Need some happy "I moved to the UK" stories

So, it's been about a month or so now since I've joined this site, I've been ridiculously positive most of the time and I'm afraid at the current moment I'm having a bit of a break down. I knew it'd happen eventually, seeing as no one can be positive at all times.

I'm missing England and the people I was with in it so badly. Whenever I go outside here, I'm back in NY now, it just makes me feel horrible and depressed. Don't ask me why. If I'm not constantly looking up how to move there, I just freak out, thinking it's time wasted. I think there's something wrong with me, lol. I had a really bad sobbing fest and I am now starting to cry again as I'm typing this. I wish someone could relate to how I feel, that's part of the reason why I'm posting this. I know it won't happen over night, but it's just discouraging when you can't make things go how you want them. And especially when you're like me and have little patience for things to actually happen.

It might be because when I went to England this first time in October, it was like.. a two month (not even) notice thing. It first started off with the guy I stayed with in the UK as a joke in early/mid August. Then my grandmother suggested I actually do it and that I could pay for my plane ticket with bonds I had in a savings account. I thought 'why not,' I asked him if I actually could stay with him for a month, he said yes, I got my plane ticket and in not even a full two months time, I was there...

I shouldn't even be like this since I JUST received good news, I got my first job. I got hired for a day care job and I'll be starting next week so I can start saving money to go visit England again. I'm just so torn with what I want to do to get over there again. Do I go to university so I can study for a degree and stay there for a few years? Con, I'd be getting into a sh*t-load of debt. Pro, I'd be back in England where I've been dying to be. Do I somehow try (and undoubtedly fail) at trying to get a work permit? Do I try to go through a program and try to volunteer there for a few months to a year? Do I try to do a gap year?

I have no idea, I'm only 19 and all these questions and not knowing what to do are really starting to weigh on me.. especially when you're religiously researching it every day, with discouraging, negative results and you now feel like you were stupid for ever thinking your dream could really come true in the first place.... Seriously, my bookmarks are over following with UK information...

Can anyone give me any happy stories about how they finally made their dream come true? I really need some happy stories right now.

Thanks for reading my pathetic rant, haha.

I'm in the UK because of family, not because it was my dream so I can't really offer inspiration on that front. What I will say is that you've got to look for happiness in where you are at the moment, then build up. If you consider your current situation as second best to your dream of living somewhere else, then you will be miserable for no reason. Work on finding out what you like about your current life and how you can be happy.

Then! Start to work towards your goal of moving. Start saving, start researching and make sure that by the time you're ready to move that life in England is a goal, not an escape. Enjoy your time in America and don't put your life on hold, and then to move to England with a good plan and plenty of funds.

I'm sure it doesn't feel like it right now, but things will get better. To find yourself so distressed now is pretty normal, and you can get through it. Good luck.

I moved to Scotland because it was my dream, but I came to do a Ph.D. so the student visa route. I then switched to a highly skilled migrant visa and am now on an unmarried partner visa, as I met my Scottish now-fiancé about a month after I got here. It is possible, but if you're young and not highly educated, it's a lot more difficult. You might be able to find volunteer work under the Tier 5 charity workers visa, or if you were to start studying in the US you could do a semester/year abroad or Tier 5 through BUNAC. These are all potentially cheaper options than doing a whole degree in the UK. Good luck!

I think on this forum, you will find plenty of happy stories because mainly, people were finally united with their now husband/wife after long distance relationships.  

Unfortunately, as you are finding out, it is very difficult to get here when you don't have a family tie.
However, really, a student visa makes it very much possible for people to live here when there's no other way.  However, as you say, the debt, that's the hard part.  But you will need to weigh what will make your dream work.
Also, make sure and analyse why you're having this dream to live here and make sure its for all the right reasons.  Living in another country is very ,very different than visiting.  Now that said, I actually hadn't visited Scotland before I interviewed, but I knew with the whole of 2 days spent there, I was home. So I can certianly understand the pull and the draw, having myself had the dream since I was a child. And I was lucky enough to be able to get a work permit to make it a reality.  Had I not done that,I would have more than likely put myself into a shedload of debt to move to Scotland on a student visa and consider myself even more lucky that I would have been able to find a way to do that.

So all is not despair- it may not be immediate, but there are ways to work and save and make your dreams come true. Good luck!!!    

Can I ask WHY you want to move to the UK?  I've just read over some of your other posts and I know I dont know you at all, but it sounds like you think the accent is "cute" and like that you are the centre of attention because you are "different".   Like Phatbeetle said, you do need to realize that living somewhere is very different than just visiting.  The accent wont be cute anymore (I dont even notice it anymore) and the novelty factor of you being American and something different and getting a lot of attention will wear off quickly.

