Did you relocate during childhood

[EscapeArtist]

I already posted a thread like this a few months back but there are new people so I'd like to repost it.

If you have some history with mobility, share, I'd love to hear if anybody has similar past. What age were you and what effect do you think it had? Where were you most attached socially, and emotionally?







----
I moved as a child, apparently relocating housing around 10 times before I was 5, and then another 3 after that. Sometimes it was just to a different close community and other times to another province all together.

At 5 years after relocation from Winnipeg, to Vancouver, to Coquitlam, to Winnipeg again we ended up in Portland, Oregon where we stayed for 6 years. The best 6 years of my life, It was the only time I actually developed memories of a consistent place, my memories before 5 are of random locations that I can't separate from dream or reality. But in Oregon I made friends so close that I became a part of their family. My family was also close and doing things together because we had money to do it with for once. Everything was really perfect from ages 5-11, until my father lost his job and we moved in to my grandma's apartment in Vancouver, and then to a small community off of Vancouver, and then again 1 year ago to the community next to it. The Elementary school that I transferred to was cold, all the students had lived in this town all of their lives, and both the students and teachers were reluctant to accept newcomers.

I really didn't think any of this affected me until I took away what I was stuffing my emotions down with and found myself bawling my eyes out after some memories hit me in the face about 6 months ago, I see now that a lot of the pain is from these moves, especially Oregon to Vancouver and the loss of my 'home' and friends like family.

Doing research on google, there are reports of mobility in childhood causing social anxiety, and social isolation, as well as declining academic performance, especially on introverts.

 

[Phoenixx]

I didn't relocate too much during my childhood, but a little bit. After I was born, my parents moved to another apartment on the other side of the city, back when I lived in NJ. I grew up in that apartment for the good first half of my childhood. I actually liked that place. Lots of good memories there.

Then we moved into our first house a couple places down, when I was 7. So, still on the same street, same city. I loved my childhood, it's when I was truly happy. I was still shy (mostly around adults), but I didn't have anxiety. I didn't care too much about what other people thought of me. I still got teased a bit in school, but it didn't totally bother me as much. I had 2 great friends and that's all that mattered.

Then when I was 9, my parents decided to move again, this time to NY. When they told me we were moving out of state, I was pretty crushed. I mean, I was happy and I just felt like they were taking it all away from me. And since living here, I haven't been that happy at all. I got teased a whole lot worse here than I did in the city. I've developed SA and depression because of it, and basically, I just don't like living here at all. It's in the middle of nowhere, most of the kids are incredibly rude (I have made a few nice friends here though), and I just find it boring. But, at least I'm healthier than what I was, and it's nice to have access to organic foods that are cheap, plus it's quiet. I'd still can't wait to get out of here though.

The Elementary school that I transferred to was cold, all the students had lived in this town all of their lives, and both the students and teachers were reluctant to accept newcomers.

^ That pretty much sums up the schools here too. Not everyone in the school is reluctant to newcomers, but most of them are. They don't really treat you like crap here because you're new. They just completely ignore you.

 

[kilojoule]

That's really interesting. I never thought about it. My parents relocated when I was 7 and I never forgot my first day of new school. The teacher asked me where I wanted to sit. All the kids were yelling to join their table. There were two tables, one massive one of about 25 kids and a small one of about 4. I joined the small one.

Then my dad moved out when I was 11 and my sisters went with him and went to a different highschool to the one I went to.I stayed with my mum but 2 schoolnights I was in my dads, the others didn't do that only me. He moved every year or more, I had to pack a bag for two days on a tuesday night and bring it to school with me on wednesday and it didnt fit in my locker so i carried it all day. Then I had to get across to his house after school, often took three busses. I often got confused and got the wrong bus after school, he moved so often I regularly forgot where I was going. When I was 15 he got pissed off with my grades and took me for a year put me in a new school then handed me back fed up a year later and I was put back in my old highschool. Didn't have much to do with him after that til I lost my mum he moved back into the house and I moved out and have been moving ever since.

Its interesting, I never thought all that to-ing and fro-ing might have affected me but actually it could well have been the beginning of my aversion to any kind of attention.

 

[WeirdyMcGee]

Well... my parents split up before I can even remember them being together. I think I was 2 or so.
After that, I lived with my mom and sister who is 5 years older than me.
We moved about 17 times in between the time I was 3-12 and then another few moves up until I was 16, then I moved on my own at 18 to go to college.

