So, yeah, unsurprisingly, my brain did not, in fact, cooperate. But better late than never, right? I can’t guarantee I won’t end up having the same change of heart you did, in terms of this hanging around on the internet forever, but it’ll exist long enough for you to read it, and that’s good enough. Anyway, it’s mainly just random co…
So, yeah, unsurprisingly, my brain did not, in fact, cooperate. But better late than never, right? I can’t guarantee I won’t end up having the same change of heart you did, in terms of this hanging around on the internet forever, but it’ll exist long enough for you to read it, and that’s good enough. Anyway, it’s mainly just random commiseration…
I come by my ADHD from my dad’s side, and my mom’s side provided the delightful addition of OCD. For me, this manifests as a need for excessive (and idiosyncratically perfectionistic) order and structure in my environment in order to be able to function my best (or hell, even adequately), coupled with a severe deficiency in being able to create or maintain that state of order. It’s a truly spiffy combo.
One of the best things I ever did for myself (and it took a looooong time for me to come around to the idea) was to sign up for routine house cleaning and to work with a personal organizer occasionally. (Insert standard privilege disclaimers and whatnot here.) It utterly transformed my quality of life, and it freed up enough space for me, mentally, that I was able to focus on a lot of important things that had gotten deeply neglected while I was busy bashing myself endlessly against the brick wall of housekeeping. I knew it had been bad for me, but I didn’t realize until then exactly how high a mental load I’d been carrying from just that one area of my life. As accomodations go, it did more to improve my mental health than any medication I’ve ever been on.
That said, in the early days of the pandemic, when everything was still so uncertain, I made the grievous error of suspending the service. Between all the pandemic stresses and the fact that I’d become a new mom for the first time shortly before it all hit, things went downhill rather quickly. Fast-forward to now, and I’m stuck in a perpetual loop of not wanting to bring the cleaners back because I’m too ashamed of all the disorganized junk piles, but I’m also too ashamed of the other mess to bring in an organizer. I’m currently working my way toward doing one or both, but it’s agonizingly slow progress -- just keeping up with regular old entropy is hard enough.
Anyway, there’s not really a point to this, other than solidarity, I guess. Just saying that I get it, that I feel for you, and that it’s not just you. Routine household upkeep is my eternal white whale. FWIW, I’ve found a lot of solace and ideas in the book How to Keep House While Drowning by KC Davis, and also from her website and videos. She puts a lot of emphasis on “care tasks” being functional, not moral. Anyway, you might check it out if the idea resonates.
Whatever the specifics, I hope your struggle eases up soon. And even if it’s a bit rich for me to say so, I hope you know that you don’t deserve to feel shame for this stuff. We just do the best we can.
Thank you so much for your comment. I really appreciate it. I'm in a very similar situation, too ashamed of the mess to get help. I'm starting to get an idea for how I can attack it though, in part because of your comment. If you're comfortable, could you send me an email so I can follow up less publicly? No worries if not! carina.substack@gmail.com
So, yeah, unsurprisingly, my brain did not, in fact, cooperate. But better late than never, right? I can’t guarantee I won’t end up having the same change of heart you did, in terms of this hanging around on the internet forever, but it’ll exist long enough for you to read it, and that’s good enough. Anyway, it’s mainly just random commiseration…
I come by my ADHD from my dad’s side, and my mom’s side provided the delightful addition of OCD. For me, this manifests as a need for excessive (and idiosyncratically perfectionistic) order and structure in my environment in order to be able to function my best (or hell, even adequately), coupled with a severe deficiency in being able to create or maintain that state of order. It’s a truly spiffy combo.
One of the best things I ever did for myself (and it took a looooong time for me to come around to the idea) was to sign up for routine house cleaning and to work with a personal organizer occasionally. (Insert standard privilege disclaimers and whatnot here.) It utterly transformed my quality of life, and it freed up enough space for me, mentally, that I was able to focus on a lot of important things that had gotten deeply neglected while I was busy bashing myself endlessly against the brick wall of housekeeping. I knew it had been bad for me, but I didn’t realize until then exactly how high a mental load I’d been carrying from just that one area of my life. As accomodations go, it did more to improve my mental health than any medication I’ve ever been on.
That said, in the early days of the pandemic, when everything was still so uncertain, I made the grievous error of suspending the service. Between all the pandemic stresses and the fact that I’d become a new mom for the first time shortly before it all hit, things went downhill rather quickly. Fast-forward to now, and I’m stuck in a perpetual loop of not wanting to bring the cleaners back because I’m too ashamed of all the disorganized junk piles, but I’m also too ashamed of the other mess to bring in an organizer. I’m currently working my way toward doing one or both, but it’s agonizingly slow progress -- just keeping up with regular old entropy is hard enough.
Anyway, there’s not really a point to this, other than solidarity, I guess. Just saying that I get it, that I feel for you, and that it’s not just you. Routine household upkeep is my eternal white whale. FWIW, I’ve found a lot of solace and ideas in the book How to Keep House While Drowning by KC Davis, and also from her website and videos. She puts a lot of emphasis on “care tasks” being functional, not moral. Anyway, you might check it out if the idea resonates.
Whatever the specifics, I hope your struggle eases up soon. And even if it’s a bit rich for me to say so, I hope you know that you don’t deserve to feel shame for this stuff. We just do the best we can.
Thank you so much for your comment. I really appreciate it. I'm in a very similar situation, too ashamed of the mess to get help. I'm starting to get an idea for how I can attack it though, in part because of your comment. If you're comfortable, could you send me an email so I can follow up less publicly? No worries if not! carina.substack@gmail.com
Absolutely! Curious to hear your idea! : )