In my experience, you are doing yourself a major disservice by focusing ONLY on moving and what you WANT your life to be rather than what it is NOW.  I have seen so many people come and go on this forum who almost check out of their real-lives to focus on a dream life that may or may not ever come to fruition, and I would really urge you just to look at yourself and ensure you arent doing that.   

You're 19 years old, you just got your first job, you havent even LIVED (like really lived an adult life) in the US, so I just wonder why you would think that a life in the UK would be so much better?

I agree that BUNAC might be an excellent experience for you.

@angelchrome, I suppose you're right. It's just when I was in England, I felt really secure and safe, now I'm back in my dangerous neighborhood. Yeah, I live in -that- kind of place. I love my family and friends here. I just dunno, it might just be because I'm missing the guy that I was there with too. I miss him terribly. But I'll definitely try to look to the future instead and stop being such a downer. Thank you.

@DrSuperL99, Aw, that sounds sweet. Yeah, what kind of sucks is I'm not particularly the best at school stuff/have no academic confidence, or at least when it comes to math and every university seems to want high scores there, and I really have on the lower scale of scores in it. If I went to university (I've changed my mind about what I've wanted to do, like a thousand times) but I think I know for sure now that I'd get involved with working with kids. Do you know if I got maybe like a masters in child care/learning/development, that I could get on the skilled migrant visa? I was going to try to somehow get that charity visa. But the problem is I don't just want to go to England in general. I want to go where I stayed and be around the people I was around last time. I guess beggars can be choosers, lol. My cousin actually went to London through BUNAC! Thank you for the suggestions!

@phatbeetle, Exactly, I knew I could get a few nice stories from here and it's what I needed to feel better. I couldn't believe how hard it is to get there with no family tie. I suppose I will, I might just end up doing that since I am too young to have any real experience with.. anything really. Well, the reason I want to live there is because for one, I felt like I was at home when I was there. I never got home sick once, even if it was only a month, it was a long time to be apart from my family especially when I'd never even been on a bus down town by myself. Two, someone I really love lives there and in all honesty, I probably wouldn't be trying THIS hard to get back there if not for him. And no, I'm not going to ask him to marry me, lol. How on earth did you manage to get a work permit?? Thanks so much, that makes me feel better that you got that work permit, just shows that it can be done.

@mirrajay, believe I just answered your question in the reply I gave to phatbeetle. While I do like the accent they have, I never have called it cute and I'd imagine it'd lose it's spark after a while. Uh, I don't know how you got the idea that just because I was there and had a different accent, that I was somehow the center of attention. I hate being the center of attention for one and no one, when I was there, even acknowledged I had different accent. Except when I pronounced something "wrong." I don't think my life would be SOOO much better, like it's all rainbows and happy over there. I just know that I was the happiest I've ever been, when I was there. I think it was mostly because, I've known someone that lives there for about 5 years now and I've fallen in love with him if you must know why I want to be back there so badly.

Getting a visa to work in the UK is very difficult, even more than when phatbeetle and I received ours. You have to be highly skilled and have specific experience. Phatbeetle is an engineer so her skills were very much in demand by the company that sponsored her.

I have to reiterate what the previous people said, vacationing (even long term) in a place is very different than living there.  It’s really quite amazing how the grass is always greener, no matter what side of the pond you are on.  When I think back to my first summer abroad (I worked in Germany) my first memories are of the lovely locals I met, how great the beer and the bratwurst was, and over all, just how much fun it was.  What I block out is the nights I spent crying my eyes out because I was homesick, how scary it was when I had to hitch-hike in Prague because I couldn’t read a time table, and how frustrating functioning in a different language can be.  

 I do the same thing with my internship in London.  And I truly love London.  My first visit was about 9 years ago and I fell in love with it then.  But living there isn’t all pubs and museums.  It was dealing with a nasty boss, living in a basement (with no tv or internet connection) and not having many friends.  I even remember my round the world with rosy glasses.  There are some scary stories from that trip that almost sent me running back to the US.  In the end, no matter where you are, it just becomes the norm.  

Of course, I totally agree with the idea of a place feeling like home from the get go.  London felt that way to me and even the nasty boss I had didn’t alleviate that feeling.  Now that I’ll be moving there permanently in the fall I’m once again making it seem almost like an answer.  In some ways it will be.  It’s the answer to being with the love of my life every day for the rest of forever, and that’s huge.  But, I hate my job here (in NYC) and keep thinking that I just can’t wait until it is over.  The simple fact is that I probably won’t like my first job in the UK any better.  

