(OT) I'm desperate

Susan M wrote:
"Denise VanDyke" wrote in message
I also sympathise with you, Pat. There has been some really good
advice already given here, and I would only offer one other thing.
I suggest prioritizing those things that might have an impact on
your health and/or safety. In my mind, that would mostly be the
kitchen, bathroom, and (of course) the litter boxes. If all you
can
manage is to clean the toilet, wash enough dishes for your next
meal, scoop the boxes, and toss any unidentified fuzzy objects from
the fridge, that's a good start! As for the clutter cleaning,
something I've found works for me when the living room is out of
control is to gather some boxes and fill them with the clutter.
Then you aren't dealing with a room or a huge pile. You're just
dealing with *this* box. Also you can shove boxes around to vaccum
more easily than a pile. If I'm feeling up to it, when I fill the
boxes I might roughly sort stuff as it goes in - for example: one
box for cat toys, one box for papers to sort through, one box for
obvious recycling/trash/burn pile, etc. Finally, try to think of
tools that might help you clean. I have a toilet brush that is
designated for scrubbing the bathtub. It helps me get a better
angle in a few places, and it's easier on my back.

I also sympathize. My project for the month is to clear my clutter.
There is a very good website called www.flylady.com that has some
very good advice on clutter busting and maintenance.

Susan M
Otis and Chester

You have clutter? Susan, your house is beautiful! The parts I saw
certainly had no clutter, so I think you're doing well :-)
--
Britta
"There is no snooze button on a cat who wants breakfast." -- Unknown
Check out pictures of Vino at:
http://photos.yahoo.com/badwilson click on the Vino album

Wow, this sounds like a project that Dennis and I would *love* to
tackle! We love cleaning and organizing stuff, LOL! Too bad we live
half a world away.
--
Britta
"There is no snooze button on a cat who wants breakfast." -- Unknown
Check out pictures of Vino at:
http://photos.yahoo.com/badwilson click on the Vino album




Pat wrote:
I haven't got a clue how to solve a certain problem, and it's not
one
that I can resolve alone. It's very hard for me to ask for help with
this, too, but I'm praying that one of you will have an answer for
me.

It's my house, which is so dirty and disorganized that even the cats
hate it. I plug away at it when I have time (rarely) and energy
(more
rarely still) but it's too much for me. I get about halfway through
washing the dishes and have to quit because my back hurts so badly.

It's been this way for more the last five years, except for a short
time earlier this year, when I "went all out" to get it ready for
the
cat-sitters who didn't stay due to an allergy to the mold in the
bedroom wall. It took two months of working on it several hours a
day, to get it to a somewhat satisfactory condition.

Since that time my health has worsened to the point that I could not
do the same thing again, but if the place was thoroughly clean and
organized, I could keep it that way. As it is now, I spend far too
much time searching for things that have gotten lost in the
clutter -
time that I could be using to keep it in good shape, if it was in
good shape to begin with.

So, it's a no-win situation, and it is driving me insane.

This probably doesn't sound as bad as it really is, but I don't
think
I can say in words just how bad it is, and it's been this bad, or
worse, for such a long time that I absolutely can't stand it
anymore.

Let me try to describe how bad it is.

I haven't seen more than a square foot at a time of my living room
floor since April. The carpet hasn't been vacuumed since February.
The same sheets have been on the bed since May. I can't recognize
half the food in the fridge. The bar in the closet fell down, and
the
clothing laid on the floor for almost three months before I felt
strong and energetic enough to move it and fix the bar and hang
everything back up.

It's almost more than I can handle now to keep the cat boxes scooped
out and keep myself alive. I don't often have time to go to town and
shop for food, so half the time I just go without eating because
there is nothing in the house aside from oatmeal or something like
that, and I get so sick of it that I don't want to eat more of
whatever it is for a long time to come.

There is no one I can ask to help me get the house in order. No
relatives or friends, and I can't afford hired help, but if I could
afford to pay someone, I am sure they would take one look and then
turn and RUN away as fast as possible.

In a good daydream, some bright and cheerful person who likes and
cares about me, comes and stays here for a spell and works with me
until it's all set right - whether that takes a few days or a week
or
more - and finds the process rewarding, even joyful.

But when I come back to reality and realize I know no such person,
my
depression deepens, and that makes the pain in my back worse.

So, how on earth can I get out of this vicious cycle? A few times
I've tried drinking coffee and ended up with even more pain in my
back due to the strain coffee puts on my kidneys, which are not very
strong to begin with.

Is there an answer to this dilemma, or am will I always have to
"live" in a house that resembles the result of a direct cyclone hit?

"badwilson" wrote in message
...
Wow, this sounds like a project that Dennis and I would *love* to
tackle! We love cleaning and organizing stuff, LOL! Too bad we live
half a world away.

