There's something wrong with me.

[oceanbaby]

Seriously. I must have some kind of mental disorder. I don't know if this belongs in Personal Growth, Health and Healing, Homekeeping, Parenting Issues, or what, because it involves all of it. It's not just about organizing, because I really think there's a bigger problem here.

I cannot organize this house. I really can't. I've tried. I've hired personal organizers. Honestly, I've even gone to therapy over it. I can't do it. And living in this mess is making me crazy. It's not like those people you see on Dateline where you can't fit in the front door, and no one's going to call CPS on me or anything. But every surface is covered with crap. Every single surface. If it's flat, it has something on it. It has toys or books or mail or whatever. My kitchen has bags full of stuff just sitting there because I don't know what to do with it. My bedroom has stacks of dirty towels because I can't fit them into one of the four hampers in our bedroom.

The kids just tear this place apart. I mean, we work on picking stuff up, and I know kids who are worse, but I just can't get ahead. Right now ds1 is playing with his piggy bank/coin collection. He dumped all the books of his nightstand to get to it, and there are coins all over the floor. Yeah, he'll pick most of it up, but not all of it. There are puzzle pieces everywhere. We baked cookies so the kitchen is a nightmare. It's the single biggest stressor in my life that makes me yell at my kids. I don't know what the line is between allowing them freedom for creative play versus not messing up the house. Even our nutrition is being affected, because sometimes I am so down about things I can't muster up the energy to get dinner made. It's just one more mess that I'm going to have to deal with.

I don't know what to do. I am so depressed living like this. It makes me crazy and I cannot change it. No matter what I do, how much I throw out, it just doesn't change. It's been years I've been trying and nothing changes.

Yeah, I'm limited on time, but even when I do have time, I don't know what to do. People say to start small but I don't know how. How do I sort through all the art projects? I don't know where to store anything. How do I sort through my desk? I don't know what to keep, and I don't know how to organize what it is that I do keep. How do I organize the games? What do I do with Halloween costumes? What about toilet paper rolls ds uses for art projects?

I'm not just venting. I need help and I don't know where to find it. We are not rich, and the times that I have paid professionals to help have been money that was hard to part with. And nothing helps. Do I have some disorder? I mean, it's not severe enough that anyone would think twice about it, but it weighs on my 24/7. I don't want people to come over, which is really unfair to ds. He sometimes asks to invite a friend over and I don't because I don't want them to see our house. I don't even want to be here.

It's a small house, but not that small. Our Christmas gifts are being kept in the trunk of dh's car because we have no closet space or even room in our 2 car garage to keep them.

The area rug in the living room is totally stained because I let the kids eat in there (and it's white because we bought it before we had kids). We need a new rug but I don't know how to buy one. Can I tell you that my mom even traded with an interior designer (she does accounting) to help me, and after four hours worth we still don't have an area rug?

I am overwhelmed by the kids' clothes. What to keep, what to sell, what to give away. What to do with stained clothes? Trying to organize what ds1 has outgrown and remember when to get it out for ds2.

I've bought books. I've read websites. I've tried Flylady. Nothing works. I have been in tears over this more times than I can count.

I don't know what to do.

[damselfly41]

Okay, oceanbaby. You have to start small. In my experience, that is key. Do one surface at a time, one bag at a time. If you haven't taken a look at anything in that bag, toss it. It is hard, I know it is. But clutter like that weighs you down. You will feel more free with every peice of paper you get rid of. The clothes... if it doesn't fit, or nobody has worn it in months, give it away. Do this a little at a time, too. Don't start with a whole closet. I do it while I am folding laundry sometimes, or putting stuff in the washing machine. Or pick up one peice of clothing up every time you go into a room and decide to keep or give. And do something with it right then. If you keep it, hang it up or fold it neatly into a drawer. It will take a long time, probably, but it is easier than tackling the whole entire house at once. Good luck.

ETA: I wouldn't worry about the rug right now, myself. Get rid of some of the junk first and reward yourself with a new one.

[fek&fuzz]

First, you need to tell yourself that you CAN organize the house, you need to imagine it organized, how peaceful it will feel, how good it will look, but you need to keep your thoughts positive.

Pick a room. The bathroom. How many towels do you need? 2 bathtowels per person, maybe 3. 4-6 handtowels. 2-3 washclothes per person if you use them.

Now, each person picks their towels, or you do it. Keep 2 junkie ones in the mudroom for the dog or big spills.

Take the rest to the animal shelter or the dump, or if they are nice, donate them to a MIN.

The rest: get hooks for the backs of doors for the towels.

