Piles of stuff!!!

[pearljam1997]

I was so ecstatic when I found this forum yesterday that I had to join. I've been looking for a place where I "fit in". I'm a stay at home mom, use to work then quit, am married and have two wonderful boys. To say our house is a wreck is an understatement. I've spent the last 15 years of my marriage trying to figure out why in the world I can't stay on top of the house cleaning?! What is wrong with me?! I was diagnosed ADHD some years ago and did try a few different meds but have since stopped because we'd like to add another child to our clan. Anyways, I have piles of just stuff everywhere, always and I never seem to be able to stay on top keeping the house in order. Which really, really does suck because our oldest son was just diagnosed with Aspergers and my disorganization doesn't help him at all. Or my husband for that matter.

Laundry, who has major issues with laundry? I know I do. I get it washed, hopefully remember to stick it in the dryer, and then sometimes into a hamper. Or we just take what we need right out of the dryer until the dryer is empty, lol. Most of the time though, it sits in hampers all over the house!!! Not folded about 80% of the time so we end up wearing wrinkled clothes. Not always attractive, lol.

I only get to the dishes once we run out of counter space, the dishwasher is always full of clean, not dirty, dishes. Oh and then we have four cats so I probably should have a regular vacuuming schedule, but don't. So we have hair everywhere. The one thing I do manage to stay more or less on top of is their litter boxes, otherwise the house would smell bad as well, lol.

But yeah, there's just crap everywhere!!! Who else lives like this? Or did you and have you figured out how to manage things even a little bit better, can you share what you did.

I have a referral in for a mental healthcare worker because of having to deal with my ADHD and our oldest son's Aspergers. Our youngest was also just diagnosed with severe anxiety and separation anxiety disorder. So when school's in its very difficult to get him to function and head off to school, which is emotionally draining to say the least. By the time we're done having panic attacks and he's good to go I'm toast for the day.

Sorry for the rather large post, just needed to get this out there in the hopes that others can relate. I'm tired of feeling so very alone in this huge and crazy world. Thanks for reading if you got this far

[silivrentoliel]

Welcome to the forums!!

I hear ya on having piles all over the house... I've actually (mostly) gotten mine under control with boxes and bins ^_^ They drive DH about as batty as piles, but they are less likely to come tumbling down when the cats bounce off them!

Good luck with the mental healthcare worker as well! You sound like you have a LOT on your hands, and every little bit helps.

And don't worry, you are far from very alone... there's a LOT of us just like you here

[salleh]

WElcome ...to the piles of people ...hee hee ...piles you say ? I have managed to fit about 30 ( or more some of them are buried) piles in my one room .....it's a big room, but not that big .....


I once read a book about organizing .( well actually I've read several books on organizing but who's counting ?) ...anyway ...they talked about housekeeping styles ....some peole like to have everything cleared off so they can think ....and some people like to have stuff out so they don't forget it .....

which is my excuse ....if I put it away, I'll forget I was working on it .....of course I don't really have a place to put most of the stuff that's out ....

so my tip is .....if you have a place to put it ....put it there ...

and every now and then try to find a logical place for the thing you're holding in your hand that doesn't have a place to go .....

[amberwillow]

Have you tried Flylady.net? I find it really helps.

And welcome !!

[Lisa_Mac]

we'd like to add another child to our clan.

Are you sure?

Welcome.

Lx

[EnergizerJen]

Welcome welcome!

My secret: I like my piles!

They make me feel happy and I KNOW what's in them. Who cares if anyone else does!!??! lmao

Bravo to you for your courage to add another youngster! go girl!

Nice to have you here.

Jen

[ADD_YeahUKnowMe]

Wow, I know first hand how rough the combination of and ADHDer and someone with Aspergers can be. I was with my ex boyfriend for 6 years and he was only diagnosed with Aspergers after we broke up. So many of our relationship problems made more sense. He would get incredibly stressed out by the way I struggled to keep a room clean or my habit of leaving a glass right at the edge of the table. He couldn't see how hard ADHD made seemingly easy and normal tasks for me, and I couldn't see how much it stressed him out because he was sensitive to his environment; I thought he was always just picking fights.

I'm not going to pretend I have all the answers because my room is a disaster right now, I have a bunch of wrinkly clothes in my dryer, and I came on this forum looking for some inspiration to get started.

I have some tips that really helped me probably specifically because I have ADHD. To me, books about getting organized and stuff were just a bunch of crap people told me my whole life that I really couldn't implement, but some really small tip or trick made such a huge difference.

