Poll Do You Have Trouble Keeping Your Home Orderly?

[bittersweet]

Usually you can tell how I'm feeling based on what my house looks like. When I am feeling depressed my house is a disaster and it doesn't get clean until my period of depression is over. I just feel a lack of motivation for everything except things that are a necessity. Once I'm feeling good my house will be immaculate. The only thing that is immaculate no matter what mood I'm in is my animals and their habitats and crates.

 

[sea]

Um. I used to eat off of paper plates so I wouldn't have to do my dishes. So yes. I think it's because of lack of motivation probably that so many people have problems with it. Cleaning takes a lot of effort. Unless my house looks like Hoarders, it's effort that that I just don't think is even necessary. It's clean (as in a lack of dirt/food/mold/w.e) just a complete mess. I leave things everywhere and nothing is organized and it's very cluttered and awful. Clean is pretty much all I can do at the moment.

 

[KrazyKat]

I have ADD too, but I was reading an article that said sometimes it's a subconscious strategy to literally keep people away. I figured it was depression-- and I'm sure that's part of it. But I never connected this to the early PTSD trauma, of someone breaking into my home and attacking me. I really want to have a welcoming open home, and then if I feel under threat or stress, I just close up and maybe that when the home really goes too. Blocking out the world that hurts me. I have such a long way to go working on this. I'm so glad I found this site to share these things. :)

 

[Reign]

It usually depends how badly I feel. I don't let things get too out of control because its a trigger for me (chaos) and I can't function properly when everything is askew. My closets are very neat and orderly, a place for everything and everything in it's place. My bathroom and kitchen are clean and I usually tidy my kitchen within a reasonable time after cooking if not right away. I use the bathroom and it's cleaned as soon as I am through, if you come to my house you will always find a clean (pristine clean) bathroom. The junk drawer in my kitchen is uncluttered and neat and gets cleaned out regularly. I can not stand or tolerate hoarding.

I am not obsessive about any of it though (at least I don't think I am, I live alone). Living with people in my home can cause me great stress concerning the order of my housee however. I think it's because this is something I have complete control over until others enter the picture ..otherwise I don't have things under a microscope, i prefer to handle it in a relaxed calm way and thus it keeps my blood pressure in check.

 

[kers]

I feel constantly overwhelmed, like the ten buttons being pushed at once. My mind goes from one thing to another and it's hard to get anything 100% done. Mostly I don't even see the clutter. And then I'm away and I come back and it is a shock. It gets worse because I don't keep up with the paper that comes into the house, and there are too many active projects spread out and piled up. When I see it, I feel exhausted just looking at it. And I wonder if it's some way of keeping me down, keeping the world at bay, reinforcing how alone and afraid I can feel.

This, exactly.

Even when I dedicate several days and get the whole house well-kept, I turn around and it's a filthy, cluttered mess a few days later. It's way too much for me to handle.

 

[Srain]

Um. I used to eat off of paper plates so I wouldn't have to do my dishes.

HA!! I have actually done that because I had run out of dishes and decided to throw them away, I was done with the whole thing! So I used paper plates. It was one of those really tough times.

 

[Deaf Global Nomad]

Without help, a homemaker as well as an Independent Living Skills worker who has helped me organize my house, my house looks like a tornado hit. With help and the ILS worker making sure I keep up with my tasks it looks great. It helps me feel calm. If the services are disrupted as they have been this past month and I have been struggling (not caused by the disruption in services, but by progress in therapy being able to dig deeper and deeper) some things settle into a more messy state. If I don't feel well I don't eat. General trash will be picked up the night before the garbage service comes. There's not much as it is... So I'm guessing that on Tuesday it will look all normal again.

 

[broken_one]

I refer to our house as "the house of pain." I think it's due to the antisocial behavior associated with PTSD or maybe it's which came first, the messy house or the antisocial behavior? The house is a mess, therefore we never have guests. Or we never have guests, therefore the house can remain a mess?

My inlaws are coming in late September. I've been in total panic since I found out a few weeks ago, but obviously not panicked enough to clean.

Living with PDSD/severe depression/anxiety, it's all I can to do drag myself through the week. I do laundry. And necessary stuff. But, I'm a mild hoarder. I may need that piece of paper some day. But I agree, the Hoarders on TV make my house look spotless.

Oh yeah, we have three dogs, so there is usually enough dog hair throughout the house for a 4th and 5th dog ;) even though we do vacuum. ;)

 

[NutritionNerd]

With two of us who are ADD and PTSD it is a disaster. It is just too overwhelming to deal with. I suspect some of peoples problems is that too much stuff triggers them and cleaning it up triggers them by association.

We went on vacation for a month and came back and it was amazing how much better we felt when we were not in the house - even though being on vacation was stressful.

 

[Incendiu]

My bf have ADD and Asperger..I PTSD...And I am the only one who acctually care about a tidy home...I just don't have the energy to keep it tidy all the time ^^ Even if I really need to. I really stress about it from the moment I wake up till it is done...but never able to keep it tidy...

 

[NutritionNerd]

Aspies tend to fall in two categories - completely neat or completely not. Tasks which are not clearly defined can be a nightmare of difficulty for them - like putting clothes away for example.
At any rate you stressing about it is not going to help anything - see if you can find some way to let go of caring about it.

 

[Incendiu]

Nutrion... Well I know. I actully gave up nagging on him about it some years ago and tryed to just simply beg him to help me with some of the tings that may neded to be done. He know he have that problem and wish to change so he actually have turned to a helpsupport with this sort of things for people that may need it of different diagnosis and they come by one hour twise a week to get him up at am and not pm and to get started with something that is needed to be done but is able to be done in that hour. And he starts to think different about thouse things he use to do...he now see when they have to bee done...but he still dont do them if I dont beg him. My stress by the way just tend to do me tierd not angry or something like that. A non tidy appartment give me to manny impressions to deal with. He have also never lived alone moved from his parents to me and never got into the rutines. So I understand hes part of it to.