What If I Shit My Pants?

Moving Is Hard When You Are Autistic

Our lease is coming to an end, and after a bit of a rollercoaster of decision-making, we made the hard decision to move. Moving in general is exhausting and stressful, but add autism into the mix, and it feels like your whole world is being turned upside down. There isn't just a whole change of environment about to happen, but you have routine disruption and anticipation anxiety for weeks at a time.

The hardest part is that I actually really love the place we are in currently, but:

  1. With my coaching business winding down, we won't be able to afford it much longer.
  2. There is mold, and having been sick with a mysterious illness for a year now that is giving me fevers every 1-2 weeks, we are thinking it is in our best interest to change environments to cover all possible causes. Especially since the management company/maitnence refuses to address the mold issue.

To add to the list, our AC has been out for two weeks now during triple-digit heat. The AC going out and maintenance failing to address it really sealed the deal for us to leave.

The moving process of packing has already begun, and to top it off, we have to travel 3+ hours away for a "Birthday trip" for my narcissistic mother, leaving us just a few days to get settled, and then I have back surgery the day after we get back.

This month is fucked, and thinking about it all throws me into freeze mode, which...is partially why I am writing this right now. To take action on something and try to get some momentum going.

As much as I hate change, I am trying to look at the move as a new chapter for a fresh start. This past year has been one of the toughest years of my life, with all the health issues and not feeling like myself physically and mentally. Even if it is just a placebo effect, it is giving me a glimmer of hope to start fresh.

Before moving here, I was a bodybuilder. I was hitting the gym at least five days a week, if not six... but now I am lucky if I can get myself into the gym twice a week without feeling like absolute garbage before, during, and after the workout.

This is different than any sort of motivation lull I have experienced before. Motivation is always up and down, but at least in the past, I knew that I would feel better once I got the workout done. I knew I would feel accomplished and energized. Now, I just feel more tired and awful after I attempt a workout. I just feel so god damn tired all the time, and I am growing increasingly frustrated. I keep telling myself that when I move, I'm just going to try to Goggins my way into a fresh start and hope for the best because I've honestly run out of other options, and it is the only way I can pretend to have some hope for the future.

I already know my therapist would roll her eyes at me planning to Goggins my way through something, but honestly, the less I do, the worse I feel. Mentally at least.

Some things I have done so far to help my moving anxiety:

  1. Google street viewed and mapped out every location I can walk to or ride my electric skateboard to. (I prefer not to drive because my car is on its last leg and is not reliable...and let's be real, driving in general gives me anxiety.)
  2. Found a new gym within electric skateboard riding distance that isn't a crowded commercial gym that is packed full of people and loud music. (There is a 24 Hour Fitness right across the street, but the minute I walked in there to check it out, I knew it was a FUCK NO option. I wanted to turn around and exit immediately.)
  3. Took pictures and video of the new place so I had it to reference and start thinking about how I want to arrange things. Especially my office space.

The rest of the anxiety-inducing stuff is mostly logistics of finding time to pack and clean and all the fun stuff that comes with moving out of an apartment. I can't say I have that all planned out yet, but all I know is that I am exhausted already. I feel like I haven't completely recovered from my last move, and that was 18 months ago.

I know that, regardless of the stress and everything that needs to be done, I will, in fact, get things done, and before I know it, I will be moved and settled. I just gotta get through this month.

For now, all I can focus on is taking one step at a time, and that next step is going to my ketamine appointment. I generally don't have great sessions when I am already insanely anxious, but here goes nothing.

Cheers to the start of moving chaos, and cheers to a fresh start.

If this resonated with you, or you just want to connect, leave me a comment here.