compare to the warm weather of Israel.
After a few years I met my husband, we went to Israel for a holiday, and got a culture shock.
I was glad to be back in holland but still hated being here either! I looked for a place to live where it looked like isreal without the political problems and language barrier for my husband. We wanted to go to Australia due to its dry, warm, deserty parts.
Australia was very difficult to get in so after 8 years we decided to move to New Zealand as we understood that its an easier way to get through to Australia.
In New Zealand we had our child born and started a life there. Its also rainy (much rainier than Holland) but has more sun hours and lots of space! We had different jobs and due to financial reasons moved from house to house to pay our bills (house renovations), medical over there is useless, our child almost died from an Asthma attack as they didn't check oxygen levels due to lack of medical equipment and expertise and sent us home with antibiotics! 6 months later same story and still didn't give us Asthma medication so we demanded to see a specialist (back then apparently there were only 2 in NZ) and finally got preventive medication but thats another story. We stayed there for 9 years until we finally went to Aussy. We went to Perth and stayed there for 2 months and I hated it! So back to New Zealand. After about a year we tried again and went to Adelaide, this time due to school! As I swore never to put my child through a public school system due to my own very bad experience and due to my child's active character and in New Zealand one of the schools suggested medication I decided to look for alternative education so my child has been on the waiting list for 2 years for a Montessori school and after 2 years they said he was too old so they refused him, we had enough of it so looked in Australia. There was space available so we sold our house, cars gave up jobs to go for the move. As the montessori is private school and costs us around Aus$6000 per year we could only pay for it if we lived in a caravan as a rental house was too expensive. We first started in a caravan park, bought a caravan and moved it to a National Park where we stayed there for 4 months, we both got jobs and after that dragged the caravan to a person's farm where we stayed for 8 months, I loved it! Then we sold the caravan and went throu a friend into a very cheap one bedroom rental house, so our child got the bedroom and we stayed in the living area. In Australia there is a lot of casual work, my husband and I were both on casual and both got less and less hours antil I lost my job and had no protection of income loss as we are not australians but as NZ citizens we are allowed to live and work there indefinite (until you loose your job and have no safety net)
After being away from Holland for 12 years, we had family to pay our tickets to come for a holiday.
We loved it and realized how important and how much we missed the family.
Once back in Australia, we thought on it for 3 months and decided to come back to Holland where the Montessori education is almost free and the family is there for a coffee, not just through Skype.
To get to Australia we needed NZ passports, so applied for it and lost the dutch passport in the process, something we knew will happen, but we didn't care any less as we thought we'll never get back to Holland anyway.
We had to go through a lot to get our permits to live in holland again. But for what price?!
We are now been seen as foreigners in Holland, went through a very long and difficult process and stayed with my parents for 2 months to reduce our costs.
Finally I broke down!
I see the city again, the buildings, the weather the dutch language is so strange to me as I was surrounded with english speaking people for the past 12 years. So many roles, o gosh.
My child started nail biting and I am so stressed that I can't cope with anything anymore.
I don't know what to do. The family seem to take a bit of distance as I believe they also don't know how to deal with me, they don't like to hear what I'm going through and the comparisens between countries. We came also for them but they feel like strangers, they have their lives and nobody really waited for us to be here, on a couple occations they have celebrated easter together (hiding chocolate eggs for the kids) without inviting us and inviting other kids for a play without inviting our child as well, we feel like starting our lives all over again with strangers we know are our family but live their own lives oblivious to the fact we strongly need their support.
Its great to see our child flourishing to have so many family (going to same school with nieces) and our child loves it and have grandparents. But I'm a complete mess.
My husband found a job straight away and my son went to school, and all of a sudden I was left alone in my parents place. My husband gave up his job after 2 days as he saw my distress (I cried all day for the first time in my life) For the first time it feels like I left my child and family in New Zealand it feels like everything has died. I can't watch tv anymore as everything reminds me of home only god knows where home for me is... Please help me to help myself.
It is very painful for me to write this and I have sooo much more to tell but its too difficult.
I spend my days going to the forest, and telling myself that now I'm also closer to Israel, to see my friend and family every year something I haven't done for 15 years as I couldn't financially pay for it all the way from NZ and also in NZ I was very very sad about the fact that we are isolated from our family and friends back in Holland and Israel. It'll never be the same, my family and friends in Israel have kept going with their lives and forgot about me, they don't need my company and for the first time I see that I build myself a house of cards, the way I live is an elusion... Its now hard for me to see what on earth am I doing in Holland... But I don't want to move my child again and I want him to grow up with family as well.
Now that we're in Holland and skype friends in NZ I break and cry as I miss them and even one of the asked me when are we coming back? I am torn between countries, thank goodness we didn't stay in Australia that long!
