Jess, a 30-year-old from Essex, chooses to live in her family home rather than move out and deal with the private rental sector after being \u201cwracked\u201d with anxiety in her early 20s. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to move into a flat share with strangers,\u201d she says. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to pay 80% of a salary into a place I hated that wasn\u2019t fit for purpose. The version of how I wanted to live wasn\u2019t within reach, so why compromise?\u201d<\/p>\n
Money is also the primary anxiety-driver for Tash, a 24-year-old from Kent. \u201cThe idea of having to do it all by myself is frankly so scary,\u201d she says. \u201cI sometimes kind of spiral about just how expensive it would be and then just keep putting off thinking about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another contributing factor to the anxiety of moving out is the pandemic.<\/p>\n
For Amani, a 24-year-old from London, moving out might just be financially possible with her job, but she still feels uncertain. \u201cMaybe it is the pandemic but I often find myself worrying about things that could go wrong,” she says. “What if I lose my job? What if I have horrible flatmates?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you look at the research, [anxiety is one of the] lingering effects of the pandemic,\u201d Dignan says. According to Dignan, the pandemic serves as proof that things can go wrong. \u201cAnd that’s about that particular age range of between about 18 to 25. [They’ve seen that] the unheard of does happen. Nobody could have ever predicted the pandemic. So it gives validation to that fear that the unheard of definitely does happen.\u201d In turn, many young people may subconsciously seek to avoid unpredictable situations where things could go wrong. Staying home becomes a means of protection.<\/p>\n
Then there’s the fact that this kind of anxiety can\u2026 well\u2026 make you feel even more anxious simply because you’re not where you think you’re supposed to be. Amani says, \u201cIt’s a real fear, but I do often feel like I’m failing.\u201d Jess also used to be hard on herself for feeling anxious about leaving home. \u201cIt\u2019s incredibly hard to rid yourself of the shame and social stigma that comes with not moving out,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
As Armani and Jess note, it can be hard to accept that all of this fear isn’t a \u201cyou problem\u201d \u2014 especially in the age of social media.<\/p>\n
\u201cSocial media is about comparison,\u201d Dignan says. Often, content online presents us with \u201can unrealistic life. I hear a lot of younger people comparing themselves and saying, ‘Well, I’m not at that point yet, and everybody else seems to be getting married or starting a family or buying a first home, and I’m not there. So somehow I’m lacking.’\u201d<\/p>\n
However, this couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s a fact \u2014 it’s one of the hardest times \u2014 both practically and psychologically \u2014 to be brave enough to fly the nest. And it’s understandable that many young people are delaying the big move.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jess, a 30-year-old from Essex, chooses to live in her family home rather than move out and deal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":223178,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4317],"tags":[105,388,218,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-223177","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-lifestyle","10":"tag-mental-health","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114764973539243846","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223177\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}