Post by Brett on Jul 14, 2004 14:16:12 GMT -5
36 y.o. married female. no children. Just about ready for a breakdown. My "to do" list is about 4 years long.... if it was just the household clutter, that would be one thing. But I have so many things that have been on the backburner... medical appts, requesting application for my professional licensure, household maintenance/ improvement projects, piles of papers/ folders (and I mean PILES) from grad school classes I took 3 or more years ago, lapsed insurance (probably) and professional memberships, no updated resume, postponing laundry for a month or more (I have a LOT of clothes, so I can get away with it) so that it is a truly overwhelming pile by the time I get to it (several hours worth), close friends who give up sending emails because I never respond, taking two weeks or more to unpack my bag from a 3-day weekend trip (this then combines with the monstrous LAUNDRY pile), CLEAN laundry getting in the way that has not been put away from the laundry I did a MONTH ago so now I'll have TWO piles of clean laundry to put away......
I'm not working many hours right now (due to the nature of my current job), so my husband gets resentful that I'm home all day, and then when he gets home, as far as he can see, absolutely NOTHING has been done around the house... he's the one takes care of finances - checking account balance, making sure bills get paid - he does most of the grocery shopping, most of the cooking, most of the home maintenance (can you say learned helplessness? how on earth did I allow myself to get in this position?)
I just freeze up. I can't get started. I pull the laundry out and start to sort it, and just can't bear it. It almost hurts physically. Once upon a time, before I was married, I kept pretty on top of things - I had a lot of systems that I followed for keeping everything organized as I go, and I followed these systems very stringently. My now husband (then boyfriend) moved in with me, sort of made fun of me (called me "anal" and neat freak etc.) and messed up all my systems... we moved cross-country about 4 years ago and he did most of the packing (he wasn't real keen on my standard procedure which is to save it until the last minute and then still insist on meticulous sorting, labeling, organizing of the contents of the boxes) and I still don't know where half my stuff is because there are still boxes in closets and rooms of our current house. I have never re-gained my footing since the move, the chaos has just grown and grown, I have no idea how to get back to "ground zero" because in the meantime I went to grad school and got a degree, and now all of THAT crap has added to the already existing chaos. There aren't any places to PUT most of the stuff that needs putting..... the piles and boxes far outweigh the available storage options.
I take adderall, buspar (very very small dosage) and provigil (for sleep disorder - basically I'm sleepy all the time without it). The adderall has helped some, but I just have the huge WALL that gets in the way, especially when I'm home alone... with no structure, no containment, no boundaries. I know a lot of the strategies that exist out there (scheduling, lists, etc) and I have tried them... but there is just SO MUCH that the little things seem trivial, pointless, not even like they'll make a dent (things like dishes), and the big things are so numerous and so big, I wouldn't even know where to start. I HAVE started sometimes, and I've even tried to start with small, manageable chunks... but even those small chunks don't get completed. And even if they do, there is still SO MUCH that remains UNaddressed.
I know it's possible to make progress on this.... I just have so much shame, helplessness, fear, anxiety, and sometimes even panic built up over the whole thing that I sometimes feel almost literally like my hands are tied behind my back. I get frozen in place....
I really just don't know what to do. Sorry this is so long. Thanks for being here.
Brett
I'm not working many hours right now (due to the nature of my current job), so my husband gets resentful that I'm home all day, and then when he gets home, as far as he can see, absolutely NOTHING has been done around the house... he's the one takes care of finances - checking account balance, making sure bills get paid - he does most of the grocery shopping, most of the cooking, most of the home maintenance (can you say learned helplessness? how on earth did I allow myself to get in this position?)
I just freeze up. I can't get started. I pull the laundry out and start to sort it, and just can't bear it. It almost hurts physically. Once upon a time, before I was married, I kept pretty on top of things - I had a lot of systems that I followed for keeping everything organized as I go, and I followed these systems very stringently. My now husband (then boyfriend) moved in with me, sort of made fun of me (called me "anal" and neat freak etc.) and messed up all my systems... we moved cross-country about 4 years ago and he did most of the packing (he wasn't real keen on my standard procedure which is to save it until the last minute and then still insist on meticulous sorting, labeling, organizing of the contents of the boxes) and I still don't know where half my stuff is because there are still boxes in closets and rooms of our current house. I have never re-gained my footing since the move, the chaos has just grown and grown, I have no idea how to get back to "ground zero" because in the meantime I went to grad school and got a degree, and now all of THAT crap has added to the already existing chaos. There aren't any places to PUT most of the stuff that needs putting..... the piles and boxes far outweigh the available storage options.
I take adderall, buspar (very very small dosage) and provigil (for sleep disorder - basically I'm sleepy all the time without it). The adderall has helped some, but I just have the huge WALL that gets in the way, especially when I'm home alone... with no structure, no containment, no boundaries. I know a lot of the strategies that exist out there (scheduling, lists, etc) and I have tried them... but there is just SO MUCH that the little things seem trivial, pointless, not even like they'll make a dent (things like dishes), and the big things are so numerous and so big, I wouldn't even know where to start. I HAVE started sometimes, and I've even tried to start with small, manageable chunks... but even those small chunks don't get completed. And even if they do, there is still SO MUCH that remains UNaddressed.
I know it's possible to make progress on this.... I just have so much shame, helplessness, fear, anxiety, and sometimes even panic built up over the whole thing that I sometimes feel almost literally like my hands are tied behind my back. I get frozen in place....
I really just don't know what to do. Sorry this is so long. Thanks for being here.
Brett