Just work on the bathroom for one week.

It sounds like you have too much stuff, and that before you can even organize, you need to start getting rid of stuff.

There are a lot of families in need who need things, start thinning your stuff by either sending things to mothering MINs, or taking them to your local shetler or drop off box.

It is difficult and almost painful at first, but once I started doing it, I was on a roll, my closets are emptier, my fabric stash is manageable, and I don't miss that stuff one bit.

But just pick a room. Give yourself a week. Take a huge trashbag in and clear out the medicine cabinet of all the old gunky expired stuff, through out magazines in there,

After that week, pick a new room. How do you organize games? You ask your kids to pick a few they want to keep and that they play with most often, and you give the rest away, or throw them away if they are missing pieces or broken. Then you put the rest on a shelf.

The same for art supplies. Get some shoe boxes, or use the bottom dresser drawer. Throw out everything that is dried up, broken, used up, crushed, etc. , recycle 90% of the toilet paper rolls (there will always be more!), and then put the rest of the stuff in boxes with labels: painting, crayons, stickers, etc. Put those on a shelf with the labels showing.

Throw out the stained white rug, and have your mother buy you a new one. Don't try to go with her, just trust her.

You sound a lot like my ex-bf who has this same issue, so I know how debilitating it can be. A few times, I just got fed up and organized all of his daugther's art supplies and games and put away all his clothes because I could hardly stand it. He has depression and other issues, so he could never clean.

Or, leave your house and give your mother permission to come in and clean and organize (something my ex-bf's mom used to do when he would go out of town).

Also, start a blog. Take photos of what you start with, and what you throw out and how it looks afterwards. Put a link in your sig so people can follow your journey and cheer you on.

[tboroson]

Crap, I could have written your post. It is infuriating.

I'm working through a lot of it right now. My approach is different than the PP's. If I start small, clean off one counter, all the crap from everywhere else just spreads to cover it again. I can't start *that* small. The scale that seems to work for me is to tackle a whole room (or half of a large room). I clean up everything that is easy and obvious. Toys go back to the playroom. Dishes go into the dishwasher. Trash goes into the trash. Mail all goes into one pile on my desk. Etc. Then every-freakin'-thing else goes into a big bin (or onto the dining room table, just somehow becomes centralized.) I ignore that pile for a little while as I then actually *clean* - dusting, vacuuming, etc.

Then I tackle that bin/pile. I take a real hard look at that stuff and sort it into things that are going away for good, things that need to find a better home, things that are really trash but somehow got missed on the first pass (that usually means things like bottles that need to be taken apart for recycling, etc.) Trash/recycling goes to it's appropriate place, stuff to go to the thrift store goes out to the shed (where dh is a facist. Ain't no letting things fester out there for six months, it *will* get taken to the thrift store.) Stuff that's staying gets put away.

Finally, once the room is actually tidy and things are in their places, I go through again and start sorting out stuff that, really, we don't need. Things that can just plain go.

Then, once it's done, that room is Untouchable. Nope. No more shoving crap under my bathroom sink. No more piling random things on the shelves in my bedroom. Keep the mess in the places that are already messy...until I get to them!

[Mamma Mia]

I could totally have written your post. I am still in the midst of it, in fact I'm procrastinating on working on it. It feels like climbing up a hill of sand. It's hard work and for each step I back down again anyway. I hate it. I have nothing to add to help, just

[Mama Dragon]

I can picture your house because my sister is the same way. Nothing CPS would care about, but a mess anyway. She's got crap on top of crap on top of more crap on top of some dust And it's everywhere. Being the clean freak I am, I have fantasized about going in and cleaning her house :

My rule is: 6 months and it's gone, If it can't be used in 6 months, it goes. NO MATTER WHAT. Seasonal items like a Christmas tree (fake) are the one exception.

2 towels per person, give the rest away. Clothes with stains, give away, "stuff", "trinkets" aren't needed. Give away. For now, put DS1's clothes that he's outgrown in a rubbermaid tub, but only the nicer stuff. Toys that don't get played with, books you wouldn't pick up and read right now - say good bye. Just start putting stuff in bags and taking it away, a couple bags at a time. Make a goal to put presents in your closet so you can put more clutter in your trunk to take away.

