pearl
New Member
Joined: March 2024
Posts: 2
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Post by pearl on Mar 6, 2024 12:25:23 GMT -5
I found the squalor survivors website and I think I read almost everything on it. I was especially struck by the idea of fixing myself first before fixing my home. I ended up getting the Too Perfect book that was recommended. Wow! I believe this will change my life. It helped me realize that I feel the obsessive need to be in control of everything and everyone all of the time. That has led to a belief that if I slip up on my control or make any wrong decision that something bad will happen for me or my family. I’m always thinking about 30 steps ahead for EVERY SINGLE action I take. I’m always trying to sort through all possible outcomes good and bad so that I can protect everyone. Writing it out it sounds very illogical but I was doing it very unconsciously and I’ve been doing it my whole life so I don’t think I even knew to try something else. So I would go to clean and think, if I start in the wrong spot everything is going to fall apart again… it won’t stay clean.. if I do this wrong it will affect all of our health… if it affects our health we will get sick and if we get sick… blah blah blah. I would usually spiral out 30 steps. All of that over deciding what corner of my kitchen to sweep out first. Throwing anything away or picking anything up also caused the same thoughts. Honestly anything I did caused all of it but it was definitely worse with my house because I don’t feel very confident in my house keeping skills. So my mantra this week has been, “I don’t have control over that and I am not responsible for that.” When I’m worried about the consequences of throwing something out I’m telling myself I can put it in the trash and the rest of what happen is not my problem. Having tight fisted control on EVERYTHING will not stop the bad from happening. It won’t keep my family or my friends safe. It just irritates them, keeps me very stressed out, and doesn’t even prevent any bad thing from happening! So I’m learning to let go figuratively and literally. One thing I’m super proud I threw away was my huge lint pile from my dryer. I was keeping it to make fire starters for camping but of course I never got around to it and it’s just been a guilt inducing pile. I scooped that whole pile up and told myself you can still have a good time camping even if you don’t make these. Whether you make this or not will not change any outcome. And you really don’t like the look of this cluttering your dryer. So you can throw these out and it’s ok bc your not in control of how our camping trip goes based on this pile of lint. And I dumped that whole thing in the trash without ANY anxiety!!!! It was amazing. Shortly after that we were hit with a horrible stomach bug so decluttering/cleaning has come to a halt for now. But even cleaning up the copious amounts of vomit around my house has been sooooo much easier. Before I would have obsessed about doing it wrong and being worried we would be sick again. Now I’m just telling myself I’m going to sanitize to the best of my ability and the rest is out of my control. I feel so much freer and like so much pressure if off my shoulders. Anyways I’m hoping to make periodic updates about things to help keep myself accountable
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Post by phoenixcat on Mar 7, 2024 10:36:02 GMT -5
Welcome to SooS pearl ! For many years I was the "medical in charge" person for various out of state relatives. Because of what I've learned here I can travel in a hurry. Clothes are usually one load away from being packed, suitcases are empty and in their location, place is "good enough" for a pet sitter, paperwork to make medical decisions is accessible, calendar, etc is organized to know what needs to be rescheduled, finances are "good enough" to keep bills paid while traveling and to locate money or miles for travel. The list goes on. From what I learned here I was able to downsize relatives repeatedly including my mother into my own home. Did the organization keep any of my relatives out of the hospital? NO. Did it keep them from getting cancer and very ill? NO Did it keep them from dying? NO Did it keep me from having to organize multiple out of state funerals? NO A lot of times life sucks and having that underlying organization and "good enough" cleaning - makes the really sucky times not be even more sucky. It sort of gives you a foundation when the ground is shifting under your feet a mile a minute. I've been on SooS almost 15 years - this is my tribe . And, the best toolbox you will ever find! There is always something somewhere that helps. A suggestion may work for one out of 20 people but for that one - it makes a difference. It is what they needed to hear and when they needed to hear it. I can't tell you how many of my daily habits have been formed by the wise people that share their experience here. Personally I look at organization and cleaning as the road to get to my final wish/dream/expectation/whatever. DH and I love to entertain. We enjoy company and traveling to visit friends and family. What I do in regards to cleaning, etc. allows us to have people over. We are having people here tonight. We are traveling in a few weeks and hosting a mini family reunion at the end of April. And, this is all possible because of my participation here. Other people have final end goals - perhaps it is to not worry about inspections and maintenance people, to be able to get cleaned up, sleep in a clean bed and wear clean clothes, maybe to free up an area for a favorite hobby or work from home, maybe someone needs accessibility or you need the place safer for children or pets. Everyone's end wish is a bit different but underlying organizing and cleaning can help you reach that goal. 10 years ago I started on the journey to relocate so that we can have our wish of seeing friends and family. We lived in a crappy rental house that was a total embarrassment. The things I disclosed to my friends here and the advice I received kept me motivated. We have lots of sayings but one is Perfection is the enemy of Progress. And my favorite is you can have it all but not all at once. Once again, WELCOME - I hope you find the answers and the tools for the life you want to have! PC
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