"For our house is our corner of the world," wrote French philosopher Gaston Bachelard.
For a brief moment, I thought I had found mine.
“I really like it”, my partner said.
It was the morning of my partner’s birthday. We lay in bed trying to decide whether to make an offer on a flat we had viewed three days earlier. We frantically ran through our list of pros and cons. Part of me thought that if we analysed it this much, we were inching closer to making the right decision.
I couldn’t make my mind up. I kept thinking:
I stared at the ceiling for what felt like an eternity, hoping for some kind of clarity to come. When it didn’t, I said yes anyway. All I wanted was for my partner to be happy on her birthday. And what better way to do that than making an offer on our first home.
Who knows, maybe owning a flat would settle me in ways renting never has, and help those fears go away.
Everything came crashing down the following Monday when we could hear our neighbours talking so clearly it was as if they were in the room with us.
But we didn’t stop to think about how we’d actually live there. Would we be able to walk to our favourite taprooms or wander along the old railway paths? We didn’t think about what actually mattered to us.
When we got the keys, we walked through each room. We tried to picture the small routines that would eventually make the place feel like ours. We imagined our cat zooming through the hallway, and waxed lyrical about how we’d use the space.
But there was pressure brewing beneath all the excitement. I told myself that now we owned the flat, it had to work.
Everything came crashing down the following Monday when we could hear our neighbours talking so clearly it was as if they were in the room with us. Every time I heard the neighbours was a reminder of the mistake we made.
These complete strangers' laughs and chatter were invading what was supposed to be our safe space – a private space that we now owned, and that we hadn't invited them into.
My chest tightened. I had felt that dread before.
As a traumatised child, I had developed a razor-sharp awareness of everything around me. I learned to recognise threats a mile away.
I was on high alert for the everyday sounds that I learnt signalled danger. A car pulling to a stop outside. A key in the lock and the swish of the opening door. The thud of familiar footsteps in the hallway. The indistinguishable words said in a recognisable tone. Ordinary sounds that wouldn’t even register with most people, translated to high anxiety for me.
My chest tightened. I had felt that dread before.
As a traumatised child, I had developed a razor-sharp awareness of everything around me. I learned to recognise threats a mile away.
The unpredictability I faced during childhood developed into a trauma response. It lives on in my body and resurfaces again and again in everyday life when I least expect it.
I’ve recently learnt that people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) often find commonplace sounds overwhelming and intrusive because they can associate them with their past trauma.
We went back to our old rented flat that evening. I could barely speak. I was catatonic. My partner didn’t know what to say or do. She was shaken too, caught between guilt and worry. We still had loads to pack and we did so while shedding tears in the hallway, holding on to each other as we went.
In the UK, we treat home ownership as a milestone, something that secures our place in the world. But we forget to talk about what gets lost in the process.
If I was renting, I could leave. But owning the flat changes the equation. I have to stay, even if I no longer recognise the space as mine. I don’t feel compelled to decorate it, I avoid certain rooms as much as possible and life is dictated by the strangers living below me. I feel like a prisoner in my own house.
In the UK, we treat home ownership as a milestone, something that secures our place in the world. But we forget to talk about what gets lost in the process.
For months, I blamed myself for not seeing this coming, for choosing wrong. Could I have anticipated this?
The real lesson for me is acceptance, and an appreciation that a home isn’t something I can build alone. In a city, our homes are also shaped by the people living around us, whether I like it or not. Their habits, their noise and their presence all shape how the space feels. And that balance can be delicate.
To build a home is, in the end, a collective effort. No mortgage will ever give me the security or control I need to feel at home.
I have learned to accept that nothing is perfect, and that life is too unpredictable to be coming up with my own rules. Reframing doesn’t change the physical reality of my situation, but it gives me enough peace to remember that this, too, will pass.