Help. Chaos Creeps!

[Hopalong]

This is one of those times when I'm so grateful for the board I don't even know how to express it adequately.
I KNOW I am going to have to deal with this issue at a deeper level and with more seriousness.
It is going to have severe impacts on my life if I don't.

But in the SHORT term...(I really really hate this...shameshame):

I need to clean up my room.
Which includes paying bills.

I don't know what I'm asking for.
I'm just throwing it out there.
Wanted to talk to somebody at church but was too embarrassed.

I pretend to be a 57 y/o grownup.
Then I go home to my room.

That's it. All I can say.

love
Hops  PS--we have a cleaning lady! (I can't even let her in until I get this round under control.)

[Iphi]

Dear hops - take your bills away from your room.  There's something about your room that is a block.  Your room and cleaning up your room.

I was never able to clean my room either.  I swear - there was some enormous issue in me about it too and I completely understand the feeling and experience - really.  I am positive that if my dad was in his old house and I was in my old room - same issue.  It never went away, circumstances changed, house is sold etc.

Anyway, you need to pay your bills and that is a separate thing from the room issue, so my thought it - take them out of there.  Do NOT try to pay your bills inside that room or then that action is connected to the WHOLE ball of wax.  Got to get the bills separated out from the whooooole gordion knot.  Your room will sabotage your bills, is what I am saying.  It is a sabotage zone.

Take your bills to work, to your car, to the library, to a coffee shop, to the post office and write them right there.    Just not the room.  The room.  NoOOOoooOOo!

[cats paw]

Hi Hops,

  I can relate to this.  It's comforting to know there are others with "mess" issues.  

  If you want to say, can you describe objectively the physical state of your room, for starters?  As far as the cleaning lady, has she been in your home, or are you just talking about not letting her into your room only?

  Have you ever checked out the "Squalor Survivors" site?  It has some interesting info.

Cat

[Ami]

Dear Hops,
   Iphi had wonderful practical advice. Dr Schultz  talks about 'cleaning your environment" as a way of doing a deep healing.I,on the other hand,live with drawers and closets filled with stuff b/c I DON"T want to heal on a deep level. I am holding on to some emotional things.I know it and I will address it at SOME point.
  I think that you have some deep emotions that are being manifested in your "environment". Today, you don't have to "eat the whole elephant"--just the few needed bites to get you through.
  Dr Schultz talks about people who could not even heal from diseases until they threw out certain objects.
 However, your case for today is just "do the next right thing" and do the immediate steps  that you need to--for today.
  You can tackle the elephant another day.  I am glad that you can share "shameful" things here. People on the board do not judge(for the most part). We all have  been where you are( feeling shamed) so many times.
  You are O.K. You just have issues that are being played out in your environment.           Love to you, Hops        Ami
 

[lighter]

Ask a friend to come and help you focus. 

I do.  I also hired a really organized cleaning person to help me sort through and set up systems to help keep things in order.

The basic key is...... to get and remain focused for many hours. 

I bet you're a dynamo when you focus, huh?

Just hard not to go off on tangents and get sidetracked by everything you pick up?

That's my problem, anyway. 

But, Lord.... when I'm focused.... look out. 

[Hopalong]

thanks, y'all.
 

Cat, I think I won't describe it just now...
Well, what a chicken. Okay:

I've been flinging clothes wherever they drop for 2 weeks.
I've accumulated another monthPLUS work of mail and paperwork for Ma and myself.

I pay her bills on time but mine are late.

Once I tidy up it's a pleasant space with only moderate clutter.

I think what I need to tackle most is the psychological block against functioning.
Sigh. When I go home I go into instant escapist-rebel model. Climb onto my messy bed and:

Turn on the TV and attack my laptop with joy and keep it up until I conk myself out.

Not.
Very.
Sensible.

 
Hops

[cats paw]

Hops,

  I actually let a couple of my friends in after bemoaning my mess (one of them being rather persnickity) and it helped me in standing up a bit to the shame; it also helped me get a bit of perspective when they told me it didn't look as bad as I had been describing.

  A lot of my work has been internal, (plus I, too, have a bad back BTW) and once I really started working on my inner landscape, the outer started changing, too.  I still have a huge paper tiger to tame; I'm just looking forward to the day when it will be a kitten.

  Like Ami, I have closets and drawers with stuff to let go of.  But as she said, I just need to do what I need to for today. 

  I need to get my bills sent out, also.  For some odd reason, I get a strange anxiety, but there is no rational reason for it , because there is more than enough financially.  I get a pull to resist, and I well understand the escapist-rebel mode and its' deadly siren call.

  Interesting that you pay your mom's bills on time.

  Remember a thread way back- was it Iphi, or CB?, who wrote that discipline is remembering what one wants.

  I wrote about doing some detailed furniture polishing (not just regular dusting) and I am still reaping the rewards of satisfaction from it.  I could write more, but I don't want to stall, and this has given me a little push to shut off my computer in a minute and get on my paperwork.

  Oh, Hops, it IS ok.  What kind of dialogue do you think Pema would have with you about this?

  I'll be back later- so with a mighty act of will, I'm shutting this down!!

Cat

[Iphi]

Yeah Hops I recognize your experience.  I pay my bills away from home - how do you suppose I have such good advice about that - experience!  My bogeyman is cleaning (mopping, dusting).  Ugh - actually as a new mom I have less guilt about not doing it than I used to.  But Ami posting in past about how her care of her home changed over time - really made me look at that aspect of myself  and realize - it's a whole ball of wax too and is something that needs to be explored. 

I think cats paw had a great insight about working on the inner landscape. Also, it is really interesting you pay your mom's bills on time.

I think it would be good to contemplate what comes up for you (feelings, images, associations, memories etc.) when you hold the thought of your mom's bills in your mind, and then separately when you hold the thought of your own bills in contemplation.

Personally, I find less stuff to be freeing and I like to throw things out.  That's my solution to piles of paper.  It's ironic because my dad loved to throw my stuff away the entire time I was growing up. Sometimes he will even reminisce about stuff of mine he threw away (wtf?), but he never threw his own stuff away.  Hmmmm.  But I consider it something that turned out well for me because throwing stuff away (or giving it to Goodwill or other charity) feels incredible. 

[lighter]

Ummmm.... I can't beleive you and I are on the same escapist rebellion wavelength right now..... too funny, Hops.

Except...



fo.....



the clutter!!!



Oh oh oh... btw.... I found a very good use for my pretty little purple nettie pot.


I keep it filled with water next to my iron..... it's perfectly suited for keeping me crease free: )

[Leah]

Hi Hops,

My thoughts are that maybe it's because deep down it's not your very own little nest.

Love, Leah

[Gaining Strength]

Hops - you know I have great sympathy for your situation.  I have finally hired an organizer.  She's coming Friday.  I hired her to help out at my mother's basement last winter.  She is great and VERY understanding.  My mother's house is lovely and very neat but her basement needed organizing.  My house is a wreck.  I can't even sleep in my bed right now - piled high with clothes. 

She will come for however long we decide.  I chose 6 hours.  I have a plan.  I want to begin with my little boy's room and then go to the pantry.  Once the pantry is organized then I can get the kitchen organized.  Once my closet is organized then I can put stuff up.  I know where to begin but I don't have the full strength to do it myself.  I am so proud of myself for biting the bullet.  This is a HUGE step for me.

Think about the possibility.  You might be able to hire an organizer (there is a national organization to certifies organizers) for an hour or two.  Just an idea from one small square at a time to another. - yours - GS

cats - I checked out squalor surviver and tried to apply for membership - I got turned down - how humiliating is that?