My room is a mess and I can't find a way out

pwurple

God love you. The thing that strikes me hardest though is the complete lack of any spare money even though you are working your tail off. Is it all going on takeaways, counselling and rent? That must be very stressful. Also, your health could be going downhill if that’s all you are eating. That has an effect on mental state too.

I think if you can get your finances under control, and the rubbish, then you have a better chance of not repeating it. Is there a canteen at work?

Is the bed yours or the landlords? Do you own the house or bed? If you get the mess sorted the landlord can replace the bed.


As for your friends helping. How about they don’t see it? How about you ask for their help moving black bags to the dump ONLY. Bag the stuff.

statina

OP, would you consider hiring a declutter hire service? They would work with you (usually for around 3 hours) to declutter the room. They’re not overly expensive and I think it would take an enormous weight off your mind

pwurple

Found these guys... might be worth a ring. If you can bag it all up, they collect it and dump it.

https://kollect.ie/products/cork-junk-removal

KiKi III

OP, hope you’re doing okay. Know that you have people here rooting for you.

Right now you’re in a vicious circle; the mess is making you depressed and the depression is keeping you in the mess.

So the way out is to solve one or the other, and the mess is probably the quicker win.

Tomorrow is Sunday. In as much as you can, try to summon up a positive attitude and blast through as much of it as possible.

Fill up a bag of rubbish and then make yourself a cup of tea. Throw your bed sheets into the wash and then sit down for another little break. Maybe reach out to a friend just for a chat over the phone. Then get back to it and fill another bag.

Go one surface at a time, clearing a windowsill or desk - throw out anything you don’t need, declutter, wipe down the surface and organise what’s left.

Time for a nice lunch. Celebrate all your small wins along the way.

Then do any washing up that’s piled up, old mugs and stuff. Open the window and get some fresh air in there.

I mean this in the kindest possible way - the idea that you can only do one bag every two weeks is a limitation your mind is placing on you, it’s not real. You can push through it.

When a few surfaces are clear you *will* start to feel better.

As soon as you have even one or two surfaces clear, buy yourself a plant and/ or a nice candle to keep there to remind yourself of your progress and keep going.

Please, please don’t feel ashamed. You survived. You got through that dark time and now - now you’re getting better.

NedNew2

There is a danger that the sympathy offered by the previous posters, while well intended, simply facilitates and even encourages the author of this misfortune. As unfashionable as it may sound, a good infusion of common sense and energy would clearly see this situation remedied.

The poster may not self cure from pity or outside help. Face the task at hand and dig in, bit by bit you will achieve results, you just need to get your mind onto it.

In cruder terms; cop yourself on, clean up the mess and realise there are bigger problems out there to be faced in life.

Ave Sodalis

seamus wrote:

Others here have given you the best suggestions to run with tbh. You say that you spend an hour filling a black sack and then give up. That says to me two things; 1. You're agonising over everything before you put it in the sack (you can fill a black sack in ten minutes), and 2. you're not spending long enough at this to make a dent in it.

Another factor may be fatigue. I don't have depression related fatigue (haven't had depression in nearly 10 years, so please believe me when I say it can get better OP). I do get fatigued from other things though, and the last time I did something like as simple as changing my bed, it took forever. I might have put on a pillow case or two, then would have to sit down. I think it's an important factor and perhaps the OP should consider a trip to the doctors, not only for mental health but to find any physical issues such as nutritional deficiency from so many takeaways, that may be contributing to low mood and (I'm guessing) energy.

NedNew2 wrote:

In cruder terms; cop yourself on, clean up the mess and realise there are bigger problems out there to be faced in life.

Yes, because that works.
There may be bigger problems out there for people to face, but there always will be. There's always someone who has had it worse, because these things are relative. You have no idea what trauma caused the initial set back.
Yeah, ultimately, it will come down to the OP just getting on with it, but a little compassion and understanding goes a long way too.

