How cleaning became something that calmed me down in the most debilitating way.

I have always and forever been an overly organized individual. I find a lot of joy in baskets, containers, or any other kind of organization item. As a child I used to go through my shelf every Christmas and clear space for the things Santa was going to bring me - I was prepared to introduce new things to my room with their very own spot. One year, I even asked Santa for a laundry basket for Christmas. I was THRILLED when that was what was under the Christmas tree on Christmas morning. That has definitely followed me into adulthood. My house is full of allllllll the baskets and containers for everything. Everything has a place or a spot and I am the happiest, most content version of me when everything is where it belongs. 

For most of my 32 years I never thought much of how clean and organized I was. It was not until recently that I realized that it is actually a need though, not just a want. Not until I had kids did it start to really affect me negatively - at least that I was consciously aware of. The inability to be comfortable in my own home unless the house was spotless became overwhelming. I would get physically uncomfortable sitting if I knew there was a mess of any kind somewhere that I had not yet cleaned up. One night I was playing a board game and I looked over at the kitchen counter and saw an unwashed glass, and it was like I was not even in control of my own body. I had to get up and put it in the dishwasher. I would get called out about these things from time to time - and at the time my thought process was just leave me alone this is just how I am! But I see now how from the outside, it would seem so bizarre. Still to this day I will get up in the middle of a movie or a show to go do a random task my brain thought of out of the blue. Thank goodness for my partner who gets it, and just presses pause and then giggles at me when I return. I would definitely say it is not something I have gained full control of, but I have definitely made some great progress. 

Once I started therapy I learnt that my overwhelming need to clean and organize comes from a fear of losing control which in turn manifests itself into an anxiety about mess. My home, my space - I know I can control that and when it is messy or unorganized (which in my mind unfortunately happens at the smallest of messes) I feel like I am losing control. Keeping it clean and organized keeps me levelled out. 

 It really is like this quote I have come across on social media:

For a while once I started diving into that in therapy, I was feeling really down on myself. It bothered me because to me the one thing I was really good at and had figured out was taking care of my home. And now it had become something I needed to be “less good at” because it now felt like a bit of a negative thing. What I focused on the most was the way it was affecting my kids - that is what was the most important to me. I didn’t want them to feel like they couldn’t just be kids and make a mess with their toys. I didn’t want to create anxiety within them because mom was always following them around picking up after them or snapping because they spilled their pretzels for the third time that day. It was important to me that I worked on it for them. I can remember a few times that I would walk into the living room and see every toy we owned on the floor and I would go into a full blown panic attack.Total system shut down. I would get sweaty, my heart would be racing, I would immediately lose all of my patience and it was necessary that it be picked up immediately. It seems so irrational now. I am happy to say that that doesn’t happen anymore. Going to therapy and gaining the understanding of why made it so much easier to work on a solution. 

It was like learning anything else, it took practice. It took repetitive attempts at allowing the mess to happen, and go inward with myself. Sit in with discomfort, breathe through, let it reach the point where I wanted with everything in me to clean up the mess - and then the most surreal thing started to happen. I could physically feel the discomfort leaving my body. Eventually after much practice, the discomfort became so minimal I began to be able to just let it go. Clean it up later. The kids were having fun and that was okay. 

Don’t get me wrong though. My house is still always organized, and I thrive in a clean home. Cleaning is still and will always be my go to task when I am feeling overwhelmed or having a tough mental health day. But I think that’s okay. I chose to look at it like my own home form of therapy. I still have bad days too. Still to this day if there is just too much clutter everywhere, I have to get it taken care of. Simply because I lose my calm and I figure if I know what will help my mind calm down there is no harm in doing that.

I wrote this as a post on my Threads account, and it was quite amazing how many moms out there related to it. 

“The dishes can wait” approach works for many, and I love that for you. It does not for me, and that’s okay too.

If my house is a mess, or there’s doable quick tasks I can do and I try to ignore them - my calm disappears. My irritability goes up. I am suddenly not the mom I want to be.

So I do the dishes first, I vacuum up the mess of goldfish first, I get the sticky mess off the floor first….and then I can be the best version of myself.

That’s what works for me.”

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I will always be obsessed with baskets and bins, and I will always love to change things up and reorganize my spaces. My house will always be tidy before I lay down for the night, and that is okay. I am not striving for perfection anymore and I can enjoy my days without spending the entire time cleaning. That is a win for me. That is my healed in this space of my life.