If I were you I would definitely look at American collages that a big in international coops/classes.  I know that Bunac has changed quite a bit since I did it, but it is still there.  My college had 3 – 6 week classes that took place in other countries, maybe you could find something like that and see how it goes.  

It has always been a dream of mine to live in the UK - from my first visit at 9 years old ( I am now 40) through the many ups and downs as life brings I am finally happily living my dream. Happily married to my best friend, we had been pen pals for years then lost each other for 8 years then a chance encounter we found each other again. If it's supposed to happen it will, as it has been said before research, save, pray and believe it will happen and it will. 

I moved over because it was a "dream" (of sorts). I'd always wanted to try living abroad, and had pleasant memories of visiting London as a child. I was lucky enough to get UK citizenship (albeit at a hefty price) through my mother, so moving here seemed to make the most sense (rather than picking some other country).

I'll have been here a year next week, and like it quite a bit. That said, the move cost me a LOT - in terms of money (moving isn't cheap, especially with animals in tow!), time (I spent 6 weeks pre-move doing nothing but preparing, and ~6 weeks post-move doing nothing but learning my way around and figuring things out), effort, etc. I was also very lucky to have no had troubles finding a job (several, actually, as I'm contracting), but I have a degree and a professional skillset.

I would recommend:
- looking into UK universities and seeing what career paths you would be interested in, and if the salary for those careers would justify international loans (if you're wanting to study art history, probably not; if you want to study biochemistry, perhaps)

- looking into US universities that have study-abroad programs. You could finish a degree relatively cheaply (compared to international student fees for the UK) and still spend a semester abroad without too much extra expense

- focus on things you can change about your current life NOW. Focusing entirely on how much you want to move to the UK and how nice it would be if you were there does no good (until/unless you have a firm plan in place for when/how you will move, in which case you can work on the step(s) in that plan). Feeling lonely? Join some clubs or take up a hobby to make new friends. Feeling bored? Find a new hobby. Broke? Look into a side job/hobby-turned-profession to bring in some extra cash. And so on. As other posters have said, the grass is always greener, but focusing on that will only make you miserable.

I have not done the LDR thing, so can't offer advice about that, but there's not much you can do other than communicate, visit as often as you can, and hope it works out.

I always knew I wanted to live abroad in Europe, but until dh and I discussed how I did not want to do another ldr for possibly years, and he offered marriage, I had given up.  I always thought I'd be happier here and this would feel like home.  It really did feel like home when I was studying abroad here in this city for 3 months with no homesickness.  I felt a lot happier, I thought.  When dh and I got married, I thought I had him, I was living somewhere I loved, nothing else would matter.  But it did.  A year and a half of wandering through life, one crappy job and one MA where I finally started doing something I loved (after feeling I wasn't as good as academia as I thought), I have finally found a job that doesn't make me hate my working life and I am looking to teach some courses for pleasure, which I never thought I'd do but now I'm excited.  I guess the one thing I've learned is life is life anywhere and 5 years on, I'm finally getting to a good place in my life here.  And though I'm loathed to say it because it means my mother is right, life is about what you put into it, so work to make your life good where ever you are because the life you think you want might not be as good as you think it is.  That said, hopefully I'm nearing my happy ending, although it started as a leap of faith to get married.

Good luck!  Believe in yourself and your own ability to make the life you want possible no matter where you end up.  

That said, hopefully I'm nearing my happy ending...

Lol!  Well I hope it's your happy beginning, rather than 'ending' - at your 'advanced' age! 

And then there are those of us who never cared a whit about the UK & somehow managed to end up here anyway. 

It wasn't even on my radar.  I wanted to live somewhere warm and sub/tropical.  But I got an online penpal who happened to be English, and here I am married to him 8 years on from when we first started to write each other, living in frosty northern England. 

I love my English hubby & lots of stuff about being here, close to the rest of Europe, etc.  I'd still prefer living somewhere warmer though!

Getting a visa to work in the UK is very difficult, even more than when phatbeetle and I received ours. You have to be highly skilled and have specific experience. Phatbeetle is an engineer so her skills were very much in demand by the company that sponsored her.

Yes, this.  I was able to get mine before the days of Tier 2 and no more HSMP/Tier 1 visas. 

Not to mention that there's no guarantees for the future

Not to discourage you from the student path but the amount of money you need to keep taking out each year in loans (which may never even come like in my experience) is painful! You never truly think about how painful until you get notices every few months saying how much in interest and overall you will need to pay back.

Based on my own experience, if I were you I would try to find a different way to come stay in the UK such as Bunac like was previously mentioned.