To feel like a failure at life

[Soz4myself]

For being in my 40’s and social renting as opposed to owning my own house. I live with my dh and 2 teen/adult dc and we rent a house through a housing association. We have been trying to buy a house and got really close last year to completing on one (modest but large enough house and it fell through last minute. We were gutted to say the least. We have awful neighbours on one side of us hence why we are so desperate to move.

We have spent the last few months looking for another property that is within our tiny budget and there aren’t any. We don’t exactly live in an affluent area so houses would be classed as super cheap here especially to “southerners” but still we are both struggling to find somewhere appropriate. I hate living here and it’s made me ill at times and I’ve ended up on medication for anxiety. What makes it worse though is that this situation is all our own fault. Clearly we didn’t work hard enough and make the right choices at the right times hence living in an awful area.

The only good thing I feel I have going for me is my family and friends who are amazing. My dh is an amazing man and adult ds is doing very very well for himself which makes my heart swell with pride as he is a lovely lad and deserves all his success but at the same time it just highlights even more how crap me and his dad have done at life. Both me and dh have autism/adhd and whilst we would never use this as an excuse for not achieving certain things it has definitely played a part especially with me as my confidence has always been low due to bullying/abuse when I was younger which is what I feel has held me back. Anyway I’m sorry for the pitty party. I’m not usually like this and just needed a safe space to offload.

Can you swap houses with someone to get away from your neighbours? I see lots of groups on facebook for that type of thing

if it helps I also feel I’ve failed at life and I’m only 24

I tried for months to swap and had around 5/6 people come view my house but they all had the same thing to say. Nice house eg decorated and looked after but far too noisy, far too many feral kids out front running amuck, rubbish strewn in people’s front gardens etc. I could hardly blame them for not wanting to swap.

I think you're being pretty harsh on yourself. You haven't purchased your forever home yet. Because it just hasn't worked out. But what strikes me is that you are ND and have amazing friends - that's a HUGE thing, and you're basically happy bar neighbours. Have you heard of the adhd tax? It's a thing.

Keep trying, my mum swapped homes a couple years ago it took ages to find a match. Could you downsize slightly so find someone who doesn’t mind the kids/rubbish outside because it means a bigger home?

I voted unreasonable because you’re definitely not a failure

You will get there OP - I do recognise the feelings associated with the house buying process / it’s crap

the situation however isn’t your fault . All the guff about “work hard and make the right choices” aka the American dream that has half of America on presecription opioids ( ok slight exaggeration) . The point is that hard work isn’t enough. Not everyone can be Alan sugar and if we all were the bins would be overflowing. As a society we don’t respect work / we respect money and money isn’t given in proportion to work or a combination of work and skill.

there is a huge amount of luck involved / more than most successful people care to admit

having good friends and family and having brought up a DS to be a good bloke is better than average

i wont buy the rubbish that hard work and good judgement is all it takes in life - that’s a story peddled by the rich to keep the poor in place - they pretend it’s your fault not theirs for hoarding wealth. Makes you feel depressed and stops you challenging

you will move
you will still face challenges
you should be proud of what you have achieved not sad that you have failed
because you haven’t

Yeah I’m often hard on myself. I’ve always been this way and don’t know to stop. Adhd tax? I think I know what you mean but I’m not entirely sure.

You mention family, friends, a happy marriage and an adult son who has turned out really well. I would guess from this that you are probably yourself a good friend, kind, caring person etc. I totally understand the frustration at your housing situation, but it absolutely 100% doesn't make you a "failure at life". I know affluent 'successful' people who are awful human beings and people like my grandfather who never earned much and lived all their lives in social housing, but were great people who did many positive things.

I also think you’re being hard on yourself. I’m sorry you are struggling with your neighbours. Home should be a sanctuary and it’s awful if it isn’t. You certainly shouldn’t beat yourself up for ‘how crap you have done at life’ or for ‘not working hard enough’ or ‘making the right choices’. To me it sounds like you have a great partner and child(ren) and friends and some people would kill for that. (That’s not to make you feel guilty in any way).

Unfortunately I don’t have any advice but just wanted to say you shouldn’t beat yourself up x

@Jugjug it is impossible to have failed at 24. It's barely begun.

@Soz4myself I did everything right. I got two degrees, other qualifications, saved like mad.... Bought a house, got married...had a baby. .... Got abused. Lost my house. Got divorced. Raised my son alone. Bought another house with a LOT of help and it's small and some of my neighbour are dickheads.

Life throws stuff at us.

Nobody is actually judging apart from you.

Yes housing is a stress and really really hard if you don't have help.....but in other ways ...you have won the lottery.

Keep trying. You don't know what's round the corner.

I don’t want to sound like I’m making this ops thread about me, but maybe it’s good to show not everyone has it all after seeing too many people seeming to live “perfect” lives online or in real life can make one feel like shit. I’ve done way too much too young and my life depends on my marriage. No chance of ever having a job over minimum wage well not for a very long time anyway. I’ve been with the same man since I was in high school and if we ever split up it’ll be practically impossible to remarry (too many kids).

that said I like my life just very aware a lot of marriages end in divorce and I would be very screwed if that happened

The adhd tax is a term to describe the extra costs that adhders end up paying because of the adhd. So the classic example is failing to get a refund on something you ordered online because you failed to send it back in time. Or forgetting to cancel DDs. Or forgetting to pay bills and getting late fines. But taking a longer term view, it can manifest in not being able to continue in education, which leads to a lower paid job with less chance of progression. By the time you've got your shit together many people of your age are miles ahead in terms of earnings. The all or nothing part makes it tricky to realise that saving a little and often is better than nothing, and you miss out on the compound interest.

As a ND person, trying to measure yourself by society's standards is usually going to leave you feeling inadequate.

But is home owning really the be-all-and-end-all measure of success? Being tied to a mortgage for 30 years doesn't look like it from where I'm standing, tbh- not when you already have secure, low cost housing for the rest of your life. I understand your neighbours are horrible, but you'll have to persevere with trying to swap. I mean, what if you finally managed to get on the housing ladder and discovered your new neighbours were also horrible?!

FWIW, 3 out of the 5 households in our little row of social housing have some neurodiversity- 4 if you count dyslexia- and I don't think that's a coincidence.

You sound very far from a failure to me. A happy relationship, close friends and supportive family are all wonderful things and matter more than many material things. A secure tenancy is worth its weight in gold.