Dealing with stress and anxiety in regards to your house aft

yoyohv · Jan 13, 2020 7:38 am

Hi all, for anyone who wants to share their own stories...

I dealt with a lot of stress and anxiety after handover. Just trying to keep up with my own expectations and the lack of happiness that my house brought was a lot at a certain time last year.

My father died just 2 months before handover and we had to make an overseas trip where we spent all of the savings we put aside for installing the driveway, fences, cameras, and everything needed after handover. 2 days after handover we got a break in and several things were stolen, this destroyed the mindset of a brand new house in our mind.

Dealing with tradies was not easy, we had to do things slowly as soon as we were able to save a bit of money for it. Three months after handover we had a miscarriage.

We had to rent out 2 rooms to be able keep up and Airbnb the third room. And we felt our home was a share house, which didn't help at all.

I was paranoic at times thinking that the house was falling apart due to a drainage problem. The anxiety was so bad that I cried at nights.

Just the next day after we installed concrete steps at the front of our house, we had to rip it off due to a "bad mix". And we had to find another concreter to redo.

My wife was super supportive. I have dealt with anxiety in the past which required medication.

I had to unsubscribe from the forum and everything home related to cope better. We even thought on selling the house and just rent again or buy a small townhouse closer to the city (our house is almost an hour away).

Now, a year and half later after handover things are much better. We have a newborn son who I love with all of my heart. We did the minimum for our landscaping and the house just took less priority. It's not draining all of what we save anymore. We got rid of our flatmates and we stop the Airbnb of the third room.

Our house is finally a home to us ...

Some photos for perspective...

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arcadelt · Jan 13, 2020 8:31 am

Building a house or renovating can be stressful at the best of times, and to have all those things happen on top of that would only have made it worse. I'm sorry you had to go through that, but pleased that you found a way out and back to appreciating your home...which looks lovely by the way.

brokenstick · Jan 13, 2020 2:40 pm

Great to hear that things are working out better for you now

Joker · Jan 13, 2020 9:12 pm

Your father would be so proud of you, you went for life's biggest and hardest financial drain time and with such a personal loss have came through to bring a smile on your Dad's face,well done,you deserve to enjoy your home.

building-expert · Jan 14, 2020 7:58 am

Building is a very stressful job even for builders.
If you are running several jobs at the same time you can be guaranteed that every day someone will let you down and you have to manage it. It's important to maintain a healthy perspective and get emotions out of the way.

You start by asking if anyone has been killed or injured, if not everything else is easy to fix, it just requires hard work, patience, ingenuity and co-ordination.
Never get bogged down into so much detail so you loose the big picture. Most importantly, get help from a professional.

If you are a perfectionist it means you have a mental condition (don't worry we are all mental) and you will always be disappointed. Step back and instead ask yourself what is reasonable.

My take on perfection:

PERFECTION IS MERELY AN ILLUSION FOR THE DELUDED

jeniferden · Jan 06, 2024 8:12 am

I'm really sorry to hear about all the challenges you've faced, especially during such a significant time like the handover of your house. It sounds like an incredibly tough period, and I admire your resilience.