Laundry:
I used to hang all my clothes but it took a lot of space and I HATED doing it. So I never did. I left it in the laundry basket. Sometimes I would fold it but I found it such a pain in the *** too. Then while screwing around on the internet one day, I found a video for the Japanese method of folding T-shirts:
http://youtu.be/BAxhr0j0thY
This changed my life when I figured it out and could do it really really fast (there are many videos showing it so watch a few). Your tshirts can lie perfectly flat, and it takes no time at all. It is also really fun. You can challenge yourself, how fast can I fold this whole basket of shirts?! Yes, it's silly, but I think that's key in ADHD--you need to find some way to make boring but necessary things stimulating or fun. Once you get started folding shirts and everything looks great, it's is often enough motivation to take care of the rest of it.

Laundry tip 2:
My mom had this thing where she found it hilarious to fill my Christmas stocking up with socks, so over the years I had so many random and ridiculous socks that they never wore out.. In my mid-twenties I was still wearing socks that had Christmasy penguins on them. Because of these (expletive) socks, Laundry seriously took ten times longer. It became an infuriating game of mahjong that could never be completed. Socks went missing and eventually went to the basket of lonely but festive socks, matching and folding them took ages. Terrible. Then I was like "I'll just buy only black socks!" but since they were different brands, that took forever too. It might be costly to just replace your entire family's socks in one swoop, but if your situation is anything like mine, it's totally worth it.
Because my socks are all the same, I don't even have to fold them in pairs if I don't feel like it. Toss em in a drawer, done.

Tips about cleaning in general:

Don't think "I'm going to clean this place from top to bottom!" you will overwhelm yourself. Say "Today I will throw out some trash on my desk for 10 minutes!" You might spend longer or get inspired to keep cleaning other stuff, but starting is always the hardest part, set yourself up to succeed.

If you make a to-do list, put really really small items on it or things you would like to do for a break. If I am going to spend a long time cleaning for company or something, my to-do list will have items like "take a break for coffee" "make bed" "sort one load of laundry" This way, you build on the momentum of getting things done and build some distractions in too. If you clean something that wasn't on the list, write it down and put a checkmark! You want to see a huge list of things you completed staring back at you.

At work, every time there is a long weekend, the day before I like to pretend I just got fired. So I need to clean up my desk for the next person that same day, and get all of the weird personal stuff out of there. This seems sort of insane now that I type it out, but it the only thing that keeps the state of my desk from actually getting me fired, hmm. Maybe if you tell yourself "Tomorrow my house will set on fire" you would see the importance of clearing up those piles so they don't trap you inside. Is this a bummer? I don't know, it just works for me. Sometimes I need a more extreme style of motivation to snap me out of complacency with how things are.

One more thing for cleaning in general. If you have a friend who is nonjudgmental or understands adhd, have them come over while you clean just to hang out with you while you do it. It can keep you on track because someone is watching you complete a task, and it makes the tedious tasks fun because your friend is presumably awesome.

This is sort of long already but I would love to hear anyone else's tips and tricks that made a big difference. Now I am pumped up and ready to tackle my room so thanks for your post as well.

[Zevispaz]

For me, the feel of warm laundry motivates me to fold the clothes right away.

I normally have piles of stuff everywhere. My hubby cleaned the apartment yesterday, so no piles at the moment.

I just forget to put things away, so they stay out and then by the time I notice it's really messy I get overwhelmed and can't bring myself to start what I know will be a 3 hour task.

The only thing that motivates me to clean (sometimes) is company coming over. I don't like my place to be a wreck for company.

[Lisa_Mac]

http://www.care2.com/greenliving/8-h...ed-people.html

I love this article. We've made it our bible. Some of the habits such as purging stuff I've always done, as I'm not a hoarder, thank goodness.

Hope this helps someone.

Lx

[pearljam1997]

Thank you all so much for the wonderful replies.

salleh, your post made me laugh. Piles of people, lol. I noticed this site is very busy.

amberwillow, I'll be sure to check it out. I think I might have in the past but can't remember.

Lisa_Mac, yes we're sure. The decision to add one more didn't come lightly as it involved a reversal for my husband but after fighting off the desire for one more for over 8 years, it just couldn't be ignored anymore. Besides, my boys are 14 and 12 already and we're still young. Yes we have some issues with ADHD, anxiety and Aspergers, but nothing that isn't life stopping and my boys are truly happy, loved and cared for. So yes, we are sure

EnergizerJen, maybe that's why I have piles!! Maybe I like them. I can tell you that end table in the living room has been deemed my table, lol. I love my table. I know what's on it and can do many things from my "spot", lol.

ADD_YeahUKnowMe, thank you so very much for the response. I love the sock idea and will have to get on that. And for folding t-shirts, my husband showed me how to do that a few years back, it got the kids involved for a while, lol. They thought it was a cool trick. I loved your Christmas sock story, thanks for sharing that.