[wantingagirl2b#4]

Just couldn't read this without posting oceanbaby! I feel your pain everyday too. I have 3 boys and twins on the way in a 3 bdrm house that is full of stuff like you say. I agree with the other poster about rewarding yourself afterwards with a new rug and to start small but also starting on one room at a time could work also. Like deciding to clean off the kitchen counter I know my husband has done this one many of times for me. But also delegate that's another big key!! I have been making the boys help more because as I said I'm having twins around Feb. and all need to help! What are the ages of your two? Envolve the whole family including dh. Just focus on one thing at a time or two things possibly but just so you don't get overwhelmed. It won't happen overnight I can tell you that, but I have tried the fly lady like you were talking about! Funny but not.... I know how you feel because when someone is coming over it is a panick at my house to just to get things picked up. Have been known to throw a sink full of dishes in the oven! Just kidding!! Hugs Hugs Hugs!! If you have a close friend I've always said I would switch houses for the day just to wash different dishes. No but sometimes a motivator is the key! My friend is a neat freak so she came over one day and cleaned out the fridge and helped organize some so if you have a motivator maybe that would be the key also. Just throwing some ideas out there.: Bye for now and the best of luck!

[mommaof3boz]

Oceanbaby

Be ruthless. Unless its a picture of your child or a check it CAN be replaced. So even if you accidentally throw out something insignificant don't worry. Call your city and have a trash dumpster delivered. Get your shredder fired up. THROW THAT JUNK AWAY. Don't agonize over every decision. Get a good friend to come in and help you. Hand her a box of trash bags and say GO FOR IT.

[Yooper]

I could be you. I am not because I am deathly afraid of becoming my mother. What started as clutter is now a debilitating hoarding disorder. So I have to make a VERY conscious effort every day, every hour, even evry minute to keep my house clutter free.

Some tips.....

Do you need a rug? We had a white area rug too (except we were dumb enough to buy it after we had dd). It is still in good shape, but I saw that it was going to be ruined if we kept using it. I have a pukey cat and dd eats in the living room. We thought we needed it because I thought the bare floor would be too hard and/or cold for dd to play on. We rolled it up a few months ago when our cat was sick and put it in the attic. We quickly found that dd did not care one bit, I have stopped worrying about spills and puke, and the floor is MUCH easier to keep clean.

On games/puzzles/art supplies. Dd is pretty young so it has been easy for me to start "policies" that she accepts just because that is all she knows. We never ever buy toys so I am usually dealing with what others have gotten her. Anything with lots of pieces that I know will be hard to keep track of are treated specially. Those get kept in thier box/bag (if they have one) or are given a box bag and put on the shelf in dd's closet. She is welcome to play with them any time. But the rule is that only one thing can be down at a time. She is pretty good about cleaning up (as well as a 3 yo can be) but even when she completely neglects to put it back in the box/bag, it is not overwhelming to me to put that one thing away. Same with art supplies except that they are kept in the cabinet above the fridge. All of her other toys are easy to chuck into bins. There are days when she gets every single toy out and I can still clean it up in 5 minutes. The nicer thing though is that SHE can clean it all up in 5 minutes. I never force her to, but since it is easy, she often does it without being asked.

The best way to combat clutter is to not allow it to come into the house. Junk mail gets dumped in the garage and is not even allowed inside. That includes "really cool" catalogs. Real mail has a spot and the stuff goes there immediately. We do not buy anything unless it can be eaten or otherwsie consumed. If something must be bought, something else must go before the new item comes in the house. This goes for gifts as well.

I also have to tackle a whole room at a time. I am not longer at the point where things get to that. If I have 10 minutes while I am waiting for water to boil, I will use that time to tackle a small job like the junk drawer or a pile of something that is growing on the dining room table. But I used to have big jobs. I would spend 5 hours if that is what it took. And I did regress many times. But over time (about 5 years in all), I am now at the point where I have to think of what the "big job" is going to be when I find I have time to tackle it. Right now, that is my attic. It is very neat but I KNOW
there is stuff up there I do not need and it WILL multiply like bunnies if I do not get up there soon.

I with pps agree about the towels. Do you not reuse them? I do laundry once a week. We each have one towel that hangs on a hook on the bathroom door. Those towels go in with the sheets once a week. We only have 6 towels in the whole house. When we have more than 3 guests (which has a happened a few times) I borrow a few from friends. If there is some sort of towel emergency (like when rotovirus struck), I hit the beach towels (which we have three of).

Good luck!

[momto l&a]

Move


































:

Ok sorry bad idea

But think, the further you move the less you want to pack and take with you.

[oceanbaby]

That includes "really cool" catalogs.

OMG, I am dying laughing. That is so me. I do sort the mail in the garage, but the "cool" catalogs make there way up to the living room. I do get rid of them but there is always 3 or 4 of them crowding up the end table.

