Cleaning House

Hey, y'all--

Today is a good day. God, it feels good to say that! Bill's home, my bipolar is under control, and even tho I still have the same problems I had yesterday, I feel optimistic that I have control over them.

I overslept a little, but I guess I just needed the sleep and woke up when my body needed to. I've started exercising again, even tho I HATE it. Wait, let me rephrase that. I LOVE the results -- it's just the work I hate. I remember I was that way when I was working outside the home, too. In fact, there was kind of a joke about it I used to say: "I love my job -- it's the work I hate." In fact, I feel the same way about my house. I wish someone would wave a magic wand over it and it would be clean. I love a clean house, I just hate to be the one to clean it. Really, this is a big issue for me. Usually people who have OCD go crazy making sure their house is clean, but not me. I wonder why that is. In fact, I'm just the opposite -- I'm a slob. It's awful, and makes me condemn myself for it. Whenever I go thru these therapy things where you're supposed to "love yourself" I always fail, because the house thing is the one thing that keeps me hating myself. I know, to those of you to whom housework is no big deal, you're probably thinking, why doesn't she just do it? But I don't know why I can't/won't -- I want to, I really do, and every day I pray for motivation. It just doesn't happen for me. I look around my house and I think where to start, and I'm just so OVERWHELMED by it all that I don't start anywhere!

Has anyone else had this problem? Because I really, really want a clean house. Every day I look at the mess and think, "How can anyone live like this?" Bill does the kitchen, so at least that gets done. And in the morning, I do at least pick up the living room and make up the bed, but that's as far as I get. And I do do the laundry. But it's like I've got it justified -- I do work for bipolarcentral.com, which even tho it's work from home is still work, so it's not that I'm lazy or anything. I am active in AA. I do other things. It's just the house thing that has me bound up. I really think there's something wrong with me. In my head I view a beautiful, clean house. I can even picture me cleaning it. But it just doesn't happen.

Someone told me to start with a small area and just concentrate on that. That's what I've done. The coffee table in the living room. I do that. Every morning. I clean it off. And now I take the dirty dishes, etc., out of the living room to the kitchen. But that's it.

Does anyone else have this problem?

I think it stems from the fact that I'm a clutterer. I don't throw ANYTHING away. So things just keep piling up and piling up. And I live in a double-wide trailer, so there's no real storage, so things get even more piled up, cuz there's no place to put them, so there's piles of things all over the place. And then I procrastinate. That's one of the biggest things wrong with me.

Please help, if you have any suggestions?

Thanks in advance,
Michele