This post is all about leaving home anxiety.
When you’re leaving home for the first time, you have a lot of new responsibilities, a whole new lifestyle to figure out living with yourself or roommates, and you have to juggle a bunch of new obligations.
Whether you’re moving out for college or you’re moving out because you need to get out of the house, you’re going to feel the growing pains of change.
Living on your own will mean figuring out how to take care of yourself, negotiate boundaries with roommates, and stay on top of your everyday responsibilities like school or work.
So, let’s talk through some tips on how to cope with leaving home anxiety when you feel like you’re two steps away from failing all the time.
This post is all about leaving home anxiety.
LEAVING HOME ANXIETY:
1. Acknowledge your feelings
First of all, it’s okay to say you’re anxious because you moved out. It’s normal and most people experience some level of stress or anxiety when they leave home because they’re entering a new stage of life.
So, what you’re feeling is normal and you deserve to take a second and admit to yourself that you’re a little scared. This doesn’t mean you’ll fail or that you are too weak to handle living on your own.
It does mean that you are learning about yourself and learning how to cope with stress and anxiety, which is a great tool to have for all of the new situations you’re going to encounter at school or at work. Remember: you’re not alone.
2. Plan ahead
If you’ve got some time before your transition begins, make yourself a plan. Get as detailed as you want and include anything from expenses you’ll have in your new home, what tuition costs, and what money you’ll be bringing in.
Create a list of items to bring when you pack. Think about what you may need to buy to be ready to live in a new space where you’ll be cooking for yourself more often and living with other people.
Figure out how you’re going to get there. Get plane tickets, train tickets, or figure out the logistics of driving including how long it takes and if you’re taking your own vehicle or going with others.
3. Familiarize yourself with the college
Go online and do a virtual tour of the campus. Find a map and look through videos or pictures to learn what the campus will be like in-person.
While most campuses can be too big to identify your classes ahead of time, you can still get an idea of where buildings are and how much time you’ll need to get your classes.
If you can, visit the campus. Walk around and get a feel for it. Have dinner or hang out with a friend to start getting it to feel like home.
4. Connect with roommates
Get in touch with your roommates ahead of time. Chat with them, ask them about their major and classes, and get to know them. Keep in mind that you don’t have to become best friends with your roommates, but you definitely do want to be on good terms with them.
Along the same lines, find a group on social media full of people who will be on campus with you and get to know some of them. You never have to meet them in real life if you don’t want to, so you’ve got nothing to lose by greeting a few classmates ahead of time.
5. Stay in touch with loved ones
For of those of you who won’t get to see your family very often or already can feel how homesick you’re going to be, schedule chats with your family and friends. Get on video chat with them and set aside time to nurture those relationships.
Choose one hour a week when you can get in touch with someone or create a mandatory one-hour meeting with family or friends. While a big part of college is going on your own and learning about yourself apart from your family, it’s important to keep those relationships in your life.
So, remember to stay in touch with family and friends both to enjoy talking to them and to use them for support through the process of moving out and dealing with leaving home anxiety.
6. Seek support from college resources
Take advantage of campus resources. Use campus counseling and make a session where you can talk to someone who is licensed and experienced about the way you’re feeling.
Join campus organizations to meet other people who are probably feeling the same as you are. It can be helpful to talk to classmates just so you can say it out loud, but you can also learn from the way they cope.
Attend campus events that are held to help students with the transition between living at home and living on your own.
7. Establish a routine
Schedule time for sleep, meals, homework, classes, breaks, extracurriculars, and any other meaningful and necessary tasks in your life.
Plan out the things that you need to get done, the things you need to do to take care of yourself, and the things you do for enjoyment like they’re tasks you need to get done on a deadline.
When you start building your routine and getting into the practice of it, you’ll probably miss something or do something at a different time than you planned. The important part about developing a routine is that it works for you and it gets everything done with less stress.
So, make adjustments where you need to, but keep everything on your schedule that you need to get done (which includes sleeping, eating, and taking breaks in addition to homework).
8. Practice self-care
Get out of your dorm. Go for a walk, listen to music, eat some food, or do an activity that gives you a break from school stress, work stress, and other stressors in your life.
Self-care is a lot more than doing the fun stuff to de-stress, but sometimes you need to do the fun to de-stress just as much as you need to take care of your finances or text your Mom that you aren’t doing well.
So, find ways to take a break whether that means you try journaling or you do some yoga in your dorm living room (and maybe involve your roommates too!).
