I have moved 15 times in exactly 10 years

[marycontrary]

Hey guys. I have moved one again this week to a new apartment here in South America. I had lost count, so I took a tally of how  many times I moved. 15 times in 10 years.

Most of the time, the sh!t hits the fan, like bad neighbors move in, etc., and the situation becomes unbearable. Other times were temporary venues for a transition to what I always think is permanent housing---which never is.


I know that moving so many times is a reflection of something going on inside of me.

Can anybody offer insights?  I honestly hate moving. 

[wingnut]

Hi, MaryContrary -
A couple of things come my mind -
- Fight or Flight Syndrome - easier to leave the situation than address the bad neighbors, etc.
- Another symptom of trauma - things settle down, become routine and ordinary, we have to rock the boat and make changes as "normal" is boring and unusual to us

[schrödinger's cat]

Hm... I like moving, so I'm not sure if what I say is valid to your situation. Just in case, here goes...

My family modelled a rather shallow kind of relationships. We withhold our true selves and our problems. So getting to know people is easy, and so is saying goodbye. The middle stage is hard, because you're supposed to open up and reveal yourself and I simply have no idea how to do that. This is made complicated by CPTSD: I'm definitely not going to open up about that. So I withhold a large part of myself.

So moving means: I can end relationships before they peter out. I'll always have a happy memory of those people. They didn't leave me. They didn't drift away. I simply moved to another place.

A new place. Old locations have this fog of bad memories hang about them, and moving to a new place means I don't have to deal with that. Fresh, untraumatic places full of fresh, untraumatic people. (Hereabouts, moving an hour's drive into any direction means people have a different accent, and often there's a different style of architecture too, so it's rather easy to get this sense of renewal.)

[wingnut]

Right, perhaps it's a kind of Social Anxiety?

[voicelessagony2]

mary, I'm exactly the same way. I have moved at LEAST 15 times in 15 years, I think the count is actually higher now.

Instability is a hallmark of CPTSD. Many of the moves were due to relationships not working out, but some were simply my own restlessness. I have been moving all my life, really, so staying in one place can actually cause anxiety if I'm not paying attention.

If your urge to move seems to be coming from inside, pay attention to it & see if you can figure out where it's coming from.

Do you have a therapist you can talk to about it?

[Kizzie]

Hey Mary - Wingnut may have a point.  Social anxiety is a symptom of CPTSD so perhaps this is what is spurring your moves despite the fact that you don't actually like moving. there's a good forum for social anxiety at http://www.socialanxietysupport.com/forum/ if you want to take a look.

[marycontrary]

You guys are AWESOME! Thank you so much for ya'lls input.

I do have a therapist, but we have been tied up for 1.5 year dealing with more pressing issues. I have healed much, but this is a rather strange aspect of myself.

As far as not getting along...no, it is due to jerry springer sorts who cannot negotiate or listen. I am a good neighbor, and I really work at it, but a lot of people have their own dysfunction. I refuse to rent expensive places, as they (to me) are a huge waste of money...this can increase odds of getting dodgy neighbors. The last place I moved out because 10 people, many who were loud alcoholics would party till 3am. The drunk granny went nuts when I asked her to keep it down.

I am also an Aspie. I have issues with having too much stuff, as it is a pain in the a$$ to clean, move, or care for. I have issues with a living space being too empty looking because I don't have much crap to fill it up. So I paint my place 11 colors (this is an artistic move to divert attention from the place looking too empty). So here in ecuador (I am a North american), they have ginormous apartments (1000 sf++), and I struggle to get something that is not too huge. It is an artistic eye thing. if it looks too empty, then I feel the same anxiety as some would looking a crooked picture on the wall. 

So the root is have a weird looking place because I don't have the junk to make it look "right".

The root of being a minimalist, or having an aversion to "stuff" is that I do not want the people who have to clean up my so called "estate" when I die to suffer like I did when I have had to haul off literally tons of junk when all the old people in my family died and left so much trash to clean up.

I am young (ish). I realize I could die at any second, due to my history. 

So I think the root of it is that I hate junk, because I had to clean so much junk after so many people's deaths, and this often affects my choice of living spots, because I don't want to me a mentally ill looking person with a bizarrely empty place.

Thanks in advanced. Your thought again appreciated.

[schrödinger's cat]

1000 square feet, that's 92 square metres - I'm assuming for one person?    Wow. You could run laps in your flat, it sounds like.

I had a problem like that once - moved from a 130 sq f room to a 1300 sq f flat. We were newly married and had next to no furniture. I felt like a pea rattling around in a huge empty box. The place would have felt more comfortable with lots of furniture, but I hate clutter, and I don't like the idea of owning unnecessary things. Not owning too many things is a kind of freedom.

When we started accumulating more things (as happens when you have kids), I thought of our elderly relatives and their houses or flats full of boxes upon boxes of photos and knicknacks and bits of old string. It felt like I was turning into those people. Like clutter was a precursor to death. It might be a case where my brain doesn't know this: just because something happens after something else doesn't mean it caused the other thing.

[marycontrary]

Yes SC, I just can't get it any smaller. And I did used to be a pack rat as a young adult, as was my father, and most of my exes. it is not the stuff that means impending death, it is an attempt to make my after death cleanup for my loved ones as painless and quick as possible. I really resented breaking my back and killing myself cleaning up after deceased loved ones over and over. This is more the idea.


This is more an issue of object constancy, I just don't trust that anybody or thing will be around. It is extreme buddhist type detachment due to impermanence. Everything that I believed to be reliable and true prove themselves/itself to be totally unreliable and impermanent.

[flookadelic]

Hi...on a purely practical levek... perhaps paying the extra is the premium required to avoid dodgy neighbours. That's what the extra money buys. And also if you factor in the expenses of moving then paying the extra won't seem so expensive? But cptsd is proper unsettling...but as I made effort to stabilise myself my external circumstances slowly...oh so slowly...began to stabilise.

[marycontrary]

This is a good suggestion, but being in a fancy neighborhood 5 of those 15 times did not seem to help...

It is more that I seem to have strict requirements for quiet, special lighting, and space arrangement. Also, it did not help that many of the moves had to be done suddenly or in desperation.

It is an object constancy thing, I know. I am work my tail off trying to repair this. Again, thank you.

[flookadelic]

Can you find work or a career in a rural area? Or retrain in a line of work - animal husbandry or horticulture - that can take you out of the urban populace? I'm so fortunate as my wife is a 6'3" kick boxing hench person on a farm. Basically she looks after the animals (and I massage the knocks) and runs a small bakery on the farm. She chose her career in great part because of her antipathy to most, but not all, of humanity.

[marycontrary]

Flook--I am incredibly fortunate to have a small internet business that I built (and rebuilt after my divorce) for 7 years. I did this after not being able to secure steady employment as a scientist or in education. I wanted to have the options just like you talked about.

This is how I was able to escape the US. I live in a beautiful city with very low crime, and am thankful NOT to have a car. I love the country---I grew up in the rural sticks of the Arkansas Ozarks and in rural Texas. Most of my life I have spent in rural areas. Of course, there are awesome rural areas down here inS. America. I like not having to depend on a car or being cut off from basic services. However, it is awesome to get back to the country for long visits. Man, there are some pretty areas.

Again, thanks so much for your wisdom. Thanks...

[flookadelic]

Thank you for tolerating my stating of the obvious so many times! A measure if your good will and patience

[marycontrary]

Oh no...no "tolerating" at all. I appreciate your care, empathy, and insight very, very much.