I might be moving house!!
I’m terrified and so excited at the same time.
Almost 2 years ago my treatment team applied with me for a transfer (I live in a Department of Housing unit) to a lower ground unit, due to stairs being painful and not recommended for me as a result of the osteoporosis and stress fractures in my legs.
It’s been such a long wait that I pretty much decided it wasn’t going to really happen! And thinking that it wasn’t going to happen was a comfortable place to exist in – because moving is terrifying. I have to pack everything up, somehow get it over to the new place.. unpack it… where am I going to find the energy for that? And I have SO MUCH STUFF now.
Moving for me, used to mean just packing a few bags, maybe a box or two in the later years, and WALKING to the next place. That’s how little stuff I had, and how often I used to move – never know when you are going to have to pack up and move on when you are living in rooms, boarding houses, private properties. I moved about nine times in a few years.
The unit where I live now, I have been living in for over ten years now. That is truly amazing. It was the first place where I could truly put down roots, where I could truly know that I could live here for the rest of my life if I so chose, where I could begin to feel stable and call it ‘home’. MY home.
I only know the suburb that my offered unit is in at this stage – but I’ve been told it’s a really nice, leafy, tree-filled, park-filled suburb. That would be like living in an oasis compared to where I’ve been for all these years – inner city area. Gritty and grey, pollution and traffic dense, loud, busy, and very high in crime. It’s a common sight to see someone shooting up in my stairwell. It’s not something you want to be used to, but I am. And this new suburb is totally different.
That is going to be so wonderful. Literally a breath of fresh air.
Shalimar is going to love it too. She’s been an inside cat for her entire 9 years of life. She will still largely be an inside cat – but being downstairs she will have access to our own little courtyard (most likely) which I will be able to screen in in some way to allow her out there as much as possible. She will be able to enjoy the plants I plan on having. And with all the parks in the area, I’ll be able to take her on some serious adventures 
The best thing of all? Two men who have stalked me in more recent years – will not be able to find me any more. My older sister will not know where I am and will never be able to harass me again. My FAMILY will not know where I live, and will never be able to harass me again! I CAN’T WAIT for that. For the first time ever, I will be totally FREE of them. FREE. SAFE.
And at the same time it terrifies me.
For all that they have hurt me – they are ‘family’. I’ve been forcing ‘No Contact’ for a while now – because I have tried and tried and they have kept on hurting me over and over and in some cases blatantly harassing me. There is only one person I would like to keep contact with and she hates me right now – my little sister. She has my mobile phone number and email, so she will still be able to find me. But the rest of them, I will (hopefully) just totally, completely, vanish from their worlds. I feel scared about cutting the last ties with my family – forever (because they aren’t going to change, I have tried, but they can’t change.) I feel very scared and alone in the world when I think that I’ve cut ties with the family I was born to.
But then I remember my REAL family – the family I have made, chosen. My wonderful, loving, caring REAL friends. Who know me, KNOW me – and care about me and love me unconditionally despite my faults. Because they have taken the time to actually get to KNOW me rather than just assume they do because, hell, they gave birth to me or grew up beside me, so they must know me better than anyone right, including myself?
Ha. My own family never knew me, even when I still lived with them. They never bothered. They never had a CLUE who this stranger they lived with was.
My REAL family are going to know where to find me. My REAL family are going to be part of my new, safe life in my new, safe home.
Has a huge change of living arrangements affected your safety and security? Have you ever needed to cut yourself off from your relatives? How did you feel about that, or how would you feel about it if you had to do that?
Does where you live affect your eating disorder and/or health?