9. Take breaks from social media
Take a moment to notice how social media impacts you. We pretty much hear this all the time and it doesn’t make it any easier to put down our phones or quit social media for a couple of hours.
But, it’s important that we take the time to notice how spending time on social media affects us and makes our leaving home anxiety worse. Think about those times you see a high school friend post about your hometown or your sibling post about being home with your parents.
Social media makes it much easier to compare ourselves to other people or remind us how sad we’re feeling about leaving home or scared we are about starting college. Notice how social media makes you feel and schedule time when you stop using it.
10. Connect with a mentor
Find a professor you like, an upperclassman you trust, or an advisor who can help you navigate your leaving home anxiety and what it’s like to start college. They can give you advice about managing your time, campus secrets, and provide you with moral support.
Most people are happy to do with for someone because they’ve been there. Whether you’re talking to a professor or upperclassman, they’ve been new to the campus and they’ve been new to college. So, they get it and they understand.
Plus, when you choose someone to ask for help, they’ll be super flattered that you trust them and believe in their expertise enough to ask them.
11. Find a study group
Find people in your class who are interested in meeting outside of class to talk about the stuff you’re learning, the upcoming tests, and anything you’re reading for class. The important thing in building a study group is that you find people as dedicated as you to learning.
If everyone wants to learn and help each other, the study group will work out perfectly because everyone will have something to contribute. No matter how confused anyone is, they will be able to help someone learn at least one thing and they’ll learn from others.
Not only is it important to ask questions, but you learn a lot from having to teach someone about what you already understand because it forces you to think about in a different way.
12. Create a home away from home
Find ways to make your room feel like home. Even if you’re sharing it, you can still put up pictures (use stick tape, command hooks, or set them on your desk), put up lights, add cute furniture touches, find bedding you love.
Bring stuff from home that will remind you of the house you grew up in. Find stuff that comforts you and makes you feel like home isn’t far away because, no matter where your home is, you are never more than a phone call or plane ride away.
13. Stay organized
Carve out ten minutes a day to put stuff away. Make sure that everything has its place and, if it doesn’t, you can either get rid of it or buy a container for it.
Once you start getting overwhelmed with homework, classes, and friends, it’ll be easier than ever to forget or ignore your living space. But, the odds are that ignoring it will make your anxiety and stress much worse because you’ll be thinking about how much you need to clean.
Never underestimate how powerful ten minutes of putting stuff away can help you feel better every day. On those weeks you just haven’t kept up with it, take an hour on the weekend to put it all and clean.
14. Focus on the present moment
As easy as it is to focus on the test you have coming up or the date next week, practice staying in the moment because it will help your anxiety as well as focusing on the present.
When you start stressing out about something in the future, you forget how important it is to live in the moment and how much time you forget to enjoy because of that.
So, slow down, breathe deeply, and notice what’s happening around you. Think about your five senses and take in your surroundings.
15. Learn time management skills
Along with creating a routine, think about how you can prioritize the things in your life and set aside time every day for the most important tasks.
This means you put in all of the stuff you have to do, like eating, sleeping, and going to class, and add in the assignments and tests you have coming up. Break your tasks up into manageable steps that will get done over a period of time rather than all at once in a bunch of stress.
Get a feel for how long assignments take you and how long you should study for tests so that you can schedule time for you to get everything done, remembering what you learned and not having to deal with the stress of last-minute work.
16. Explore the campus surroundings
Once you get comfortable with campus, venture outside of it. Visit restaurants, local sites, and learn about the cool things in your area. Set a goal for yourself to explore one new fun thing a week and get your friends involved.
If you don’t have a car or access to public transit, find places near you that are walkable and make you feel safe to explore.
17. Stay open-minded
Your anxiety will probably tell you to stay safe in your comfort zone, avoid new experiences when there’s already so much new stuff happening, and watch a show in your dorm. But, the best way to experience college and learn about yourself is to try new things and stay open.
Try a new restaurant with your new friends, invite someone to go with you to a local landmark, and raise your hand in class. Go to office hours and talk with the professor. Do the things you’re afraid to do because at least you tried if they don’t turn out to be enjoyable.
18. Celebrate your accomplishments
Reward the small things. You turned in your first assignment and you got a high grade for it. Or you studied for a test after getting a C and you got an A-. Maybe you went to a professor’s office hours to talk their ear off and, now, you’re friends and you’re going to their next office hour.
Whatever accomplishment it may be, don’t wait until you graduate or finish a semester to be proud of yourself and celebrate. You’ll get burnt out and you deserve better. So, get that ice cream or go to the movies with a friend and give yourself the credit you deserve.
