Overcoming fear of change

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I am faced right now with the prospect of moving across the United States to go to graduate school. I have multiple additional issues I'm facing as well, including a medical problem that is incompletely resolved and a social developmental delay.

I am the kind of person who is very strongly affected by the familiarity of physical surroundings. The last time I moved away from the area where I grew up for over a year, I felt very out of place, and even meeting other people who I got along with didn't solve this problem. Just not having the familiar scenery to remind me of my place in the world made me hypersensitive to setbacks in other areas of life.

I have realized that developing socially will take effort and probably lots of "failed" attempts--I don't have experience reaching out and am still in many ways a child or adolescent in the level of relationship depth and complexity I'm ready for. I find the prospect of having to do this in a place where I don't feel at home, and when I still have medical issues to overcome, very overwhelming to contemplate. On the other hand, if I don't move, my career development (which is also behind) will be delayed.

How have any of you, particularly those who feel more "child" than "adult" in your general skills dealing with the world, dealt with such a large change? How long did it take you to settle in? Were there things that helped you, for instance ways to visualize what you would find in the new place to make it seem more promising?

I'm having a similar experience atm, I'm moving soon but cant imagine myself there, except for negative images, I can see all the ways this will go wrong, quite clearly.

I don't know an answer to your question, but I can tell you what I am doing to handle the fear... drawing rough sketches from my minds eye of how I perceive myself right now. I'm not letting the fear taint the drawing, and, as I cant see the positives, the sketch remains plain. Like a blank slate, ready to have the details added to it as time progresses.

I think that once I am there, unpacked, working, familiar with my surroundings and settled into a nice routine I will feel less fear about the potential pitfalls, but I don't think that fear will go until I have experiences which are positive/neutral instead of catastrophes.