43 and still living at home with my parents. This isn’t where I pictured my life being at this age. For the last few months I’d been staying in a shared house which, as far as rented accommodation goes, was actually pretty decent. There were three other people living there, which sounded worse than it turned out to be. One of the tenants was an elderly man who mostly stayed locked in his room; another was a complete dickhead whom I despised, but he eventually left because he couldn’t afford the rent; the third was the owner of the house, someone I got on with very well. He worked night shifts so I hardly ever saw him, meaning I essentially had the place to myself most days. It wasn’t bad at all — I even had the biggest room in the house, complete with a king-size bed.
The reason for moving out was that I became very unwell. I wrote a whole blog about the experience that you can read elsewhere. Without repeating those details, I was admitted to the psych ward again, and this time it was serious. To be honest, I genuinely feared I might die; I came face to face with my own mortality. My family had been increasingly worried about both my mental and physical health and wanted me to come back home so they could look after me. It’s not that I can’t manage things myself, but their concern was real. I was very ill.
This was not my first time living with others. I have had plenty of experience sharing houses over the years; for most of my life I’ve always had housemates. I might have lived with twenty different people in total. It has almost always come down to finances — I’ve never been able to afford my own place, which would of course be ideal. I would love nothing more than a small home of my own that I could truly call mine. Before my last tenancy I found a room with three other people, but it didn’t last long. I was asked to leave after I confided in one housemate about my mental health struggles and my diagnosis; the following day I was evicted. That was a heavy blow, and I also blamed myself for being so open so soon. I should have waited, let people get to know me and see I was harmless, before revealing something so personal.
So here I am… again! Living at home with the folks and my brother. It’s actually a lot better than it might sound for several reasons. For one, I genuinely get along with my family and I’ve got it pretty good here. I can save money, I have my own room at the far end of the house, I don’t need to worry about paying utilities, and most of my meals are taken care of. For the most part I’m left to my own devices, and I’m living in a suburb that truly feels like home. I never felt this way when I was living in Clyde — it was a fair distance from my family, my doctors, and the familiar things that matter to me.
The only real downside is the stigma attached to living with my parents at my age. People probably assume I’m sponging off them, but I have special circumstances that explain it. My brother, who is only a few years younger than me, also lives here — he’s actually been staying longer than I have. We get along fine, but we don’t spend much time together. Like me, he values his solitude and works during the day, so our paths rarely cross. We have tea together and meet briefly when we leave our rooms, but we’re not social creatures. That’s just the way we prefer it.