ECOPHOBIA — Sometimes Moving Home is the Best Thing for Mental Health
‘Ecophobia’ has two definitions that are a little bit different from each other, but the definition that want to focus in on is this one:
“Fear of one’s home”
For eight years, I lived away from my home state. To make a long story short, I went to Idaho first and got an Associates in General Education. The school I was at didn’t offer the program I wanted so I was looking to switch schools with a degree in hand instead of playing the “which credits are going to transfer game.” After earning the Associates degree I went abroad for 18 months to serve a mission for my church in Belgium and the Netherlands. I then moved to Utah as I got into my school of choice and pursued my bachelors. Now there were a couple of years where I came home for breaks for mental health reasons as my mental health turned physical. By my mid 20’s, I was living full time in Utah and going to school or working during the summers. (The heat was not enjoyable at all… My poor Oregonian self-melted into all sorts of puddles.) Towards the end of my time in Utah, it had been a few years of only being back to visit home two or three times a year. Either by a 1.5-to-2-hour plane ride or 12-hour road trip.
During the last semester of college with graduation approaching, lots of people were asking me what I was going to do. I was graduating with a degree in Geography/Tourism and that was when the pandemic hit. The first industry to go during those early days of the pandemic was tourism so there were no opportunities available for me. I thought about staying in Utah and working the job I currently had for a while because it was a steady income and it was building up my savings quite nicely. But I knew that I needed to move sooner rather than later.
As I thought more about my “upcoming move”, I did think about finding another apartment in Utah as my current lease was almost up and really set up for students, which I wasn’t going to be anymore. However, I wasn’t happy living in Utah anyway; and thanks to the happenings of 2020, my then current situation was making this fact more obvious to me than it already was. (If you love living in Utah, good for you! I say that with upmost sincerity. It’s just not the place for me.)
After a month of quarantine, taking my last few weeks of classes over zoom and working from home, my whole life was lived in the same room. I went to school, worked, and slept in the same room. I was living in a small apartment with roommates, so my space was already pretty limited. My mental health started to slip as I imagine it did for millions of other people. (There are so many heartbreaking statistics supporting this.)
I decided that I was just biding my time till I could move somewhere, anywhere. I thought about striking out on my own somewhere completely new — I knew that I could pull it off and the thought didn’t scare me one bit. But considering what was going on in the outside world, it didn’t seem like the smartest thing to do, to move somewhere random while the world was trying to adjust to a pandemic along with other 2020 upheaval. That’s when I started entertaining the thought of moving back to Oregon or moving back home and living with my parents. I wouldn’t be alone, I wouldn’t have to have roommates (no offense to any of them that might read this, but I was done sharing my space with a ton of other girls), and I would be in a healthier climate for me as Oregon is not as dry and there is more oxygen in the air. Also, all my doctors who know my history are in Oregon.
I thought a lot about it and there was a part of me that thought, “Kajsa, this is a no brainer decision. There is more for you in Oregon than anywhere else.” But on the flip side there was a big part of me that thought, “As a college graduate, you are going to move back home? Isn’t that like giving up on trying something new or exciting? You know exactly what it is like to live in Oregon already.”
I talked about my idea to move back to Oregon with a couple of people and there is one conversation in particular that still pokes at my anger a little bit. Not as much now since some time has passed, but still, something that I think is worth sharing. Let’s call this person in my frustrating conversation, Jean (I apologize in advance if your name is Jean. It’s a lovely name.)
My dislike for living in Utah was not a huge secret and Jean knew this. I tried not to talk about it, but if asked, I didn’t hide my dislike either. After explaining my thoughts about moving back to Oregon more for physical and mental health reasons than anything else, Jean just looks at me with an unhappy look. I don’t know if it was anger at my dislike of Utah or something else, but she then says this: “If you are so unhappy here in Utah, what makes you think you are going to be happy in Oregon. Happiness is all about your attitude not a specific place.”
I said nothing in response. I was seething and having a hard time to not say something extremely hurtful that I would later regret. She wasn’t necessarily wrong. But sometimes you may need to leave a situation for your health and wellbeing. I thought about how her attitude towards happiness can be dangerous because a choice to see happiness in ANY situation can cause you to stay in a toxic or mentally damaging situation.
I am a big believer of “It is what you make of it”; but I am also a huge believer in advocating for yourself, your health, AND your happiness. I believe in higher neutral baselines where I can reach above it into the green. Living in Utah was not a very high neutral baseline for me, it was harder to stay out of the red and get into green most days.
My physical health is in Oregon. My mental health is in Oregon. My family is in Oregon. The “Known” is in Oregon. I wouldn’t have to relearn an area and could know exactly how to do self-care there. I had huge reasons of WHY my life would be better in Oregon. But I get the thinking, “You have to be happy with yourself for yourself to be happy with outside reasons, because outside reasons only make you happy for so long.” I believe that this is the case with relationships most definitely, but there is such a thing of not being compatible with where you are living, whether that is the climate or the culture. Sometimes the climate or culture isn’t for everyone, and there is no shame in that. You can appreciate from a distance, but not have to live in it if it makes you unhappy to the point where it is harming you physically or mentally.
Millions of people have moved for health reasons and let me let you in on a little secret, “When you feel better physically and mentally — you are happier!” I’ve mauled over my conversation with Jean time and time again because she didn’t say it to make me angry on purpose, but she was trying to bring awareness to that happiness does not just come from where you live.
Happiness comes from being true to yourself, feeling like you fit somewhere, surrounding yourself with what you enjoy in a place you enjoy! She might not have listened to me very carefully, but that is okay.
In the end, I proved her wrong. I’m the happiest I’ve ever been living in Oregon as the move back home was one of the best decisions I made myself, for myself. There was no reason to fear moving home. No shame, no judgement. I knew what I wanted deep down to improve my mental health and I choose home for that reason.
And I’ve had zero regrets.