TheW1zard

They say the state of your room represents whats going on in your head.
OP id park a wheelie bin outside your door, put on some tunes and let rip!

spaceHopper

Sounds like you need to get a skip bag, think how happy you will be when it's done. They are about 80 bucks to get collected

ILoveYourVibes

Hire a skip and just toss it all out.

Gwen Cooper

Coming back here because I feel so proud of myself. The room is spotless now. I bought a bunch of black bags and hired a skip bag. Many many hours and tears later, everything is clean and all that trash is in the skip bag outside my house. I can see it from my window. I can actually get to my window now - that wasn’t possible due to the mountain of trash.

I’m still not over the trauma that triggered the whole hoarding thing, I still cry myself to sleep every night and don’t know how I’ll ever cope, but tonight for the first time in nearly two years I feel like I can breathe. I feel hopeful.

Thanks to everyone who responded, thanks to those who offered help. I didn’t post any response before because I was so ashamed of myself. I knew that all the advice here would work, but I felt so useless because I knew that it won’t work on me. I guess I just needed time. But really thanks everyone, it was much appreciated.

Going to sleep now, can’t wait to wake up in a clean bedroom tomorrow

Dtp1979

Well done Gwen.

SusieBlue

Good woman, well done for getting it done. Now that the first mountain has been climbed, you know you can conquer all the ones that are to come.
Wishing you all the best, hope this is the start of your journey to feeling well and happy again x

Gwen Cooper

Thank you so much! Yes, hopefully this is a new chapter. Attaching a picture of the same area before and after. You can see that the trash was all the way up to my bed level. Thinking about printing that picture and putting it on the wall! 😊

Airyfairy12

Hi OP, theres no need to feel ashamed of the previous mess, it happens and was fixable, all you had to do was put your mind to it and stay focused to get the job done, I ope you can apply the same method to dealing with your trauma, You can get through it, take it easy on yourself, nobodies perfect.

kronnn

Gwen Cooper wrote: »

Thank you so much! Yes, hopefully this is a new chapter. Attaching a picture of the same area before and after. You can see that the trash was all the way up to my bed level. Thinking about printing that picture and putting it on the wall! 😊

That's amazing, well done. You've made a great change there for yourself. Hopefully just part off your journey to feeling better.
Have you been talking through your problems with someone? If not now would be a great time to start, building off your momentum.
And above all, be kind to yourself going forward. Take some time regularly to check in on yourself and make sure you don't slip into that kind of space again because you deserve better. And definitely hang that picture up, or at least keep it close to hand. I can see it being a great reminder for it you're ever feeling down and withdrawn again of just how good it can be to do something for your mental health, weather its cleaning your room, scheduling that appointment with a therapist, picking up your phone and calling a friend and just having a chat about things that aren't going so well, or even just being nice to yourself (and telling yourself that you do deserve a nice clean room).
Keep up the good work!

Haven't read any replies but I read about the two rule or something it's called recently and it's been a great.

When you get up from the couch, take two things from the coffee table to the bin. When you're at the sink, clean a fork and a bowl. When you're finished in the bathroom, move two things to where they should be. Before you leave the bedroom, put two socks in the washbin. Stuff like that.

Constant little victories and a slow improvement to the point where everything gradually gets cleaner without having to actually motivate yourself to put a load of time into it. Then it's easy to maintain when everything is looking good.

Give it a go.

Sinus pain

Well done - you should feel so so proud of yourself - you’ve just climbed Mount Everest!

Wanderer78

Well done, I've had a similar experience, it's a horrible feeling living in that kind of mess

qwerty13

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Haven't read any replies but I read about the two rule or something it's called recently and it's been a great.

When you get up from the couch, take two things from the coffee table to the bin. When you're at the sink, clean a fork and a bowl. When you're finished in the bathroom, move two things to where they should be. Before you leave the bedroom, put two socks in the washbin. Stuff like that.