How many towels do you need? 2 bathtowels per person, maybe 3. 4-6 handtowels. 2-3 washclothes per person if you use them.

Would you believe it never occurred to me to only have a few bathtowels per person?

Move

Ha. You think you're joking. I have had to face the fact that one of the reasons I have been wanting to move is to that I can throw all this away. But I love our house and I love our city. I have told dh that what I want to do is pretend like we are moving, and throw everything out that we don't love. Including the furniture. I want to START OVER!

Fighting kids, gotta run.

[cam&kat's_mom]

HUGS Oceanbaby! I so could have written your post word for word... and am hoping that i can use everyone's advice here to get my house in order!! Hang in there... I know it will happen.. OH and I have seriously thought on more thaqn one occasion that i want to put everything out in my driveway and move in again. then throw out everythign that doesn't have a place BEFORE it even enters teh house!!

[zoomom]

Couldn't read without offering a - you've gotten some great advice, I hope it works for you.

Maybe you could pretend to move- box everything up with the plan to move...and then be able to put it back one box at a time, where you want it- where there's a place for it, and get rid of everything that you would have tossed/donated/sold.

[oldcrunchymom]

Starting small never works for me. What works for me is taking EVERYTHING out of a room or area and ONLY putting back in what we actually use. The rest goes into bags to donate or throw away. If you do this one room at a time it is not too bad, except for making the rest of your house impassable for a couple days. But we live in 500 sq ft; it would probably be easier if you have a larger house. Seriously, for me, this is the BEST way to get rid of stuff. Otherwise I pick and choose and hem and haw and end up keeping almost everything.

[reepicheep]

[QUOTE=wantingagirl2b#4;6747021] Have been known to throw a sink full of dishes in the oven! QUOTE]


You are joking, but I have really done this, and more than once! Oceanbaby, I just wanted to tell you you aren't alone. I think some of us are just born this way. I, too have tried flylady- it helped some, but didn't change my life. I have tried the Messies books, they just rub me the wrong way. I have tried Confessions of an Organized Housewife, it helped the most, but I think it is partly my personality and maybe some kind of deepseated adolescent rebellion. My husband is a bigger slob than me, so usually I am faced with my mess, his, my 2 year old's and my friend's 1 year old's. No advice, just commiseration. If you discover some miracle cure, please tell me. Oh, and I so understand the dinner thing. I have resigned myself to chick-fil-a and frozen pizza many time because I didn't have any clean pots or pans. Does this problem spread to other aspects of your life? I have so much trouble making menu plans, grocery lists, etc. and trouble remembering to pay bills and write thank you notes and do laundry. Funny, I rarely have trouble remembering to knit or read a book! Anyway,

[sabrinat]

Originally Posted by oceanbaby

Seriously. I must have some kind of mental disorder. I don't know if this belongs in Personal Growth, Health and Healing, Homekeeping, Parenting Issues, or what, because it involves all of it. It's not just about organizing, because I really think there's a bigger problem here.

I cannot organize this house. I really can't. I've tried. I've hired personal organizers. Honestly, I've even gone to therapy over it. I can't do it. And living in this mess is making me crazy. It's not like those people you see on Dateline where you can't fit in the front door, and no one's going to call CPS on me or anything. But every surface is covered with crap. Every single surface. If it's flat, it has something on it. It has toys or books or mail or whatever. My kitchen has bags full of stuff just sitting there because I don't know what to do with it. My bedroom has stacks of dirty towels because I can't fit them into one of the four hampers in our bedroom.

The kids just tear this place apart. I mean, we work on picking stuff up, and I know kids who are worse, but I just can't get ahead. Right now ds1 is playing with his piggy bank/coin collection. He dumped all the books of his nightstand to get to it, and there are coins all over the floor. Yeah, he'll pick most of it up, but not all of it. There are puzzle pieces everywhere. We baked cookies so the kitchen is a nightmare. It's the single biggest stressor in my life that makes me yell at my kids. I don't know what the line is between allowing them freedom for creative play versus not messing up the house. Even our nutrition is being affected, because sometimes I am so down about things I can't muster up the energy to get dinner made. It's just one more mess that I'm going to have to deal with.

I don't know what to do. I am so depressed living like this. It makes me crazy and I cannot change it. No matter what I do, how much I throw out, it just doesn't change. It's been years I've been trying and nothing changes.

Yeah, I'm limited on time, but even when I do have time, I don't know what to do. People say to start small but I don't know how. How do I sort through all the art projects? I don't know where to store anything. How do I sort through my desk? I don't know what to keep, and I don't know how to organize what it is that I do keep. How do I organize the games? What do I do with Halloween costumes? What about toilet paper rolls ds uses for art projects?

