One of the things I'm most proud of in myself is my adaptability. It's what makes humans so successful above and beyond the rest of the animal kingdom. One of the main causes of my anxiety is the fear of the unknown. Moving house causes major uncertainty. Doing a different job, albeit temporarily = uncertainty. Change = the unknown. However, I guess because of this, I settle in to new places, on holiday and nest in extremely quickly. I have to as a way to combat the anxiety. I find ways to ground myself, integrate into my new community and make connections. In my new workplace, this has been incredibly easy as I have an awesome team and tea breaks and lunch breaks basically enforce socialising! At home, this has been more difficult as, apart from moving day, we have barely seen anyone. I'm naturally shy and my brother is even worse, so we're not the knocking on doors and introducing ourselves types.
Despite the newness, uncertainty and change, what has made me feel like home at work was not working in a similar space, doing a similar job and cycling a similar route, but the people. I met a couple of old work mates by chance who work in the same place or nearby, I knew a couple of members of my new team already, so familiar faces help. But it wasn't that exactly. I had a lovely welcome on my first day. I found the right people to connect with, who had the right personalities that made me feel safe, secure and comfortable. They allowed me to be me right from the off. That was all in the first few days and down to luck. Adopting a routine, so I knew what I was doing when was helpful. Starting with the tasks I knew how to do, then learning the rest was useful. Hopefully I didn't concentrate on the familiar tasks too much! Not trying to do too much too soon, throwing myself in at the deep end was unusually mature for me. It helped that colleagues were saying it seemed like a natural fit for me, that I looked confident and it felt like I'd been there forever, in a good way!
Confidence is a big thing for me as I actually have none, I just give good pretence. I masque it in many different ways and actually go to the extreme sometimes trying to show my confidence, which can be a bad thing. I find it difficult to ask for help as I see it as a sign of weakness, but I'm getting better at it. Conversely showing vulnerability is easy for me. It's just on a professional basis, career progression and such, I don't want to show it. It's caused by prolonged childhood bullying, abandonment issues and obviously my mental health issues. So for people to say I looked confident and seemed to get on well is huge. It helps that I have a work home to go back to; I visited recently and it really felt like coming home with people saying they're missing me. A home really is about the people, not belongings, not familiarity and certainly not a building.
Now, I need to do the same at home. No matter how I get my bedroom, display all my things and buy the things I've been longing for and finally have the space for them, it still doesn't feel like home. It will take time, but I have the skills, inclination and personality traits to make it happen.
