To think moving as a teenager was traumatic

[Fizzyducklings]

When I was a young teen we moved from a small town where I’d grown up. It was all I knew, I had lots of great friends I’d grown up with. I lived in an amazing estate where we would call for each other and spend hours playing outside. My best friend lived across the road. I was a very happy, confident child.
One day, I came in from school, my brother had been crying. DM turned to me and said not to make a big deal of it like he had but we were moving to a city, it was devastating.
We moved a few months later. I was bullied in my new school and it took months before I made any friends. My parents never let me visit my friends from home (with no traffic it’s a 30 min drive away!!!) My siblings got to go as they were older and would get the bus - I was not allowed to go with them. I lost touch with all my friends from home over the years except my best friend who I managed to keep in touch with, although we drifted and only see each other once every few years now.

It came up in conversation today and my DM said it wasn’t traumatising and I was fine. I said I wasn’t fine but it’s in the past now so no point in falling out over it now. But looking back through the lens of an adult and a mother myself I could just never imagine going about such a big move like this in such a harsh way. I have social anxiety and used to use alcohol as a means to cope with it and be confident around people, I often wonder how I would have turned out if we didn’t move at such a sensitive time…

I understand that people suffer much worse and it’s very much a first world problem but I think it’s wrong for my mum to just dismiss it and not acknowledge how it would have been difficult. AIBU?

I don't know when this was, but I think back in the day kids were just expected to fall in with whatever was best for the family, and very little consideration was given to how you might cope.
New kids came, and kids moved away quite frequently.
It probably did have a big and lasting impact on you though.

I don’t think you can blame a single house-move only 30miles away as the cause of your social anxiety and alcohol issues. It usually does take at least months, sometimes years to make new friends, no idea why you are saying it took months like that is a bad thing.

I do know what it is like to be uprooted as my parents emigrated with me to another country. It isn’t easy thing.

Im not sure your mum is dismissing it as difficult, but dismissing it as “traumatising”. A house move of 30 miles is not traumatic, I think she isn’t buying into your dramatisation of it.

I moved when I was 13, from a small town to a rural village 3 hours away. We then moved around that area 4 times in 5 years and we ended up in a city.
I loved it! It was a great place to grow into an adult.

I didn't keep friends from home and haven't been back for years.
I find friendships can be transient.

We moved because of my father's job, I understood it was necessary but I was sad to leave. I don't think the move changed me as person though.

I’d never move teens. I do want to make a move back north but I’m waiting until youngest is 18 (and involves a lot of sacrifices for me but I just couldn’t do it).

Yes I think this was very much the attitude my DM had about it at the time. I understand sometimes moves are necessary and unavoidable but there was no support, just a get on with it attitude

I moved when I was 10. I’m still traumatised by it. Similar story to you op. I vowed never to do it to my dc.

My parents moved when I was 16 from the south of England to North. I never had a say in it, was told I could stay and support myself or go with them. Not much choice at 16 really when I'd just left school with no GCSE's. So I reluctantly went and I absolutely agree op it was awful. Took me quite a few years to make a life for myself and make new friends. I was very depressed.

However I'm still here in the same town 30 years later!

I moved about 300 miles away when I was 12, it was awful and I was a terrible teen. I'm sure it was as a result of the move. I struggled to settle.

As someone who moved around a lot as a child and also had to deal with bullying and isolation…I have not gone and blamed my mum for it all!

My mother did the best with what she had and now you’re a parent I’m sure you’re not perfect?

In the nicest way, I think you just need to move on. Seek therapy if you think it’s a pervasive issue in your life and make peace with it.

I can understand why you feel the way you do. Why do you think they wanted to move? They must have thought it would be better for some reason.

Agreed. I was moved 9 times as a child, the length and breadth of the UK, and was permanently the unpopular new kid. You need to put this in perspective OP.

Stressful perhaps. But ‘traumatising’?

I think in the grand scheme of life it was quite an average occurrence and you need to make peace with it.

I think the social anxiety started after dealing with bullying day in day out at such a sensitive time in my life - I found it hard going to school everyday and not fitting in, and also being the odd one out - I became overly self aware and self conscious as I was the ‘newbie’ and I was different. So I think it’s reasonable to assume that’s where my social anxiety started.

Same, when I was 14. It is traumatising & I feel like I never fit in anywhere (I still don’t tbh!)

Agree

I’d propose that you found a new school hard because you always had social anxiety, and it only surfaced when you faced unfamiliarity for the first time your life. A child that doesn’t have anxiety won’t have reacted the way you did to a house move.

I moved from Bracknell to Grimsby back to Bracknell then to Oxford and then to Swindon by the age of 13. I feel very strongly that this has really affected me badly.

I was a FO child and we moved regularly, not just cities, but countries then when I was 11, I was sent to boarding school on a totally separate continent. I agree, it was pretty traumatic and as a result I have no real roots or home

Moved when I was 7. Bullied at new school. Lasting effects. Still don't feel I fit in anywhere. Did not move either of our DC - now grown up.

Get a grip. You moved cos it was in the families best interest. Just be part of the team that is your family..

At one point I said ‘see you Monday to some friends’ at school and in the car my mum told me I won’t be seeing them on Monday as we were moving. I imagine she had already told me but I had forgotten and my response was ‘Ah ok!’. It is exciting and just one of those things. Deal.

The bullying was traumatising, not the move. I understand you see the bullying as a result of the move, but it is not a natural, logical consequence. Like, if you had been hit by a car in your new town, that would also have never happened if you had not moved, but it does not mean the move itself was the problem. I think your mum might be coming at it from that angle.

I moved a lot as a kid, as a young teen, and an older teen, and some places and schools were great, and some were not.

I think there is a major difference between one move 30miles away your entire childhood versus multiple moves and/or emigration. Sorry but the first is difficult not traumatising imho.

I'm moving my two teens to Australia! They're both looking forward to it. I'd hate for them to never leave the town they've grown up in. My daughter will be going off to uni in the next couple of years so friendship groups will have changed anyway.
I get that everyone is different though!

You can take control of your life OP, you are not defined by this.

I don't doubt it was a difficult experience for you, but I can't help feel this is an example of the term "trauma" being used too liberally. Not every difficult experience is traumatic.