http://theanxietytracker.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/time-to-move-on.html
I was musing over moving out of my parents' home for the second time, to a shared house. At the time of the previous blog, I didn't think that my mate who I lived with before would be moving with me, but circumstances have changed such that this is now the case again, which is great news.
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I have spent the last few months searching for somewhere to live, meeting with landlords at various houses and trying desperately to meet the people who live in them, first on my own then later with my mate. You wouldn't (or perhaps you would, if you've done this sort of thing before!) believe how difficult it was to get the landlords to get the housemates to be there when I went round. This, as I've mentioned, is by far the most important thing for me. If the housemates are not people I feel I could get along with, then I didn't want to live there. So if I couldn't get to meet them, I had to assume that they came into this category, whether they did or not.
Finally, at the eighth attempt, I went round to a house to view it, and all of the housemates were there, gathered in the lounge area. What was interesting about this viewing is that it was for three rooms with a total of five other people (I was there on behalf of me and my mate), so we were effectively in competition with each other. Luckily, we both got two of the rooms.
I'm not going to say too much about the house at this stage, lest things go wrong and I regret it later. But so far I feel I've been lucky to find somewhere that contains people who were very welcoming and could, could certainly fulfil the criteria that I set out in the first blog about this. It could increase my social capacity significantly, which is excellent. Challenging, but excellent. A challenge that I need and that hopefully, in time, I can accept and enjoy.
It is likely to be a totally different situation to the last house; my anxiety was tested there but that was more because it was the first time I'd left home. There was no test from a social capacity because, when my mate wasn't there, the others were hermits in their own rooms. Which, by all accounts, was for the best.
However this new house seems to have a completely different dynamic. What sums it up for me is that one of the landlord's main concerns was getting the right people in there, whereas most others just seem concerned about getting the rent money and having done with it.
So if it does turn out to be the social haven that it could be, then this will test my anxiety. Bluntly, high amounts of social activity is one thing I've rarely had in my life; even when I was in the final year of Uni, my richest year to date back in 2007-8, I still lived at home and didn't socialise as much as those who lived away. So to have a sudden increase in social activity with, in the outset, people I don't know, could be interesting to say the least.
There are numerous niggles of course, some connected to the social side of things, some other more domestic things. But they all come as a package fear, which is that of how this potential seismic shift in my general day to day life could affect me and my mental health. It has the real potential to improve it quite quickly and certainly over time, but it also has the potential to cause mass struggle. Then there is still the prospect that it won't work out, which, given other factors involving my existing friends, could make me very flat indeed.
But overall I am thinking positively. One of the biggest successes so far is that I am able to recognise the potential problems from an anxiety perspective, both short and long term, without letting them consume me. They are there, niggling, but the positivity and excitement of what this experience could be is equally, if not more, overwhelming than the negatives. This is an achievement for me in itself.
The move is to occur this coming Monday 2nd September. I will no doubt update you as to how it goes.
Bring it on.
Best wishes
Al
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