I guess this post is an extension of the points I raised in this post a month ago – http://dev.tinybuddha.com/topic/its-nothing-personal/

In that post, I mentioned I was bitter and resentful about being dismissed from a teaching placement in Europe last April because I wasn’t getting on with the host family and they weren’t nice people at all. I received some responses from a user here named Inky, and they did make me feel better for a while.

I’m still really angry at the whole affair. I haven’t told anybody about this but I just have a tendency to not talk about my feelings, and I just have this intense hatred for the whole affair.

I keep thinking back to when I found out I got the sack and I keep beating myself up about the fact I should have made complaints about the host family, I should have made my views heard but I just accepted my dismissal without so much as a grumble. The host family complained that I was too quiet and didn’t talk to them much when they made no effort to involve me – they would sometimes go out for parties and days out and just leave me behind in the house despite the fact they promised to invite me to all of these festivals and parties. I look back and remember more things I hated about them – the fact that on one rare occasion the family had invited me to a restaurant but the mother had been drinking alcohol and drove myself, her two children and her niece through a mountain road to get back home which I thought was bloody stupid and reckless (luckily we lived to tell the tale). The family had sometimes made racist remarks about other cultures and ethnicities which I was really disgusted by (I do not like racist people). They had sometimes tried asking me really personal questions such as whether I was in a relationship, what my political and religious beliefs were and these made me feel really uncomfortable (I’m British, we don’t like talking about really personal touchy subjects!) Sometimes they invited their friends round and I felt as though everyone sometimes looked their noses down at me. And I could tell that the father did not like me at all from day one.

I also get really angry about my manager from the school and the company who organised the placement – I got very little support from them whatsoever. My manager was often nowhere to be found when I needed help with something. I felt stabbed in the back when I found out I got the sack because she clearly knew that they had been complaining about me but didn’t tell me straight away. She had also told other members of staff about what had been going on which I wasn’t happy about either (I really do not like it when people gossip about me). She expected me to handle teaching English to secondary school classes all by myself (which is really scary, you can imagine how teaching teenagers can be) and I was responsible for disciplining unruly students despite the fact when I first applied for this job, the job description stated that I was only a teaching assistant (I thought I was going to be with another member of staff in all classes) and that I wouldn’t be expected to discipline bad behaviour.

I had nobody to talk to whatsoever during the whole experience, it was an extremely isolating time for me. Everybody else were too busy making small-talk with each other to bother with me.

The more I think about them, the more angrier I get. I should have complained to the school and to the program coordinators when I had the chance, but I didn’t because I have confrontational issues and I’m just a “grin and bear it” kind of person. The more I think about that family, I think of or remember more reasons why they really annoyed me.

I can’t complain to the company now because they had already stipulated in the contract that any complaints made after the contract would be null and void. I could in theory write a letter of complaint to the school but part of me also thinks “What would that accomplish? They wouldn’t do anything about it!” They probably wouldn’t be understanding about this at all and would probably pass the complaints along to the placement coordinators and cause a hoo-hah about it (despite the fact the school pulled out of the program because they had had problems with their other English teachers as well and I had seemingly been the final nail in the coffin), and I still might need to rely on them for references when applying for more jobs or volunteer work (they did tell me the reference would be strictly concerning my work at the school and not about my relationship with the host family, but if I’m completely honest I trust them about as far as I can throw them).

But this anger is just eating me up – I lie in bed and I sometimes have difficulty getting to sleep because I keep thinking about what happened. It’s like this resentment is becoming an obsession for me and I really want to move on.

I also feel completely cheated out of my dream – I wanted to teach English abroad and travel and do as many cool things as I possibly can abroad but I’m not sure if this is something I want to do anymore.

How do I stop this obsessive bitterness? Will I need to seek professional help, therapy, anger management or something? I really don’t know what to do – it’s been four months now since I flew back to England and every day I can’t help but think about the whole thing and every time I do, I just feel extremely angry and irritated. I just keep repeating everything that happened and everything that I feel should have happened. I really want to let this go because it’s eating away at my soul and I feel like I’m going crazy.