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4 replies

my messy room in my clean house

J janedoeMember
I'm not sure why, but I find this a bit embarassing to post about but I am feeling so desperately stuck... and need to talk about it...

I am working through several very recent traumatic events that has occured over the past two months. It is really tough. Thankfully, I have two great Ts who are helping me to keep talking about it and process it as much as I can and support me through it all.

In the middle of it all, I find myself really struggling to clean and organize where I live. I was gone for awhile, and friends/housemares took turns taking care of things for me. Now I am back and I needed to clean before I left... I still have moving boxes from this summer that I had just started unpacking before I left - and here they are still half unpacked!

I start to work on it, and then get quickly unmotivated and put it all away. I just want to go hide under the covers... run away from it all. I am getting very frustrated with myself. I am leaving in 5 days for a short trip for Christmas, and I want to have a lot of this done by then. It isn't likely I will get a lot done, but I want to do as much as I can.

It's a big project. I have lots of folders and files to sort through and throw away what I don't need anymore. There is a lot of basic organaizing I need to do with other things, and throwing away or giving away what I just don't need anymore.

I feel nervous throwing things away right now. I think I am so stuck in survival mode, that it makes me nervous. At the same time, having things around is making me nervous too.

I have a plan to deal with the nervousness, but then when I am less nervous I become totally unmotivated. I am not usually messy or a hoarder... Everything is confined to my bedroom and another room in our house, and everywhere else, I'm quite clean. Almost OCD clean. My housemates say they have never met someone so clean... except for my own rooms. It is like I have a clean part and a messy part of me and they exist in different rooms of my house! how weird.

I think I might need to stop dealing with everything else with my T, and get my T's help on this... I feel embarassed being so neat in most of the house and a total mess in two rooms. Like I'm a big fake either way. I can't live with it like this. I have some time to work on it the next couple of days...

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to stay motivated to work on organizing and cleaning things up? Or how to stick with a big project they are dreading and feel overwhelmed by? or a task that just feels pointless even though it is not? Anyone else struggle with anything like this?

~ jane
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N ninnMember
quote:
Anyone else struggle with anything like this?



Jane, oh my gosh, yes!! I was never one to spend money, horde, or be unorganized or mess!! But, after my trauma, something happened, and it is mostly my room, at least it started there, but then I found it also impossible to keep the kids' playroom organized, and now several months ago we added desks to a room to create a library for the kids and now even that I can't keep organized. The only way I can follow through is if I have a visitor coming (like today) and if my husband helps me. I wish I understood this better, but I guess it has something to do with my anxiety and depression (PTSD symptoms). I wish whatever was causing it could heal so I can get back to who I was before the trauma. Sorry I have no suggestions other than to create a list and do some at a time. I also listen to music, that helps sometimes. But, I usually start and can't finish things.
L lieseMember
(((((JANE))))

I am the same way and I don't know what it is either. There are just certain things that I just can't seem to force myself to do. I hope you can get help with this soon and then share the remedy. Like Ninn, it does seem to be PTSD/anxiety related. The clearer my emotions and my head, the cleaner my house and the more I can do.

xoxo

Liese
havecouragehavecourageMember
Hi Jane. Yes, i am exactly the same way. I find it very difficult to focus on things like housework and everyday things that i took for granted before. For me it is a combination of anxiety and depression, with both emotions working prohibitively against focusing on anything. I have tried doing a "to do" list, but gave up that idea, as i found it more anxiety provoking that helpful. The thing i have found the most helpful, is accepting that "For this moment in my life", whilst i battle with other aspects of my life, is to be kinder to myself, stop beating myself up for not being able to function 100% and just do the things i feel i am able to do. I also think it is important to complete 1 or 2 tasks a day, if possible, it does not matter how small they are, as long as you just keeping putting one foot in front of the other, even if at times it feel's like you are dragging those feet!!, it is still an accomplishment and a dilutant to that constant round of "i should be doing this", "I worry and get more anxious if i am not doing this" and other self-flogging statements. Maybe you could start with just the smaller things you have to do before going away for xmas? Good Luck.

Smiler HC
heldincompassionheldincompassionMember
Jane,

I have a similar problem. Sometimes I get almost manic about having everything in my home clean, neat, and organized. Every corner of every room, every shelf of every closet must be in order-- a place for everything, and everything in it's place. I do think I feel better, over all, when my house is like this, even though I can be a bit frenetic about it.

Then there periods (increasingly long and frequent I'm afraid) when I just can't seem to bear to straighten anything. Clutter piles up and I just don't care. I even prefer it that way. The idea of trying to combat the household mess fills me with despair and a sense of the futility of all human endeavor. It never gets all that bad, because during my minimalist phases I've gotten rid of the majority of my possessions (very freeing, that!), so there isn't all that much to lose control of, but it still looks sloppy.

I don't know why I'm like this. It annoys me and especially annoys my H. It's not that he needs things to be perfect, but I think he'd just like to see some consistency, poor guy.

Anyway, I empathize with your frustration, although I am afraid I have little to offer in the way of insight or advice-- if you find any answers from T or an epiphany moment, I hope you come back and update. Smiler

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