Dear Kayla:

You are welcome. Your feelings are definitely nothing to be ashamed of.

I understand your worries about your future roommate. The fact that she seems friendly and nice is no indication of her cleaning habits or of how many friends she has and how loud they may get.

Since you have no choice on who your roommate will be, what can you do?

First priorities: you are way more distressed when there are guests in the apartment (“my anxiety is through the roof. It’s a combination of the noise, the unfamiliarity of these strangers in my house, and my innate desire to be completely alone”) than you do about the cleanliness. Am I correct?

If so, prepare to talk with your next roommate about just that: the noise level if and when she has guests. Tell her how distressing it is to you. Let her know that in an honest, straightforward way, not accusatory, not threatening in any way. Let her know of this in a confident voice (not sounding scared, or crying and so on). She needs to understand how important it is for you, but she also needs to know that you are not going to freak out easily if she accidently talks too loud on the phone, let’s say.

In your interactions with her be assertive, not aggressive nor passive. Being assertive, she is more likely to respect you and accommodate you than if you are passive (or aggressive).

There is the possibility that however wisely you go about this, she will not accommodate you.

Regarding your intensely anxious reaction about the : “combination of the noise, the unfamiliarity of these strangers in my house, and my innate desire to be completely alone”- are you aware of where/ when this reaction originated, in your childhood perhaps?

anita