So, Britta, just send good cleaning energy thoughts, OK? They do help.
Picture you & Dennis giving me a virtual kick in the butt a few times.

Thanks.

Pat wrote:
"badwilson" wrote in message
...
Wow, this sounds like a project that Dennis and I would *love* to
tackle! We love cleaning and organizing stuff, LOL! Too bad we
live
half a world away.

So, Britta, just send good cleaning energy thoughts, OK? They do
help.
Picture you & Dennis giving me a virtual kick in the butt a few
times.

Thanks.

Of course, Pat. You can do it, I know you can. You need to keep in
mind how much better you'll feel when it's all done. The sense of
accomplishment will be enormous. You can post about your successful
project here when you're all done and you'll get congrats from
everyone.
Hugs and purrs,
--
Britta
"There is no snooze button on a cat who wants breakfast." -- Unknown
Check out pictures of Vino at:
http://photos.yahoo.com/badwilson click on the Vino album

"badwilson" wrote in message
...
You have clutter? Susan, your house is beautiful! The parts I saw
certainly had no clutter, so I think you're doing well :-)
--
Britta

Yes - we have tons of clutter :-(

I have now finished my job (I was CFO of an O&G company for about 2 months
and then quit, for a variety of reasons) and my main goal is to be
relentless in clearing clutter. I have various boxes for recycling, bags
for giving away to specific people, bags for donating to charities, and a
big garbage bag. A big box for my daugher's school's spring garage sale and
a box for nice consignment clothing. I am optimistic that we'll be able to
keep it up this time since both Fred and I are home, the kids are in school
mostly full days now.

It's a little overwhelming; however, I make sure that I do what flylady
suggests:
- at least do half an hour a day, no matter how small that seems (I always
seem to do lots more)
- force myself to have a well-earned rest every hour
- make sure that two specific areas are addressed every day. The kitchen
is Fred's responsbility to clean and he does it faithfully. The other is
the telephone table. No matter what, those two areas are clean.

It's a very neat website.

BTW, your place looks so clear and free of clutter. Wonderful.

Susan M
Otis and Chester

"Susan M" Susan_not wrote in message
news:v0c2f.125736$oW2.95106@pd7tw1no...
"badwilson" wrote in message
...
You have clutter? Susan, your house is beautiful! The parts I saw
certainly had no clutter, so I think you're doing well :-)
--
Britta

Yes - we have tons of clutter :-(

I have now finished my job (I was CFO of an O&G company for about 2 months
and then quit, for a variety of reasons) and my main goal is to be
relentless in clearing clutter. I have various boxes for recycling, bags
for giving away to specific people, bags for donating to charities, and a
big garbage bag. A big box for my daugher's school's spring garage sale
and a box for nice consignment clothing. I am optimistic that we'll be
able to keep it up this time since both Fred and I are home, the kids are
in school mostly full days now.

It's a little overwhelming; however, I make sure that I do what flylady
suggests:
- at least do half an hour a day, no matter how small that seems (I always
seem to do lots more)
- force myself to have a well-earned rest every hour
- make sure that two specific areas are addressed every day. The kitchen
is Fred's responsbility to clean and he does it faithfully. The other is
the telephone table. No matter what, those two areas are clean.

It's a very neat website.

BTW, your place looks so clear and free of clutter. Wonderful.


Flylady is great. Even if it only gets a few thousand kitchen sinks to get
clean and stay clean.

One thing we try very hard to do is to keep the kitchen counter and dinning
room table free of clutter.

Its a never ending battle as the kids just see an empty table and a cleared
off counter as a place to put "stuff". Hard to break them of since we can't
seem to stop doing the same thing.

Jo

Susan M wrote:
"badwilson" wrote in message
...
You have clutter? Susan, your house is beautiful! The parts I saw
certainly had no clutter, so I think you're doing well :-)
--
Britta

Yes - we have tons of clutter :-(

I have now finished my job (I was CFO of an O&G company for about 2
months and then quit, for a variety of reasons) and my main goal is
to be relentless in clearing clutter. I have various boxes for
recycling, bags for giving away to specific people, bags for
donating
to charities, and a big garbage bag. A big box for my daugher's
school's spring garage sale and a box for nice consignment clothing.
I am optimistic that we'll be able to keep it up this time since
both
Fred and I are home, the kids are in school mostly full days now.

It's a little overwhelming; however, I make sure that I do what
flylady suggests:
- at least do half an hour a day, no matter how small that seems (I
always seem to do lots more)
- force myself to have a well-earned rest every hour
- make sure that two specific areas are addressed every day. The
kitchen is Fred's responsbility to clean and he does it faithfully.
The other is the telephone table. No matter what, those two areas
are clean.

It's a very neat website.

BTW, your place looks so clear and free of clutter. Wonderful.

