In April 2022, I signed a contract extension with the company I had been with for seven years. As I put pen to paper for another year my hand quivered and I ruined my signature.
“That’s alright, we’ll print out another,” my boss said as the secretary handed me a coffee. Everybody got coffee in the boss’s office.
As I waited for the secretary to return with a fresh contract my boss and I chit-chatted. I had known her for over seven years and owed her my career. She was the one who took a chance and hired an unknown Irish teacher for her prestigious Turkish school. But my mind was elsewhere.
Since 2015, life has been tough in Turkey. I experienced the fear of ISIS, PKK attacks in the east of the country, a failed military coup, and rampant inflation. I had even been engaged to a Turkish girl until we called it off in 2019.
For years the country had felt like quicksand but the company, my school, was a constant source of stability, camaraderie, and purpose. My colleagues had always been a source of fun and friendship whilst my students were my pride and joy. But after the pandemic, something shifted in my being.
Something was missing in my life as a teacher — I felt like I was nearing the end of a road and I wasn’t sure why.
I had slowly grown tired of the office gossip and I was beginning to exhibit less patience with my students. Whilst I understood my feelings towards my colleagues, I could not fathom why I was so short and abrupt with my innocent primary school kids.
Something was off. I was no longer the teacher I was before. I had become jaded, bitter, and frustrated at how my life was going.
When I returned to school in August 2022, I collapsed in the bathroom.
I had a panic attack. I was overcome with an impending sense of doom and filled with regret. My heart was trying to leave my body and I was shaking uncontrollably. I asked myself, ‘Why did you sign that contract? You know you don’t have another year left in you.’ I composed myself and got back to work.
In my next class, a third grader spilled his water. This was normally not a problem but for some reason, it triggered me again and the panic returned. Luckily, the kids didn’t notice.
What was this dread? What was this impending doom?
My best teaching friend, Freeman, surmised that I was overthinking everything.
He advised that I should be grateful for the teaching job, the wage, and the work permit which allowed me to reside in the country.
Every Monday morning and Friday afternoon, the whole school would gather in the courtyard and sing the Turkish national anthem.
For seven years, twice a week, I would stand still whether it be in the searing Anatolian sun or its harsh snow, and sing the anthem.
On Monday morning, I think it was September, I stood as I always did and awaited the anthem to start. As the children and teachers gathered, my hand began to shake and my heart started to race. As the music blared, I did everything I could to try and keep myself from passing out. I counted the windows in the school, the clouds in the sky, and the leaves on the trees, but nothing helped. All I could feel was my heart trying to punch its way out of my chest. Thankfully, the anthem ended and I went inside.
“I’m not doing the national anthem anymore,” I told her. Why should I? “I’m not Turkish, I’m not a citizen! I’ve been in this country for ten years and banks won’t give me a loan despite my job. Why should I sing?”
I was hyperventilating at a rapid rate and wanted something to blame. For whatever crazy reason, the anthem seemed like a good place to start. “Why should I be loyal to a country that won’t even trust me with a 5,000-dollar loan?” I was shaking more now.
I don’t know why I was saying this, although I meant every word. It was like my mind and mouth were in cahoots and on autopilot as they spouted every misgiving I had ever had with the country.
I don’t know why I divulged all that excess baggage to my boss but I knew where it came from.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, I have felt out of control. I felt powerless and trapped by a system that was designed to keep me safe. The school, my colleagues, and the salary felt like heavy chains.
I had my first panic attack in 2019, a few months before my fiance left me. I didn’t know it then but I’m certain now that it was my mind’s way of telling me that something was wrong. When she left, it was a relief and life got better. But now they were back and it was time for me to examine why.
That weekend I went on a solo hike for a few hours to gather my thoughts.
About halfway up the trail, I had climbed a hundred times before, the mosques below rang out the call to prayer, the call I had heard a thousand times before. My hands began to shake and my heart began to race and I was convinced I was about to drop dead on this Turkish mountain. Suddenly, I collapsed and fell backward, tumbling down a steep slope.
I was unharmed and thankfully the tumble got rid of the panic attack. I decided to lay there for a while thinking ‘What is going on with me?’ For whatever reason, the things that I had loved so much, such as the school, the national anthem, and yes, the call to prayer, had become dreadful symbols of everything wrong in my life.
They had become the calling cards of my doomed existence and inability to be truly free. On that mountain, surrounded by God’s call and all his nature, I rang my wife. When I heard her voice, I broke down crying.
“I can’t do it. I’m sorry, I can’t do it anymore. I don’t want to become this. It’s not me. Being a teacher is not the real me,” I sobbed as my beautiful wife listened. We were recently married and I felt like I was letting her down. I felt weak.
The next year, in April of 2023, I informed my boss that I was leaving my teaching job.
She was shocked, saddened, and tearful. She tempted me with perks, wage increases, and other things. She was convinced that I was negotiating. When she asked me what school I’d be working at next year I simply said, “None, I’m done.” Then it dawned on her that this was no negotiation. I was done. She gave me a knowing nod and we shook hands.
Freeman was a different story. He lambasted me and called me crazy. He said, “You’re crazy! Do you have any idea how lucky you are to be employed by this place? They pay foreigners more and you have a steady salary.”
I couldn’t argue with his logic but I had to leave. Something was afoot and my subconscious was trying to warn me of it. For the past two years, there have been budget cuts, more teaching hours, and less pay. Add to that, Turkish teachers had grown prickly over how much foreign teachers were earning and were beginning to voice their discontent privately and publicly.
In April 2024, Freeman called me.
It had been almost a year since I quit and I was sitting in my home office writing and free of panic and anxiety. What he told me shocked me but did not surprise me.
He said that the company would not be renewing the contracts of all the foreign teachers including him. That meant that 300 teachers would be out of a job. Freeman joked that I now looked like a genius but if I’m being honest with you, I just really needed to quit. Maybe deep down I knew something was going to happen but nothing as big as that.
It’s funny how loyal teachers like Freeman got punished eventually for their loyalty, whilst panicked quitters like me now sit calmly under the sun typing and making new friends on the Internet. Freeman now only has a month to secure employment before he is kicked out of the country. He had been a loyal servant of the company for six years.
I now work as an online tutor, recruiter, and writer, I’m making more money and despite the ups and downs of working for yourself, I feel at peace.
I feel like me, the real me.
The national anthem, the school, my colleagues, and the mosques were never the problem. I was the problem. For too long I had ignored my gut, my instinct, and most importantly, my heart.
A compass only works if you know where true north is. If you don’t know your true north, cut out the noise and take the time to listen.
Peter William Murphy is a writer, teacher, musician, and content creator. He has published over 250 articles on Medium and has been selected for curation on 26 occasions. His work explores society, culture, politics, and mental health.
