Should I try to get a single room?

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I'm going to college next year, and I'm experiencing a lot of anxiety over sharing a small living space with someone else and I'm not quite sure whether I can handle it. I'm a person that requires several hours of being completely alone and unwatched a day, and without a certain level of time to recharge I tend to get really agitated, and whenever I try to suppress it, it just gets worse and on occasion I freak out or meltdown (I try my best to be alone if that happens). I really don't want to make this a difficult matter for anyone involved or get special treatment or miss out on any type of typical college experience. The last thing I want is to make a scene or make anything hard for anyone, but my mom is going to talk to my therapist about pulling a few strings with the college on getting a single room. Is it even a worthy pursuit?

Definitely a worthy pursuit. The place you live should be comfortable for you, or else how can you be expected to do your best?

YES! Dorms can be a nightmare.

When I started grad school I had a roommate for the first time. What a mess that situation was! In hindsight, having another person and their life so intertwined with mine had a very negative effect on the quality of my studies and my life.

The next semester I managed to get a room to myself. I was finally able to study and focus on myself instead of being constantly rattled by others. If I had it to do over, I would have roomed by myself from the start.

yes, i think you should.
if you happen do have an official diagnosis, you can go to the college councellor or the RD, this will put some power behind your request and push you far forward on the list for single rooms

Yes.
A single room is a bit lonely, but I can't even describe what a relief it is to live alone.

If you feel more comfortable, then by all means you should. I would also feel the same way and wouldn't like having to share a room cause of the lack of privacy. Once when I was on holiday I shared a room with two other people in a room that's only designed for 1 (maybe 2) for 2 weeks, which wasn't very pleasant.

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Do everything you can to get a single room!
Going to a new place with so much unfamiliarity is already overwhelming, a roommate only adds to that. You need a place to have to yourself, you will need it.

My parents forced me to live with a roommate and I thought I could do it, but deep down I knew it was a mistake, turns out I was right. I ended up having a serious meltdown due to overstimulation. It took me two months to recover. Don't put yourself in a situation because others urge you to.

Yes, space is essential, at least for me.

Yes, space is essential, at least for me.

I feel two ways on this.

A roommate is an important step to growing as a person.

The problem is that colleges DELIBERATELY try to pair you with someone who is very different from you. Most every first-year student spends the first semester finding someone else to room with. Housing assignment transfers are common in that first semester.

This is an issue because in real life, you wouldn't want to have a room/house mate who you were utterly incompatible with. They might not be just like you (which is good), but you'd not want someone you can't stand to be around.

When I went to college, my roommate was an okay guy, but we were on each others' nerves all the time. The guy who became my next roommate (and best friend to this day) I met by chance when I went 2 doors down to ask if he had a hammer. When my roommate found someone else to move in with, this guy got away from his roommate and moved in with me.

Excuse my ignorance, as I never lived in a dorm, but that s**t is not free right?

Maybe it's not the case everywhere but in Seattle there were a grip of like 200 square foot hamster shack apartments within a couple blocks of campus that were super cheap for the area.

Might be something to look into.

There are pros and cons.

The pros:
-someone to talk to/share with
-larger space
-If your school is good with pairing similar people together, it could be really beneficial

The cons:
-feeling claustrophobic and not having enough alone time; not being able to stim or masturbate (or having to do it on an awkward schedule and feeling stressed out about it)
-Roommate could end up being a total jerk and not respecting you/your needs
-Having a roommate makes it more likely random people/significant others will be hanging out in your room and you may get sexiled


As for me personally, I had roommates both my freshman and sophomore year in college and I really wish I hadn't. One roommate was never there but she ended up being completely untrustworthy; the other roommate was always there when she wasn't with her boyfriends and was completely disrespectful to my needs. I had a single junior and senior year and even though I was more socially isolated, it was definitely a lot less stressful.