The Difficulties of Moving Hours Away

Hello again readers, today I want to discuss the difficulties of moving hours away to live independently by yourself. Recently, I made a move 5 hours away from my hometown to live on my own for the first time, 5 hours away from family to an unfamiliar place. Prior to that, I relocated 4 hours from my hometown where I had previously lived my whole life to complete undergraduate work, before moving back home for grad school. There are numerous difficulties associated with moving hours away to a previously unexplored area, for anyone. Being on the spectrum can compound these difficulties. Here are three ways it can be difficult

1. Lack of familiarity: To someone like me with Autism, familiarity can be a great friend to someone on the spectrum. Familiarity breeds normalcy, order, and structure. In a new place, familiarity goes right out of the window, and you have to adjust to a new environment, a new routine, and pretty much a new everything. It is a learning period involving where everything is and how to get there and also what is available. It is an adjustment period, a process of trying to create a new order, a new sameness, a new familiarity

2. Unknown people: Fitting in to the lack of familiarity is a lack of familiar people. For someone with Autism, it is very difficult to enter a place where you do not know anybody. As someone on the spectrum, I can get comfortable talking to the various people I connect with and grow a comfort level with them. With those people gone, I find myself in the presence of new people I haven't met before. It is a challenge meeting new people as I do not have a comfort level with someone I just met, and as someone who has difficulty opening up, it can be difficult meeting new people and attempting to make connections.

3. Greater responsibility: You do not have to live 5 hours to have to make this adjustment. When transitioning from living with parental figures to living on your own, you take on more responsibilities. I had to make the full transition to being responsible for my own bills, cooking my own food, and running to the store to get what I need. It becomes difficult because it adds more stuff for me to do. It is a new routine that I have to adjust to

These are 3 general ways it can be difficult, 3 is not too big of a number, but they are 3 general reasons that cover a lot of ground and encompass a lot of the challenges one can expect to face. The good news however is that the more time you spend at a place, the more familiar you become with your new surroundings and status as an indepedent adult, and in time, a new familiarity develops. The biggest challenge is at the beginning where the adjustment period starts. Living in a new place becomes easier as the place you are living in becomes not as new