Constant little victories and a slow improvement to the point where everything gradually gets cleaner without having to actually motivate yourself to put a load of time into it. Then it's easy to maintain when everything is looking good.

Give it a go.

I don’t have Sky/Virgin tv - but I heard workmates saying a long number of years ago that before the series record option came in, that they did their housework in the ad breaks!

I guess I’m trying to say if there was a known 3 minute ad break, it’s a little like the “2 rule” mentioned by a previous poster - that being mindful of what can be done in tiny amounts has the potential for making things not seem as bad.

You did great OP, well done.

zapper55

Gwen that's amazing very weel done you, I'm thrilled for you.

El_Duderino 09

Fair play, OP. I imagine it makes a huge difference.

Loveinapril

Wow!!! What a huge piece of work you have just completed! If you are into scents, buy some candles or a reed diffuser to treat yourself and really help all your senses in feeling the cleanliness! You should be so so proud!

Telly

Well done Gwen. That's brilliant, so happy you got sorted. It must be such a relief. Hopefully everything else will fall into place trauma-wise x x x

Tilikum17

Good on you!!

C3PO

That’s fantastic - well done indeed!

Daisy78

Gwen Cooper wrote: »

Hi all, thanks for your replies so far. I am currently doing the whole bit-by-bit thing, but as I said, I can only get rid of one black bag every two weeks, so it's taking really, really long. It feels hopeless though. Even if you take three full bags of rubbish away, it still looks the same. I think the only solution for me would be doing it all at once, which is why I wanted to get the cleaners or the skip. I always say that I'm going to do a reasonably big clean over the weekend, but then I stay in bed, it's like I'm unable to push myself to get up unless my job is on the line.

I thought I'm getting better but I started noticing that I'm isolating myself again, ignoring calls and texts, I even started turning up late for work, which would be unthinkable at any point in my life until now, so I feel I'm falling into it again.

I'm in Cork city.

You might have no choice but to get cleaners in to help you. I would imagine that the letting agency have a deposit on hold for you, which I’m guessing is equivalent or more than the 350 quoted. There is no doubt you would lose that deposit and any reference if the agency discovered the extent of it. In practical terms is the issue here more to do with the volume of rubbish you can actually dispose of in the weekly bin as the psychological aspect of having to tackle it? If you are limited to what you can get rid of in one go then you will either have to look at hiring a skip and swallow your pride and take one of your friends (or family member) up on their offer or revert to option A and hire a cleaning company. I have to say I’m surprised at how much they are quoting, from your description there can’t be that much rubbish to dispose of, we are not talking about a house here?

Loveinapril

Daisy78 wrote: »

You might have no choice but to get cleaners in to help you. I would imagine that the letting agency have a deposit on hold for you, which I’m guessing is equivalent or more than the 350 quoted. There is no doubt you would lose that deposit and any reference if the agency discovered the extent of it. In practical terms is the issue here more to do with the volume of rubbish you can actually dispose of in the weekly bin as the psychological aspect of having to tackle it? If you are limited to what you can get rid of in one go then you will either have to look at hiring a skip and swallow your pride and take one of your friends (or family member) up on their offer or revert to option A and hire a cleaning company. I have to say I’m surprised at how much they are quoting, from your description there can’t be that much rubbish to dispose of, we are not talking about a house here?

Read a few posts above. The OP started this thread 6 months ago and has since updated with a photo.

LegacyUser

Gwen Cooper wrote: »

Thank you so much! Yes, hopefully this is a new chapter. Attaching a picture of the same area before and after. You can see that the trash was all the way up to my bed level. Thinking about printing that picture and putting it on the wall! 😊

Just wanted to say well done Gwen, amazing work! Now take some time for yourself too. Well done lady!

LilacNails

oh wow fantastic OP, well done to you... what a great achievement. Just proves you have the strenght and courage to overcome that massive black hole, dont ever forget that.

onwards and upwards.

xx

Daisy78

Didn’t see your follow up post op, that room looks great, good on you for tackling it!