7: Anxiety@ The Shared House

The latest in my 'Anxiety@' series continues with focusing on what it has been like living in a shared house.  I didn't move out of my parents' home at all until April 2012 - nearly three years ago.  I lived at home and commuted during University and simply didn't have the mental strength to move out.  The thought of it scared me.  After the incident in 2011 (see last blog) any likelihood of this seemed even less likely, but thanks to my therapy that I started a year before I moved out, it gave me the belief that, if the right circumstances came up, I could do it.

It never quite got like this

Not that I specifically looked for it.  It just so happened that my friend, who I met at the start of GCSE years (2001) was moving back to my home town in 2012 after spending four University years and two subsequent years up north.  Needless to say he didn't want to move back with his parents, so he asked me if we wanted to share.

Now the nature of his job means that he's away quite a lot (he's a musician).  He is usually gigging at weekends, which is of course the time when I'm not at work.  I knew back then that living what would effectively be on my own was not an option.  Being alone causes the anxious thoughts to prevail, to rise to the surface and stay there, to be more profound.  If the mind has nothing to focus on, it focuses on physical pains or things to generate anxiety.  Mind clutter, if you will.  So living alone was never an option for me.  

But I also knew that living with my parents was difficult enough.  I'm an only child, and invariably I'd spend many evenings coming home from work and sitting away from them, either because I needed space from them or simply because they weren't watching the same TV programmes as me.  So home, despite being a comfort blanket in many ways, was also becoming quite lonely.

So, with the help of my friend and my therapist, I took the plunge, and we moved into a shared house with, at the time, three other people we had never met.  And to say the first few months were hard would be an understatement.

Lesson 1: Always try and meet the people you'll be living with before moving in. 

Lesson 2: Try and live with an existing friend, if you can.  Someone you're comfortable with.

For a start, my room was, environmentally, a health hazard, and not just for someone with chronic anxiety.  It contained the hot water boiler and the kitchen was below, meaning it was like the surface of the sun most of the time.  It was April when we moved in, so of course it kept getting warmer then too.  Due to the aforementioned factors and single glazing, it was also very noisy.  It was also absurdly light, due to pointless beige curtains and the sun for most of the day.  The main impact of all this was lack of sleep.  I think I must have got about no more than five hours sleep every night for about two months - and five hours would be an achievement.  It was becoming a serious problem.  

This was partially overcome by moving rooms. One of the downstairs rooms was vacant because it took the landlord so long to redecorate it after previous troublesome tenant(!), but once it became available I moved into it.  It was darker (had shutters on the window), cooler (downstairs) and generally less noisy, so this was a significant improvement.  It was a sizeable bedroom as well, so all in all this wasn't a problem (apart from a fairly frequent appearance of cat-sized house spiders, which I'm not very good with either).  

Lesson 3: Don't be scared to move rooms if the opportunity arises, if you'd like to. On a similar point, don't be scared to ask the landlord if you need something; that's what they are there for.  I went in with too much of a 'I need to wholly fend for myself' attitude.

However, this room ended up being my house, basically.  To say the other tenants, bar my friend of course, were not the sort I had in mind would be an understatement.  My mate and I laugh about it now, but at the time it was hell.  They were all messy and unclean for a start off and none of them really pulled their weight in this respect.  The bathroom wasn't much better.  The floor was carpeted for a start.  For someone who verges on obsessive when it comes to cleanliness, this was very difficult to live with.  I expanded the hand sanitiser market by 40%.  Their personalities made me very uncomfortable as well.  As with shared houses, people came and went, but they were all male (which probably stereotypically explains the mess), and all either rather uncommunicative or a lads lad, if you know what I mean.  They made me that uncomfortable that I tended to avoid making contact with them at all in the end; e.g. if one of them was in the kitchen, I'd wait until they were finished.  I was walking on egg shells all the time.  And in the last couple of months, I went back to my parents every weekend; my friend wasn't there at weekends anyway and I couldn't face two days of dealing with this.  

Generally it was a really difficult situation, with only my friend and the change of rooms early doors making me stick it out for ten months.  I finished the therapy I mentioned about a month or so after I moved into this house, which was also difficult.  That said, had I not had all the things I'd learnt from this therapy fresh in my head during this time, I'm not sure I could have coped for ten weeks, let alone ten months.  I knew it was time to leave when someone said I was looking thinner (as a six foot four inch tall slim build male who is in fear of any physical changes, this was hard to hear!), which was induced by avoiding cooking anything healthy or substantial on the hob or in the oven due to their rancid state.  

So in late January 2013, I moved back to my folks.  I needed to get out - and I remember vividly feeling so happy and relieved for the first few days back.  I left my friend at the hovel, unfortunately for him, but he understood that I had to leave.  

Of course, it didn't take too long to slip back into the lonely, isolated world of living with my parents.  I knew I could only let this be temporary.  So me and my friend looked for other shared houses, as before.  I still didn't want to live alone or just with him, due to the same reasons, but, being armed with the first experience, I was adamant I wanted to find a place with some nice people in it, people who not only I could tolerate living with, but who, if I was lucky, I'd even make some friends with.  

