Ok so I have trouble planning for the future because I often feel disconnected from myself and overwhelmed by intense emotions and reactions, but a caravan on a piece of land looks accessible enough even from me.
Still living with my parents in a very beautiful place already in the countryside, and I don’t know if this desire of moving out is coming from a real necessity or from the fake thought that it might actually finally “solve my problems”…
What I notice is that when I’m out of home I usually just feel better for whatever reason: more stable, no doomscrolling on the internet, less dissociation, less debilitating thoughts, I just generally feel better.
As long as I can have food and a shelter, and I’m outdoors, perhaps with animals, I generally feel “good enough”. i don’t care about having a lot of stuff, and I genuinely feel that I would feel better without an internet connection at all, I can also drop my car as long as I can reach basic necessities with my bike, I don’t care about traveling or money, status or career, as long as I can do something good for myself and others, I feel happy.
So I would love to know if you have some experience with this kind of life, if it ended up suiting you, if you just felt like me in the past and if the only constant in your life is chaos, or if all of this is just a fake dream… I don’t wanna do all of this just to say “oh, there we go again”, and realize to late that I’m not actually making improvements from my current condition.
. I love my family, and if I could I would make all the changes I dream about here around them, but they have their opinions and interests of course, so I kinda feel stuck, despite all…
Generally looking for insights more from a psychological point of view.
It’s good to be out enjoying nature, often does wonders for your psychological well being. As a very tech-centric person, I intentionally moved to a more rural area with excellent outdoor amenities to enable me to do so frequently. It helps, but doesn’t necessarily solve all problems in my case. More like a critical piece of the puzzle.
I’ve been researching and planning a “forever home” in this area with my partner for a few years now, so I can share some thoughts I have about this based on my read of your situation. As a caveat though, I haven’t done it yet - still planning.
Try not to underestimate how much work it will be. You will need the necessities, food and shelter as you pointed out, but also some form of income because it will cost some money to build out new things and do what you need to do (clothes, utilities for internet, electric and plumbing, equipment for farming food forest, fencing to manage wildlife and protect your crops, chicken coop, etc etc). Are you planning to build a shelter, or live out of a van? I assume the latter because of your use of the term “caravan,” but it isn’t quite clear. If you’re doing a van, realize that a decent one can be quite expensive. Like over $120k expensive. You can definitely get creative with stuff like a used U-Haul or something to save money, but if this is going to be your home for the foreseeable future, you need to be comfortable in it. There are a ton of great content creators on YouTube and whatnot with ideas here, so do your research to know what you’re getting into. For me a van won’t work because I can’t do cramped spaces for extended periods, but if you can the mobility benefits would be pretty awesome.
Speaking of - would you be comfortable living in such a cramped space? Usually you’ll have like a single cooktop and maybe 2-3’ of counter space for your “kitchen” in one of these setups. Would that be enough room to prepare all the wonderful food you want to grow in your food forest? People often do a sawdust bucket for a mobile bathroom solution in these vans. Is that something you’d be comfortable with until you can build an outhouse on your land?
It’s a deep topic, plenty more to consider but I think the above points are a good place to start. Tl;dr: really take the time to research and plan out what will work for you. Recognizing where you are now isn’t working is a great first step to build up motivation to act and change things, just make sure you look before you leap =]