Moving Out and Mental Illness?
So, like so many others in their 20's, I moved out of my parent's house into an apartment 300 miles away that I share with my boyfriend. I used to be really wary of moving out, figuring that it wouldn't happen for a while and I had time to figure things out, but then the timing of things flipped that idea on it's head and here I was moving across the entire state the day after my last set of finals before earning my associate's degree. I've always struggled with some mental illness stuff but it seems like once I moved out, everything came out of the woodwork and intensified. My anxiety has hiked up, mainly at night, which causes a huge gastrointestinal chain reaction. I don't know what kind of eating disorder I have but whatever it is has sort of begun to flare up again-- I'm severely emetophobic so sometimes I'll starve myself out of a fear of vomiting but then at the same time, when I do this I know I'm losing weight so I get extremely paranoid about becoming too thin. Simple everyday tasks have become a massive chore because of this. I never include eating on my to-do lists because I never prioritize it. Every time I have to do the dishes, my appetite just disappears because honestly, there is nothing more vomit-inducing than rotting, water-logged food sitting in your kitchen sink. I try to avoid doing it as much as possible but with a boyfriend that comes home from work or class and wants to do nothing but smoke marijuana and play video games, sometimes I have no choice but to do it myself which is fair since I don't have a job and took the semester off of school (I was in school for a year straight, from August 2016 to August 2017, in order to finish up my associate's degree) so I should be the one to do the household chores since I guess I have nothing else to do and am home all the time anyways. I just hate doing them and I hate what doing them does to me, with completely wiping out my appetite and charging up my gag reflex to the point where I'm positive every time I try to do them, that I am going to throw up. Sometimes I wish I could just stay in bed and sleep all day to avoid the responsibilities, but then my anxiety flings all these worst case scenarios at me about what would happen if I did that, knowing I need to get work done but never having the energy or motivation to get out of bed and make myself do it, wanting to avoid the nausea and the fear, my mind constantly telling me that if I don't take care of this stuff, that I'm lazy and a deadbeat. I keep telling myself I'm going to start being more productive and keep up with the housework, get out of bed before noon and eat three meals a day and do the dishes after every meal and keep up with the laundry (which, honestly, is just about the only household chore I actually really enjoy) but then I never feel like I have the energy or motivation and things pile up so quickly and I just don't want to deal with any of it. And I've found since moving out that dirty dishes aren't the only thing messing with my appetite, either. Now that I'm living on my own and have to buy my own groceries and whatnot, I've become incredibly hyperaware of how much or how little I eat, how much money food costs, etc. I find myself counting calories way more often than I used to, trying to get as many in as I can while eating as little as possible and trying to ration my supply to make things last longer. But then there's the matter of expiration dates that foil that entire plan. I'm terrified of eating anything even a day past it's expiration date, or eating anything that might have been left out and gone bad, because I know eating food that's gone bad leads to food poisoning which means throwing up and my goal in life, it seems, is to avoid throwing up as much as humanly possible. My boyfriend keeps getting on my case about hardly ever eating leftovers, which then leads to food going bad and getting wasted, but what he doesn't understand (I guess because I never say anything about it) is that I avoid leftovers both because I don't eat and because I'm scared of what's going to happen if I eat something even a few days after we made it. I hate doing this to myself (and, by extension, my boyfriend) and basically being a massive hypocrite about these things but I don't know how to stop. Even my situational eating issues have flared up again. When I was a kid, I went through this phase where I would refuse to eat anything after the sun set because I had this notion that eating after dark would lead to throwing up (since the majority of the times I've vomited have been at nighttime). I still get a little panicky about eating after dark but it had died down quite a bit for a long while. That is, until I moved out of my parent's house. My boyfriend works a retail job which means sometimes he doesn't come home until almost midnight after the store closes and I always wait for him so we can eat dinner together. Sometimes he'll pick up food on his way home, sometimes we'll get food delivered, and sometimes we'll cook but regardless of the method of acquiring the food, the result is always the same: no matter how hungry I am, I physically cannot bring myself to eat much late at night like that. My anxiety will hike up and then every single night, I've been getting panic attacks and what I can only assume to be acid reflux, which only makes the emetophobia worse. It's such a vicious cycle and I hate it but I don't know how to fix any of it. In some portion of my brain, I think maybe I was never ready to move out of my parent's house to begin with (doesn't help I had a mother who'd smother me and do absolutely everything for me, so moving out and suddenly having to do everything myself was a hard slap of reality) but I know there's no way I can turn back now. Both because I'm locked into a lease and because I'm starting college here in a few months so for more reasons than one, I can't go back. Nor do I think I should. There's this line at the end of The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian in which the titular character says "I do not think I am ready" and then Aslan, the Jesus lion, replies, "That is how I know you are" and I feel like that honestly applies a lot to this situation, as well. I may not have felt ready when I moved up here but I know if I had waited, I never would've felt ready. I know this is where I need to be and I don't regret moving out, but I just wish my caravan of mental health issues wasn't parading out banging pots and pans making this ten times more difficult to adjust to.
@myaekingheart
Wow, it sounds like this change in your life has created some extremely overwhelming feelings for you. I am unsure of what the question is that you are looking for an answer for. But, I do believe with the end of your post that you are seeking out more self compassion and understaning so that you won't be so hard on yourself. Congratulations on making such a big change in your life and sticking with it.