However, by the seventh viewing, I was becoming sceptical.  Some were hovels like the place I'd moved from; and at most, the landlords didn't make the effort to allow you meet the other housemates.  Until house number eight.

Lesson 4: Spend time looking for houses you're most comfortable with.  I found spareroom.co.uk most useful.

I was viewing the house alone because my friend was away, and I arrived at the viewing to be greeted by a middle aged woman with bright pink hair.  I thought 'hello, what have I got myself into here?'  Only to find out she was the landlord's wife.  I was then introduced to two other people who it quickly transpired were also there to view the three rooms available.  Along with the fact that I was viewing the house for me and my mate, and there was also one other person interested, there were five of us effectively competing for three rooms.  The best bit: the current housemates were all there, in the lounge, waiting for us and effectively judging us on who they wanted to live there / replace them. 

The good news - great news, in fact - here is that this meant that the landlords genuinely cared about who lived with who, and cared that the newbies were able to meet the housemates.  The bad news - I have social anxiety.

So during this whole charade, I kept trying to come across as confident, and wondering the whole time 'how am I coming across compared to the others? How am I coming across to the people I want to live with?' The most difficult were the questions they asked; I kept over-analysing my answers - too short? Too long? Too weird?  Did I look anxious?  This is a vomit of information and a lot to think about in about 20 minutes, whilst trying to secure a room. 

But I was so adamant that I needed to get that into that house.  Why?  Because it offered the biggest opportunity of my lifetime.  A chance to grow, a chance to make friends, a chance to really test myself, with the therapy armed within me.  A chance to strengthen.

Fortunately, two of the other viewers didn't come across particularly well - one barely said anything (even compared to me, which is a challenge) and the other wanted to draw up things like cleaning rotas.  Even I knew this wasn't going to go down favourably.  The landlords also saw me as favourable, because I was able to fill two rooms at once - with my mate in the other room.  So in September 2013, I embarked on my biggest social challenge ever - I (was allowed to) move(d) into this house.  

The first three-ish weeks were a living hell.  All that hard work for not just nothing, but for pain.  It was one of the few times I've ever actually suffered from depression.  I was in despair the whole time.  I was in tears just cooking dinner, which I then struggled to eat.  Sleeping had ceased again.  My dad came round a few days in for a reason I can't remember, and for an hour after he left I was crying manically.  I was close to leaving before I'd even settled in.  

The first question is, why did this happen?  Well, I always expected it to be fairly hard at first, because I have chronic anxiety and a big change like this will take it's toll, initially, just like the previous place.  But I think the key thing here is that I had put pressure on myself to make this experience go well and for it to improve my life.  Perhaps, in a way, similar to why I had my biggest ever panic attack on a train (see previous blog) after I went to visit a University about doing a masters that would 'change my life for the better.'  Combine that with pressure not to eat and do things solely in my room and to go into the communal areas and socialise.  The exact reason I moved in here was causing me utter hell.  

And, as I've said before on this website, I don't suffer from depression, but I have had short bursts of it in the past.  I cannot begin to imagine how people go through chronic depression because it is just absolutely unbearable.  

The second question is, how did I get out of it?  A trip to Wales with another good mate helped; this occurred about three-four weeks in.  I came back more relaxed and refreshed and stronger - able to hit the problems where they hurt.  I focused on my therapy techniques, which had gone out the window during this first period.  My good friend that I lived with was also around for longer than usual after I came back from Wales too, so his familiarity and advice helped.  And I'm still here to this day.

Lesson 5: Don't be scared to take some time out of the situation to freshen your mind up.  Inadvertently it worked for me.  

It took a while, but I actually started to enjoy it.  The other people we were living with were all great people, we had a laugh, and have since even socialised from time to time.  I think I've made a lifetime friend in at least one of them.  The phrase short-term pain for long-term gain was certainly applicable in this case.  I become comfortable, I felt more popular and the only things I had to concern me were the little things you'd get at any shared house.  

But these little things are now starting to get to me more and more.  One of the good housemates has already moved away, the other is doing so in the summer.  For the last six months or so, I've become happier to be on my own, and less tolerant to not being able to cook or shower when I want.  I still have social anxiety, too, and an improved social life as a result of moving here hasn't actually changed this, so I still feel uncomfortable from time to time, a feeling I'm fed up with now and want to minimise.  This combination of reasons means I feel it's time to move on again.

And alas, I've recently been successful (subject to contract) in buying my first house.  Fortunately, my good friend who has been with me throughout both of these shared housing experiences, will join me as my tenant, so I'll still have the company, but with more space than before and hopefully less discomfort.  I will reserve my thoughts and feelings about buying a house for a later blog, when I've actually moved in, but to say I'm experiencing a myriad of both positive and nervous feelings about it would be an understatement.  

But despite going through some really tough times during my shared house experience, ultimately I achieved my goals of (a) having the balls to move out of my parents' in the first place, (b) having the balls to move back temporarily when the first house didn't work out, (c) meeting some great new people and improving my social interactivity and (d) making me mentally tougher and stronger, which I believe it has done.  I think my shared house experience, both the bad and the good times, has helped me manage, test and allow me to learn more about my anxiety second only to the therapy itself.

But now it's time to move on again, to another new chapter in my life.  That will involve me being a lot poorer than before.

Best wishes
Al