Susan M
Otis and Chester

Well, you guys must keep your clutter confined to areas not seen by
the casual visitor. That means it can't be all that bad ;-) I'm sure
you'll get it under control in no time, especially with you both home
now.
Our place? Yeah, it's clutter free. And not because we have a maid,
LOL! She only does surface cleaning. But Dennis is a compulsive
organizer and has all sorts of "systems" for keeping things orderly.
We are running out of room in the house for all the stuff we've bought
(we plan on having a much bigger house in Australia!), so we've got
boxes filling up half the laundry room and this little storage area
under the stairs. But the boxes are all labeled and closed up, so
it's not technically "clutter" ;-)
When I was a kid, my dad used to go through the whole house every 6
months with big black garbage bags and gather stuff up to throw out.
Even useful stuff that me and my mom liked! There was no arguing
about it. I think that rubbed off on me a bit because I regularly
de-junk my closet. Over here, I actually love it because we give all
the stuff to the maid and she gets so happy about it, so I feel like
I'm doing a good deed. The funniest thing is when she comes in
wearing my pants with a huge safety pin in the waist, taking in about
6 inches!
--
Britta
"There is no snooze button on a cat who wants breakfast." -- Unknown
Check out pictures of Vino at:
http://photos.yahoo.com/badwilson click on the Vino album

momentary delurk: look at alt.recovery.clutter, good luck, Lee
Pat wrote in message
...
I haven't got a clue how to solve a certain problem, and it's not one that
I
can resolve alone. It's very hard for me to ask for help with this, too,
but
I'm praying that one of you will have an answer for me.

It's my house, which is so dirty and disorganized that even the cats hate
it. I plug away at it when I have time (rarely) and energy (more rarely
still) but it's too much for me. I get about halfway through washing the
dishes and have to quit because my back hurts so badly.

It's been this way for more the last five years, except for a short time
earlier this year, when I "went all out" to get it ready for the
cat-sitters
who didn't stay due to an allergy to the mold in the bedroom wall. It took
two months of working on it several hours a day, to get it to a somewhat
satisfactory condition.

Since that time my health has worsened to the point that I could not do
the
same thing again, but if the place was thoroughly clean and organized, I
could keep it that way. As it is now, I spend far too much time searching
for things that have gotten lost in the clutter - time that I could be
using
to keep it in good shape, if it was in good shape to begin with.

So, it's a no-win situation, and it is driving me insane.

This probably doesn't sound as bad as it really is, but I don't think I
can
say in words just how bad it is, and it's been this bad, or worse, for
such
a long time that I absolutely can't stand it anymore.

Let me try to describe how bad it is.

I haven't seen more than a square foot at a time of my living room floor
since April. The carpet hasn't been vacuumed since February. The same
sheets
have been on the bed since May. I can't recognize half the food in the
fridge. The bar in the closet fell down, and the clothing laid on the
floor
for almost three months before I felt strong and energetic enough to move
it
and fix the bar and hang everything back up.

It's almost more than I can handle now to keep the cat boxes scooped out
and
keep myself alive. I don't often have time to go to town and shop for
food,
so half the time I just go without eating because there is nothing in the
house aside from oatmeal or something like that, and I get so sick of it
that I don't want to eat more of whatever it is for a long time to come.

There is no one I can ask to help me get the house in order. No relatives
or
friends, and I can't afford hired help, but if I could afford to pay
someone, I am sure they would take one look and then turn and RUN away as
fast as possible.

In a good daydream, some bright and cheerful person who likes and cares
about me, comes and stays here for a spell and works with me until it's
all
set right - whether that takes a few days or a week or more - and finds
the
process rewarding, even joyful.

But when I come back to reality and realize I know no such person, my
depression deepens, and that makes the pain in my back worse.

So, how on earth can I get out of this vicious cycle? A few times I've
tried
drinking coffee and ended up with even more pain in my back due to the
strain coffee puts on my kidneys, which are not very strong to begin with.

Is there an answer to this dilemma, or am will I always have to "live" in
a
house that resembles the result of a direct cyclone hit?

it is a very common issue* Lee, thinking if this goes on much more she will
have to reintroduce herself...
Dan M wrote in message
newsan.2005.10.06.15.49.17.52769@trinetsolutions .com...
First, let me sympathise. Both Joel & I chronic slobs and our house
usually looks like a bomb hit it too. We suffer from CHAOS - Cant Have
Anyone Over Syndrome.

This is the most amazing thread! Nancy and I also suffer from CHAOS, and
I had no idea that so many other people did too.

Nancy and I have both been battling depression for years, have tried
different medications with varying but miniscule degrees of success.

