Just need to vent (and I can't come up with an original title, either)

Just need to vent (and I can't come up with an original title, either)
K

Kenn

Registrant
**Triggers are likely**

(This is a babbling brook of consciousness; hope it makes sense)...

Before I lose the thought, you know how they are, I need to put this out: when I thought I had reached the end of my rope again today, something inside me - the pitying self - realized that if people outside of me knew what life was like inside of me they might understand why I am so discouraged. I guess that's compassion for myself, but the fact is they (people important to me) DON'T know what's going on.

I've just come back from a three day dog-sitting visit to my sister's. She and my brother-in-law have two lovely children, who they wanted to take camping, so I happily looked after the dog in their spacious, well-appointed home (having left behind a small, filty apartment which I have let get progressively worse since I left hospital - first in 2003, when I broke a hip and wrist after being hit by a cab, and then again last month when I was in for a gall bladder attack.)

The litmus test I can now use for physical pain is, thanks to the gall stone is this: if I was not living alone, would a room-mate tolerate seeing me put up with such pain without calling for help until *I* decided it was time? (I didn't go to hospital until the following morning. *My choice*)

So now I come home to this same old mess, physically and emotionally, and the question is answered: not only would a room-mate not tolerate me living in such physical pain as I experienced a few weeks ago, he would not abide by my tearing myself apart over an untidy apartment. Surely he would say, as well he should, "Either clean up this mess or ask for help in doing so."

And, as has been the case since the major hospitalization last year, my response is - well - unresponsive. I know he's right, just as I know *I* am right, but stuck I remain, and I am worried that stuck means sinking.

I have spent a lot of time around people over the years recovering from addictions and other problems who - unlike me - are "neat freaks". Why is that not an obsession of mine? If it wasn't a priority before the accident it certainly has been even less so since! No wonder my home is my castle - no one else gets past the draw bridge!

I haven't been able to connect with my T. for several weeks - him away, me away (or in hospital ,etc.) - and I won't see him for another week yet. I don't know what he will offer me but I know I usually feel understood - and motivated, even a little - after our sessions.

Can you guys prod me until then? And is this sort of stuff "normal" for us?

:(

Kenn
 
KENN,
I DONT KNOW ABOUT EVERYONE ELSE, BUT I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN MESSY. I BEAT MYSELF UP QUITE A BIT OVER IT BUT I REALLY NEVER DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT.
SO I TRY TO SET ONE ROOM TO DO EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE. IT HARDLY EVER WORKS.
SOMETIMES I CAN KEEP A CLEAN HOUSE, BUT MY ROOM??? I WONT INSULT PIGS BY COMPARING MY ROOM TO THEIR PREFERRED HABITAT.
:D
I DONT KNOW WHAT TO SAY OTHER THAN DONT BEAT YOURSELF UP OVER IT. MAYBE YOU HAVE OTHER PROIORITYS OTHER THAN A CLEAN HOUSE.
I BELIEVE THAT MY MIND IS SO CLUTTERED UP THAT MY LIVING SPACE REFLECTS THAT. WHEN ITS CLEAN I TEND TO MESS IT UP.
ANYWHOO...
IM LONG WINDED TONIGHT.
HOPE THIS HELPS.
AND I HOPE YOU FEEL BETTER.
LEE
 
Kenn,

I am one of those obsessive-compulsive cleaning people. It is not just a healthy preoccupation with cleanliness and tidiness. It is rather a crazyness of itself. I need to alphabetize the cabinets. I need to dry my toothbrush before hanging it in the rack, so that it does not drip on the sink. I need all the vacuum marks to be in the 'right' pattern and direction. Crazyness, as I said.

But the crazyness has foundation in early childhood, with a rather psychotic father. It is not a positive thing, even if it is productive.

But my girlfriend is opposite. She is clean, but no one would call her 'tidy' or 'neat'! (She is a 'pile' person!) And if things get too dirty or scattered, she feels rather depressed with it.

So perhaps once you start cleaning some, it would lift your depression? Because YOU are worth living in a clean and orderly environment?

I wish you luck.

Leosha
 
Kenn

It makes a lot of sense to me. I don't know what the answer is though.

Prior to recovery from SA and alcoholism my flat used to be untidy and dirty and I did not care. Then after a while in recovery something happened, I don't know what, but one day I found myself cleaning my flat obsessively for 5 hours non-stop; I was in tears by the end of it because eventhough I had been scrubbing like mad the flat just could not be clean enough...

I have heard once that people who have been abused can become compulsive with cleaning, maybe something to do with cleaning the feeling of self-dirt?, so it makes sense that some people should go the other way?

These days I tend to binge clean and then let things go astray and then binge clean again. So be it! funny enough I was a binge drinker...

Take care
Heart
 
Heart quotes:

"It makes a lot of sense to me. I don't know what the answer is though".

"Prior to recovery from SA and alcoholism my flat used to be untidy and dirty and I did not care".

Same here I have filing cabinets in my room and that is kept as clean as a new pin but when it comes to finding anything I have filed...forget it. My filing cabinets just about sums up life for me. Good intentions to keep everything nice, neat and tidy results in utter chaos.

I try to keep it simple but that hardly ever works out

Archnut
 
I am the original messy person. I cant find my wallet or my car keys or my changed five minutes after I walk in the door.

My solution to all of this occured in 1967 when I married Nicole. She is a very neat and tidy person and gives me shit when I clutter Our house although tidy and neat also looks lived in and I am comfortable with that. I even vacuum or dust. But when she and my Daughter are away everything goes to pot again. I do, however, clean like a maniac just before they come home.

My suggestion. Find a neat partner and relax. ;)
 
I am the same, I think, oh I will do this or that, and you guessed it, none of it gets done, I go through bouts of cleaning, and chucking things out, and when I've done all of that, it doesn't look much different.

Never could work that one out.

I suppose my memory is like a sieve, I go down stairs to do something, and forget by the time I get there, maybe after 3 or 4 attempts, I finally remember, think I need to use post-it's

steve :D :D :D
 
Thank you all.

After a little sleep I made a beginning to a beginning and washed the dishes :)

Kenn
 
Kenn
If I had a web-cam you could see the chaos surrounding me here. There's mountains of papers, books and "stuff" all within reach of where I sit.
And every room in the house seems to have corners where I seem to deposit "stuff". I guess the pile of books in the bathroom is over a foot hight! ( I read on the bog )

I don't like a dirty house, and I'll clean a dirty floor. But the piles of "stuff" I just move from one place to another when I do it!
This house is "lived in"

Dave
 
I know what you guys are talking about here. My wife and I have clashed one or seven thousand times over stuff like this. I guess it's Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, but I have to have things just right. "A pile for everything, and everything within 'x' feet of its pile, for sufficiently small values of 'x' and as the number of piles tends toward infinity."

Thanks,

Joe
 
I am kind of strange. Before I began dealing with my SA, I had my CD's in a perfect order. Alphabetically by artist, then by order of record release. At one time, I had many subcatagories: record label, country artist is from, genre of music, et al nauseum.

But, sinse I have been working so hard to heal myself, my CD order has been shot all to hell. I no longer seem to care that every disc is not where it "should be." Or it could be I have so many I simply gave up!
Casey
ps, I despise cleaning my room, but can not STAND for it to be messy!
 
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