pearl
New Member
Joined: March 2024
Posts: 2
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Post by pearl on Feb 29, 2024 22:24:20 GMT -5
Hello everyone. I’m Pearl. I have been a terribly messy person my entire life. I remember being 7 or 8, crying over throwing away the tags that I collected off of my new clothes because I thought the tags were so pretty even though everyone said they were trash. Every six months or so my mom and grandma and I would go in my bedroom and literally shovel it out and get it organized and cleaned back up. Unfortunately, it would just be messy again in a few weeks. I do have an official hoarding diagnosis but my therapist said it is pretty mild (4 out of a 10). I do not have a shopping problem. Honestly,I think it’s because I like to hoard money . I have done a lot of work to be able to get rid of things. I have no problem (emotionally) anymore throwing out trash or anything else I don’t use. I actually have a pretty minimalist amount of things and I have a decent amount of confidence in my ability to declutter. My problem comes with maintaining anything that has to do with my house. I get my house clean and picked up and I can keep it that way for about three days and then it all falls apart again. It’s so discouraging and I legitimately don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I know I need to just pick up and clean but I feel like I can’t. I have tried so many different techniques and programs and checklists and you name it. They never work. I have failed over and over and everyone eventually just gives up on me. My mom and grandma stopped offering to help me clean years ago. My husband has stopped too. My friends have stopped to. Everyone just says it’s going to look just like it did before we cleaned so we’re done helping. I really really would like to give up and just live in my filth because I am so sick of trying and giving 100 percent just for it to not work. But I have three awesome kids who I sure as heck do not want to pass this on to. So I will keep trying even though everyone I know has told me there’s no way I will change. The ironic part is I am a very intelligent person in other areas. I can take on challenges that no one else does and I can ace them. In my professional life I’m very successful. I’m a teacher and can be in charge of 70 middle schoolers by myself without blinking an eye. You can give me your most challenging student and I will get them feeling safe and loved in my classroom, and they usually become leaders in my class and perform very well for me. All throughout school and college I was told I answered questions in a different way than anyone else, and that my way of thinking was impressive. I was told I was a brilliant thinker and I would go on to do great things. Well they were wrong, I’ve gone on to become the ultimate hot mess mom. I once took a personality test that said I am an absent minded professor and I do think that sums it up pretty well. I find one of my biggest problems with the mundane task required of up keeping a house is remembering if I did them or completed them. My memory is awful. I’m always in my head. Just yesterday, I put all the food away from my shopping trip except the frozen stuff. I took it all out of the bag, put it on my counter and walked away with literally no clue I did that. My husband asked what I was doing with the frozen stuff and I asked him what he was talking about because I honestly forgot we had bought frozen things! This kind of stuff happens all the time. I will pick something up and set it down again with no idea that I did it. Once I set a goal for myself to take care of my cereal bowl after breakfast instead of leaving it on the table. I thought I was doing great. Every time lunch rolled around my spot was cleared. After a week I was so excited to share my progress with my husband and tell him that I actually picked up something after myself for a whole week. He informed me that he had been taking care of my bowl all week and I had actually left it! I could do a list or a checklist or something but they just remind me of my failures. The last time I tried to make a checklist for myself I missed one checkmark and had days of panic attacks after. I don’t think at this time I can do anything with a checklist or any type of habit tracker. I think right now my house is at a level two according to the documents I read and I can get it to a level one in just a few days but I don’t know how to keep it there. I’m excited I found this group! I can’t wait to hopefully find some new ideas to try.
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Post by Nael_C on Mar 1, 2024 14:23:07 GMT -5
Hello pearl and welcome to the forum! You collected tags, he he, that is something we have in common. But some of them are really, really beautiful, it's true. Tip: making something out of shop tags in an extra bonus, I like to make them into journaling tags. So I keep some, the best, I toss the common ones. I know about the inconsistency part of the maintenance, it's a tough one to tackle. For me the solution is to be vigilant when things start going south, to be able to step up and catch myself before the complete chaos. Checklists also sometimes give me anxiety, not every time. What I found works for me in those times where my energy is low but I still want to start by doing something, is the Do One Thing thread in the forum. It's easy to do just one thing, no list required. Then, you write what you accomplished in the thread. This I found is able to push me through the fear of starting, the inertia and worry. When you feel more up to it, you can use the WIT thread, there is one for every new month, many members use it. It means Work In Threes, so, you do three things, write them, if you want you do 3 more, etc. Then, there is the timer way. You put your time to, say 8 minutes, and you work only for those. Doable, right? I wish you the very best, and enjoy the forum. There are so many things to learn from it, so many beautiful people inside and out, so much wisdom and compassion in here.
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Post by def6 on Mar 1, 2024 16:39:24 GMT -5
Hello pearl Fantastic into! I think you might benefit by practicing a trick called: "Erasing the Evidence." That means you leave a room just as you found it. Such as : you enter the kitchen to make something to eat, but as it is being prepared, you clean up and wash up as you go. This is a beautiful trick! It's like magic. Pretty soon this will turn into a habit. It takes a month of being serious about a habit to obtain it. It might take on the form of more simple meals with clean up time included. Or filling up the sink with hot, sudsy water, so everyone can rake out their plate and slip the dishes in the sink to soak. I am excited for you to begin this new chapter of more quality rest time and less frustration.
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Post by gillian on Mar 18, 2024 12:09:45 GMT -5
Welcome to the group, Pearl. I do feel sorry to the 7/8 year old you, being told your precious tags were trash, when they can be used for journaling, like Nael_C mentions. I'm wondering if that's the same as scrapbooking? That was popular with creative people a number of years back.
I'm also wandering if anyone has ever mentioned ADD or ADHD? You mentioning about the frozen stuff from your shopping trip and thinking you'd cleared away your breakfast bowl made me think of that. Nael_C and def6 have given you some good tips.
One other thing - don't put yourself down. You're a good teacher and I'm sure many children are glad of the help you were to them.
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