I think quite a few low income families find themselves moving alot.
Social housing standards change, don't have money for rent- have to loan then the loan comes up and you get evicted; that sort of thing.

I don't recall it ever really affecting me much socially or emotionally except for one move we made when I was in grade 4 and changed school districts... entering a school where no one knew me, so I had a fresh start to make friends without everyone judging me for being poor. At first, people were fascinated by me because I was new but that faded pretty quickly.
...I ended up being hated and picked on alot there, too once other kids noticed that I hardly ever brought food for lunch and I'm kinda weird. haha

Strangely, my emotional well being was pretty much the same all through my childhood. I was always an emotional child, always friendly, always polite and had lots of energy until I hit puberty.
I fought alot up until grade 6; daily physical fights when people would torment me-- but after grade 6, I had slowed down alot and by highschool, I was much better at ignoring idiots rather than fighting back.
Not to say I wasn't damaged; but I didn't care if we moved because I had no attachments to anything. No friends, no familiar places, no feeling of 'home'- just an apartment where we slept and sometimes ate.
...and sometimes just a hotel room or a shelter where we slept.

oh! and academically, my grades were very bad until grade 4 when I was recognized as having dyslexia and dyscalculia.
After grade 4, I was in the top of the class all the way through college, strangely.
So I guess maybe the moving affected me academically up until then; because moving to different schools- the curriculum sometimes changes; teaching method changes and what you are actually learning changes. I remember sometimes learning the exact same lessons at 3 or 4 schools I'd transferred to in one school year; and having to study on my own to catch up on everything else because by the time I transferred, I already missed the stuff I hadn't learned yet.

 

[MrJones]

Not much, only once. And it was to the same city, just in a house (we lived in an appartment) in a better zone (there were some "conflicts" near our old home).

 

[MaliceInWickedland]

I just moved once my entire life when I was 7 years old and am going to be moving away again a couple of months. We didn't relocate too far from where we used to be, but leaving behind my old friends and being switched schools was really hard on me, especially since I had moved in the middle of the first grade. Lots of things happened after we moved so I've always held a grudge towards the current city I live in. This is where it all began (my SA I mean).

The first crap that went down was my father getting killed in a car accident several months after we moved here - 5 days before Christmas to be specific. He was on his way back from work and Christmas shopping when it happened so I've always been gloomy during Christmas week. I became very isolated from people after it happened, had to visit the school psychologist every day during lunch and spend it with her since I wouldn't talk to anyone else. I was sort of isolate before he passed away since I had just moved there and most of the other kids there had lived in this town all their lives and everyone knew each other while I was the "weird, quiet new kid" that stood out like a ghost in a dark hallway. I also became angry and started bullying kids so that only gave people more initiative to avoid and detest me.

A year after my father passed on my mom was diagnosed with early stage breast cancer and I thought I was going to be an orphan. I had a grandmother at the time whom we lived with but she had schizophrenia and couldn't take care of me on her own and one of my older cousins had to come live with us for a while until my mom was released from the hospital, cured. I don't know why but I feel like cancer is the curse of my family. My mom had it, one of my favorite aunts died from cervical cancer, we put down my 19 year old cat last summer for gastrointestinal lymphoma, my grandmother's brother died of brain cancer, and then finally my grandmother herself died from end stage glioblastoma (very aggressive form of brain cancer) about a year and a half ago.

I lost a lot of people close to me since we moved here and over the years I've become increasingly isolated from people. I have a lot of acquaintances but that's all they are - acquaintances. I only know 4 people who I can truly call my "friends". My school life here has just been total crap. All throughout elementary I was bullied and treated like an outsider and it was no different in jr. high and high school. Jr. High was actually worse because there was an incident where I accidentally touched a girl's butt and all these ridiculous rumors about me being a "lesbian" got around and I became even more of a joke to my peers. In high school I wasn't bullied as much but the whole time I felt like an outsider. I've felt like an outsider since the very first day I got here.

This (among many other reasons) is exactly why I can't wait to move away from this place. There's honestly nothing for me here besides pain, misery, and bad memories.

 

[AGR]

I moved to a different country in my teens,it was like day and night,completely different cultures,even though safety,stability were better in the new country,social life lagged behind,in the old country I could make friends easily,girls liked me easily,got out of my house a lot,even though there is a large community of my old country here, I have a really hard time knowing people and connecting with them,aslong as I stay here I feel that I will be alone.