Most of my friends aren't judgmental. In fact, my best friend is ADHD as well, so we get along just fine. She often invites me over just to keep her company while she cleans and then we swap and she comes to my place. I have figured out that I definitely work better when someone else is cleaning as well. Like right now, hubby is cleaning the kitchen, I should probably get off here and help

Zevispaz, My in-laws coming over gives me the most motivation, lol. Our other friends and family know what to expect. Not sure if that's a good thing.

I know one thing I've always wanted to do to help with the laundry situation is have everyone's clothes in the laundry room itself. I try to hang very few clothes, the rest get folded and put on open wire shelves right now. Or that's what their supposed to go, lol. Anyways, I would love to have it all in one place, if you need clothes, just head down and its all there. You know, cut out the steps, make it more simple. No more having to find an empty hamper to get the clothes from the dryer and then dragging it upstairs, then folding, and then organizing the boys closets cause they're always a disaster, then putting the folded clean clothes away. See why I can never get it done?!

Thanks again everyone for the responses. Very helpful.

[EnergizerJen]

I like the idea of a central location for clothes.

My only problem-the young teenagers I have at home that wear MY clothes and one of two things happen:
a. it gets stain, torn, worn-out, or lost

b. it's not appropriate for their age

So... A central location for everyone except me would be fine.

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I have work stations also. I have a spot at the end of the couch that collects varies "needs" so I don't have to travel far for them. I find that when I am left to travel for something, the original intent gets lost and I don't normally find my way back to it.

When we moved recently, my bf designated an entire room for what he calls my "trinkets". It is mostly just a collection of piles and things that I love. I try not to hoard. I am really good about throwing crap out though. I have no problem with that. I get sick of looking at it and just toss it. No remorse follows either.

The kids and bf get all bent up about stuff that got thrown in the trash, but whatever.
I'm sick of looking at the same ole crap. Get some new crap for me to move around all day. lol

[Liuka2012]

I actually started to just drop my laundry off. We have a local place here at our laundromat where they will wash, dry, and fold all your clothes for $1.00 per pound of clothes. It work's wonders for me. It's a bit more expensive. but, when you have to add up the time I would have to spend myself doing my own laundry there washing, drying than waiting. Forget it.

I drop of 4 loads in the morning and I pick up 4 loads at night. Everything is already hung nad ready to go. I love it. I do this about once a week. But, saves me so much time.

I'm also a stay at home mom. I hate cleaning too. I have boxs of clothes that overflow. But, I hid everything in my garage so people think that I don't have clutter but I do LOL. As long as my husband doesn't have to see it and he has clean clothes he hasn't said a word since I started doing this myself.

I also hired a maid service to come and clean once a week, Like, teh windows etc. Helps me out a bit. With three kids and a husband that refuses to ever clean. So it does make my work less. So I can have maybe an hour a day to myself to relax.

I also, have Arthtitis in my body and fibromyalgia. So it does tend to help a lot when I don't have to do laundry. I'm not lazy. But, it's the lifting and folding I get sore from. Also, I just hate laundry. I hate sox so much! LOL

[faye64]

Pearljam, I hope you are finding solutions and are felling better. I tried to reply a few days ago, but my comp just shut down. So far, it's working fine today. I wanted to tell you that on that particular day, I was on this site reading because I was so overwhelmed by all my piles, and stuff in general. You are definitely not alone. I have so much stuff and my kids are now in college. I should be flying through it getting everything in order, but I get stuck and don't know what to do next. I try to push myself, but sometimes it feels like 1 step forward and 2 steps back.

[Hatiki]

If nothing else, its a relief to be somewhere where there are other people with messy houses! Housework is just beyond me....

If I thought I'd have a house fire tomorrow... I'd kinda feel relieved cos that would sort out the mess!

I have 16 pairs of black socks- all the same. My son has .... maybe 30 pairs of white socks? I keep buying them cos they disappear behind his bed.... then they suddenly all get found....grey and stinkin! But we always have a pair of socks at least!

And i hang my favourite clothes on a pole across a doorway...... its supposed to be for a curtain..... but its just the right height and convenience. I have a wardrobe but putting stuff in there is way too much procedure. I have to hang them cos the stuff in the "clean" pile often ends up on the floor. And the floor is....well..... bad!

Then theres the clean pile and the wear again pile.... and my son's clean stuff is in a huge laundry basket outside the bathroom...

And laundry is my best housework thing! lol

[faye64]

Originally Posted by Hatiki

If nothing else, its a relief to be somewhere where there are other people with messy houses! Housework is just beyond me....

If I thought I'd have a house fire tomorrow... I'd kinda feel relieved cos that would sort out the mess!

Hatiki, I hate to admit it, but I've had the same fire thought. Now, I don't really want to lose important things in a fire, but I know exactly how you feel.