

He does not want to work in the new location, just live and be away from his old life and town. He is a loner. He wants to spend his time reading. He plans to be only in his apartment or the library.



He has never lived on his own before, never moved, not travelled much outside our town in California. He is suffering from anxiety, maybe OCD ( has a diagnosis but no treatment) and is right now very focused on health and sickness. He wants to move out and live alone so he can control his environment more for germs, and also I'm sure just experience the normal stage for his age of independence.

He chose Buffalo somewhat randomly. I convinced him not to buy the ticket just yet. He mentioned Manchester (NH? ) as a second choice. I threw out many other cities and he shot them all down, mostly based on elevation or as being " too warm" or too expensive. He has eliminated Portland, Seattle, Dallas-- everything in the Rockies due to elevation

I finally threw out Des Moines, Iowa and he is now focusing there. I was so shocked that he seemed interested that now I'm wondering if there is an even better location I could suggest to him.

His criteria:

Low cost of living ( under $700 rent for studio or 1 bedroom)

Cold. ( snow. Dallas Texas showed 70 degrees last night and so he said no)

Under 1000 ft elevation. ( non negotiable. Something to do with OCD I'm guessing )

Far from California ( not sure how far is far enough)



My hopes:

Low crime, good public transportation ( he won't bring his car)

And as closer rather than farther to California. This is just a hope.

I don't know if big city is better than small town.

Maybe university town would be good.

He will be uninsured. He doesn't seem to care. I looked up Medicare in Iowa and it didn't sound great. In any case, he does not plan to get insurance. This idea alone is very stressful for me to think about as he is not the healthiest person and has had some health problems as a child.



I don't know how much time I have to help him decide before he leaves. He wants me to help him call some apartments in Des Moines right now, to see if he will need a co signer.



Does anyone have any town or location suggestions for him? Plan would be to fly out, I guess this week, get a motel and then try to find an apartment asap. This is pretty much the antithesis of how I would advise him to do this, but he's doing this his way and is very stubborn. He has untreated anxiety/ stress and he wants to do this to fix/ improve those issues. He is not open at all to therapy or medication. Just a change of lifestyle and location. I'm trying to do the right thing by him as his mom, whatever the right thing is.

So my 19 year old son informed me last night that he quit his job, where he'd been for 1.5 years, and was going to buy a ticket to Buffalo New York. He wanted to move there today or tomorrow, with basically the clothes on his back and his laptop. He's saved $15,000 from the job, and wants to live on that until it runs out.