Every once in a while life situations dictate that it will be necessary
for someone other than Nancy or I to enter the house. When this happens I
work frantically for a full day or more to get at least the living room
in such a state that I won't have to hang my head in shame when someone
else comes in. I still haven't been able to get a handle on the dishes
in the kitchen - maybe this weekend. But I really like the idea of boxing
all but two sets of everything.

YOu are suffering from depression. Go get medical help. The rest of your
life is a symptom of the depression - get the pain addressed *and* the
depression addressed, and that horrid great inertia that you suffer will
be 80% gone. Honest.

This was going to be my advice as well. We're well acquainted with how
devastating depression is. Pat, it's perfectly normal for a depressed
person to lack the drive to do the basic things, like keep a house that's
not a disaster. It's all I can do to keep the living room navigable, and
requires all-out weekend campaigns sometimes just to do that. By all
means, see if you can find an antidepressant that will help you get a
handle on the depression, and maybe find a way to alleviate some of the
pain. Then you could reasonably expect to be able to start to make some
progress.

I wish I lived within reasonable driving distance; I'd be glad to help
out for a weekend.

Dan

pat could you email me directly, looking at your address, and your reference
to Springfield I think you live very close to my mother, Lee... Harri
roadcat's fostermom
Pat wrote in message
.. .

"Christina Websell" wrote

Cats do not care how tidy/untidy the house is. They are non-judgmental
about that sort of thing, as long as you feed them and care for them
they
are fine.

A few others have said this also. Perhaps they don't "care" as such, but
the
piles of junk often get peed on. If that's not a gesture of disgust, it
does
not matter, the result is the same. Yuck!

I lost 3 stone in weight through not shopping and feeding myself when I
got depression

Lucky you. The less I eat, the more I gain. Which adds to the depression
and
back pain (more weight - mostly in the midsection - for the back to haul
around.

You need to go to your doctor and come clean about your situation. He
should prescribe you with a good anti-depressant, although they do take
a
while to work there is something to look forward to, feeling better
again
in a few weeks and able to function again.

You might ask him if he can refer you to a local Community Mental Health
Team if you have them in the USA, they can do amazing things here by
getting in a cleaning team to blitz an out-of-control cleaning situation
for free to set someone on the road again.

We don't have those here, sad to say.

I was like that. Unable to motivate myself to cook or shop. My cousin
saw the way I was going and took me to the doctor. I have got well
again
through what he prescribed and some counselling.

It's actually a bit more complex than that for me. I would actually like
to
do more shopping for food, but first of all it involves a minimum of 40+
miles of travel, on minor roads where the possible speed is quite limited,
so going to shop entails a minimum of 3 hours (two of which are spent
travelling). And at today's gas prices I can't justify going to town
"only"
to get food, so I wait until other errands have accumulated. Usually that
is
once a week, sometimes twice, and rarely, less often.

Another issue is my freezer not working, so I can only get stuff I will
eat
within a few days or before it spoils, whichever is soonest.

Last but far from least is the fact that the small towns near me simply do
not carry much of the foods I really like. I can only get what I crave and
love by going to "the city" and although it's just 75 miles away, I only
manage to get there two or three times a year. In the meantime I eat what
I
can get and don't enjoy it half as much, but a lot of that stuff sits in
the fridge until it rots, simply because I crave other foods that can't be
had without a long drive that eats a whole day from early morning to late
evening. Typically when going to Springfield I will leave at 8-9 AM,
arrive
at 11, go straight to lunch because I didn't bother with breakfast and am
starving. Then I spend the afternoon running from store to store until I
am
starving again, and then grab some supper, then head home. By the time I
get
back, it is 9-10 PM, with just enough time left before bed to feed & water
the cats and horses, and bring in the groceries. Then I eat well for about
a
week!!! before running out of my favorite stuff again.

I would advise you to approach a local church, like others have said, it
doesn't really matter what denomination. Speak to the minister and be
honest about your situation, explain what has happened and why, that you
can't see a way out of it, have no friends or relatives, and ask if
there
is any help you could get to get yourself back on track. I feel sure
you
will be helped.
Yes, there is an answer, and no, you won't have to always live like
that.
You have started already by asking for help here.
Ask a church minister if his members will help. They will.
Go to the doctor and get treatment for your clinical depression. This
is
the most important.

I'm so reluctant to use prescription meds that I won't do it unless it's
absolutely essential, and even then I prefer "real" drugs rather than
synthetic ones. For example, if I can't do without a powerful painkiller,
I'd choose morphine over anything else.

Luckily, today I happened to find a bottle of St. John's Wort extract
among
the junk and have promised myself to stay on it this time and not lose
track
of the bottle (and there are half a dozen more bottles of the same stuff
in
this place somewhere). That's the extent of my willingness to take
medication. I know St. John's Wort works, I have experience with it, and
it's dirt cheap, but mostly have not been able to keep track of the
bottle,
or remember to use it if I do know where it is.