I'm not just venting. I need help and I don't know where to find it. We are not rich, and the times that I have paid professionals to help have been money that was hard to part with. And nothing helps. Do I have some disorder? I mean, it's not severe enough that anyone would think twice about it, but it weighs on my 24/7. I don't want people to come over, which is really unfair to ds. He sometimes asks to invite a friend over and I don't because I don't want them to see our house. I don't even want to be here.

It's a small house, but not that small. Our Christmas gifts are being kept in the trunk of dh's car because we have no closet space or even room in our 2 car garage to keep them.

The area rug in the living room is totally stained because I let the kids eat in there (and it's white because we bought it before we had kids). We need a new rug but I don't know how to buy one. Can I tell you that my mom even traded with an interior designer (she does accounting) to help me, and after four hours worth we still don't have an area rug?

I am overwhelmed by the kids' clothes. What to keep, what to sell, what to give away. What to do with stained clothes? Trying to organize what ds1 has outgrown and remember when to get it out for ds2.

I've bought books. I've read websites. I've tried Flylady. Nothing works. I have been in tears over this more times than I can count.

I don't know what to do.

Holy crap! I almost fell over because I could have written your post. I have 4 kids and a smallish house. The clutter...It really drives me crazy and I'm overwhelmed by it. I was never a messy person. But with the kids and their stuff, it's just so hard to keep ahead of them. I don't know how it started. I always hang out in here to get advice, ideas and inspiration. We should support each other by pm becuz I think we were separated at birth.
I am doing better though. I realize that I have an emotional/psychological attachment to stuff. Like I still have all 4 kids infant bedding...I realized that I will need to part w/them so, since I'm learning to quilt I'm going to make a few swatches from them and pass the rest on...you know the bumpers and curtains...now I think I can let them go. I'm embracing freecycle. It was hard for me to get rid of stuff becuz I would think of the money and time I had spent acquiring these possession, so now I realize it's my way of helping others and the environment. Baby steps! I'm a work in progress, but I'm working.

[Aura_Kitten]

i, too, could have written that post.


i've been working on each pile of clutter every day, just making sure to de-clutter a little each day, and it keeps it under control... but then there are days when i turn around and the kids have torn the place up again when i wasn't looking, and it drives me nuts. i think everyone has given some really great advice, but as for Completely getting everything under control.... i think we have to surrender at least some of that until our little ones are grown and out of the home, because there is NO WAY i can keep this place tidy with little ones running around. i try, and the trying helps the large scale i guess, because when i don't put some effort toward it things are even more out of hand... but i've had to just step back and realize that little kids leave *some* degree of mess no matter what.

[zo's ma]

It's called TMS, too much stuff. It is a forever kinda fight cause it's so easy to slip and start cluttering again.

[sapphire_chan]

Originally Posted by tboroson

Then every-freakin'-thing else goes into a big bin

: And the best part about this method is you can *see* improvement immediately. Also, your kids, even 2 year olds, can help you put the stuff into the bin. Next step I'd do, is take two more bins and a trash bag, and just sort "put away" "give away" "trash"

And remember, when it starts to get overwhelming, lay down on your bed. Look up. What do you see there? That's right, the ceiling. The ceiling is organized. The only things on the ceiling that should be there are maybe some dust and spiderwebs and those could be cleaned up in 2 seconds so they don't matter.

[muse]

Originally Posted by sapphire_chan

And remember, when it starts to get overwhelming, lay down on your bed. Look up. What do you see there? That's right, the ceiling. The ceiling is organized. The only things on the ceiling that should be there are maybe some dust and spiderwebs and those could be cleaned up in 2 seconds so they don't matter.

Oh my you just gave me 6 months of therapy right there! So THAT'S WHY I spent much of my (chaotic and sometiems traumatic) childhood staring at the ceiling, pretending I lived up there!

Oceanbaby, I can tell you moving a lot and also living in small spaces has helped us declutter enormously.

But aside from that i wanted to say, for me, sometimes chaos and mess makes me feel totally overwhelmed, depressed, angry, etc...and other times it feels cosy and homey. It totally depends on other stuff going on in my life. Likewise on good days I have no problem tackling the chaos, but on days when other stuff in my life is overwhelming the mess just knocks me over completely. You may hire professionals, get the place perfect, and find some of the feelings are still there...not to totally depress you, but just to say, dealing with the mess is one part, and dealing with our responses is another, kwim? Hope that comes out in the friendly, supportive way it was intended...