My main aim with this piece is to comfort Freshers joining York in September. If you’ve left your family for the first time in your lives, and are feeling sort of lost. Specifically, I hope this reaches people who have left homes where they are young carers. If you are struggling to deal with the difference of being in your own space. Or the residual guilt of being away from the people you care about and not being able to help them as closely.
Moving to university
I’m super close with my family. I always knew that moving out would be a really big deal. And I’d be a huge mess when the time finally came. But what I didn’t anticipate until about a month before my first semester was how difficult it would be for me to leave my brother. My brother has Downs Syndrome and Autism. I’ve always helped out around the house in any way I can to facilitate his needs. Making me a young carer.
My experiences will absolutely be different to others with caring responsibilities, but at least for me, going from helping my family everyday to only during the holidays was a really jarring change. What I found most difficult, both at the beginning of university and in the weeks running up to me leaving, was trying to shake the awful idea that I was somehow letting my brother down by not living with him any more.
Leaving home, and my brother
My brother is infinitely more intelligent than people give him credit for. Something that frustrates me to no end. But I was really chewed up that there was no concrete way for me to explain why I was leaving him. That me going to university wasn’t something I’d done to make him feel bad. That I wasn’t leaving because he’d done anything wrong.
I don’t know if I’m making total sense here, but essentially I was just a wreck.
Settling into a routine
But I just want to let people in my position know that things start to feel easier. As I settled into routine at university, made friends and really got into my course, my brother also settled into his own routine at home. He was busy with school and extracurriculars, and as time went on, he realised he could talk to me whenever he wanted through video calls. I stopped feeling guilty for leaving him. I realised that I haven’t really left him at all.
Every time I’m home I help out in the same way I have done for my whole life, and he still talks to me just like he did when I shared a wall with him. Things are different, absolutely – I still cry every time I go back to uni – but not in a bad way. University has not only allowed me to grow as a person, but him as well; he’s grown because I’ve left, not despite it. I hate to end on a cliché, but it’s so, so true: things will get better.
The future
I’m so excited for my future at university. And I am excited for him to (hopefully) one day visit me independently. Something I have no doubt he’ll be able to do soon with how fast he’s growing. Love you, Fergus!!
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