My backstory and introduction

[Dean_Dharug]

Hello peeps, I (27m) am new here; I joined after being urged to do so by a Mental Health Officer who has been seeing me since I got discharged from hospital. I suffer from depression, anxiety and only-recently-discovered-and-thus-untreated Austism. Additionally, I am gay and have severe social isolation. I don’t know if this site will help me, but here we go!

I’m going to summarise it all here - I went majorly over the word limit my first attempt, so I apologise if it’s brief.

Growing up, I didn’t really have friends and this has somewhat come back to bite me at this point in life - my local friends feel more like acquaintances and I barely have any contact with them. In contrast, the friends who I feel closer to are all either interstate or overseas. I don’t have a job or any real purpose or meaning in life; I studied and graduated from University, but couldn’t land a job in the relevant field.

A few years back, my mum got diagnosed with cancer and it was unfortunately terminal; we were told “it could be 10 years, or maybe more”m but in the end all we had was seven months. Since mum was a single mother and I was an only child, I inherited the family home, where I live alone (my cat died soon after my mum did). I technically have family, but they were never really on the scene - half-siblings I never meet and aunts/uncles I don’t know. The closest I have is my nana, but it’s difficult to connect with her, and it’s also emotionally painful as it was always mum and I who interacted with her, so now that absence is poignantly pronounced.

Mum passing was the catalyst for my ASD diagnosis; I have only very recently gotten on the NDIS, so although supports are starting to occur, they are still very much in their infancy. The event that tipped me over the edge was learning that the man I have loved (an ex, of sorts) for years recently moved in with his current long-term partner. It crushed me that, not only was the man I love sharing his life with someone else, but he/they were living a life I have always dreamed of, whilst I’m stuck here.

I have no dreams, goals or ambitions left. I have no family, no job prospects, no relationship possibilities and I feel…so completely and utterly lost and removed from life. So…here I am. I’m trying to set up a routine to get some of my life in place, but it feels completely pointless right now; why bother? No matter what, I won’t get what I want.

I hope this is okay to post here - I didn’t know really what to write.

Dean

[geoff]

Hello Dean, I'm sorry to hear about your mum and the lost you have to try and cope with.

With this friend who has moved in with another person, would you also be allowed to move in with them and then rent your house out.

Another person to help pay the expenses might be good for the 3 of you.

Geoff.

[Dean_Dharug]

Hey Geoff,

That unfortunately isn’t possible for a few reasons. The first reason being that the person who moved in with someone is, in some senses, an ex of mine - and the person who he moved in with is his current partner of a few years. If I’m being honest with myself, I still love him and want to be with him, so I know we can’t even consider anything akin to friendship until I am in a healthier space for all of that. Similarly, I doubt I am in a good enough light with either of them for them to consider that. A second (and no less significant barrier to moving in with them) is that they both live in the USA - in an ideal world, I could spend a holiday there with them, but that would be the extent of it (and also would likely never happen).

In contrast, the local friends I have are all happy with their present living arrangements, and the interstate ones have highlighted that they either do not wish for an extra roommate or feel it wouldn’t work out between us.

That said, I do understand and see the merit of moving out. The family house is crushing me emotionally and mentally, which makes me crave social connection (which I’m severely lacking), and the subsequent failure to get that makes me spiral. The sooner I can get out of the house into a more social living arrangement, the better.

Currently, the biggest hurdle to moving out is that I have to clean and declutter the whole house (and shed) to a significant degree such that I could rent a room (or, alternatively, the whole house). Until very recently, I haven’t really even been able to touch mum’s things due to the grief and the unwelcome (and, in every aspects, negative) change. I haven’t been able to clean anything or move mum’s stuff, let alone consider removing it from the house (whether that’s giving to family/friends, donating or discarding); there’s the sentimental stuff which is going to be immensely hard to deal with, but also the practical stuff that I don’t have the knowledge or experience to foresee. There is stuff that mum kept for a purpose that I’m not aware of, and I don’t want to risk accidentally throwing away something important or expensive.

I recently got assigned a Social Worker with the NDIS and they’re helping me/planning on helping me through this, but the interim is immensely tough and the timeframe is dishearteningly long. I need people in the house here and now (or, me out of the house living with others), not in a year’s time.