How Cleaning up the Clutter Can Help Your Anxiety

I will be honest….I am a messy person.

I have spent my life trying not to be.  I am one of those people who will clean and pick up my house from top to bottom and swear that it will never get messy again,  but two days later I will be surrounded by clutter.  I would like to blame it all on my kids,  but I am just as bad as they are.  When I hear myself getting on them about how messy their rooms are,  I am always wondering if inside their heads they are thinking:

“Are you kidding right now?  YOU are lecturing US about being messy?  You are Queen of the Slobs!”

But because they are smart,  they just bite their tongues and begrudgingly start to clean while I walk away knowing what a huge hypocrite I am.

It’s not that I’m a dirty  person.  I will clean toilets and tubs.  I will even do the dishes (most days).  It’s just that I don’t ever put anything away.  I leave a trail of breadcrumbs wherever I go.   I change my clothes,  and throw them on the bed.  I brush my teeth and leave the toothpaste out on the counter.  I don’t even put the cap back on.  ( I am really bad about caps and lids. I don’t think I have a single lipstick that still has the top to it.) I make my kids lunch and leave the peanut butter and jelly sitting out on the counter.  If I ever disappear and CSI needs to recreate the last day of my life – its all right there for them.

My mind is always on what I am going to do “next”,  and I don’t seem to want to be bothered with wrapping up and putting closure on what I was previously doing.

An even bigger part of the problem is that I have way too much stuff.  Because not only am I a slob,  but I am a slob that likes to shop.  So you can imagine how cluttered my house can be at times.  I am not into “Hoarders” territory,  but I definitely panic a little when somebody stops by un-announced,  because there is always stuff everywhere.

Fortunately for me,  I had an epiphany the other night.  I realized that I am a grown woman with an anxiety disorder.  Not only do I need to start acting like a grown-up and learn to pick up after myself,  but all this clutter is not sending my brain the message that I need to be sending it.  I need to be reassuring my brain that I have it together and that I am organized and in control.  How was living in an unorganized environment where I couldn’t find anything going to help me convey that?

While its true that my brain can’t “see” the clutter around me all the time,  it knows the reaction I have to all the clutter.

• It knows how overwhelmed and out of control I feel when I look around me and see stuff out of place everywhere, every single day.
• It knows the dread I feel when I go to bed at night knowing how much work I have to do the next day just to get my house back in order again.
• It knows how flustered and frustrated I feel when I can never find ANYTHING because I didn’t put it back where it goes the last time I used it.

And maybe all of this isn’t enough, on its own, to send my brain into adrenaline over-drive again,  but it IS enough to prevent me and my brain from being as relaxed as we can be.

Remember that the more relaxed you and your brain are,  the more you will be able to handle the really big stressors and traumas when they happen.  So you want to keep your baseline stress level as low as possible.

Everybody,  especially those of us with an anxiety disorder, has a “Stress Limit”.

And if we reach it,  whether its due to one or two big traumatic events or the cumulative effect of multiple,  less traumatic but still stressful events,  our symptoms WILL come back.

Its much like a credit card limit.  Once you reach that credit limit,  there is a price to pay if you go over it. And once you reach your “Stress Limit”,  there is also a price to pay…….. and we all know what that is.  So I don’t want to be using up any of my “Stress Credit Line” on the 5 pairs of jeans laying at the end of my bed that I have to look at every day of my life…… I want to save it up for the when the crap hits the fan, if you know what I mean.

So I am making it my goal in life to stop being a slob and to get this clutter out of my life. I brought 4 garbage bags upstairs yesterday and just started going through my closet and pitching stuff. All the stuff I was planning on selling for a measly 2 bucks….all the clothes that were no longer in style…..anything that I wasn’t absolutely in love with, I pitched.

And you know what? It felt so awesome.

I actually enjoyed throwing stuff in bags. It felt so good to just get rid of all that crap. I always thought maybe I had some slightly hoarderish tendencies,  because I do tend to get attached to my possessions – and it would make sense since hoarding is an anxiety disorder.  But I think I killed that notion.  I am apparently the opposite of a hoarder.  I LOVE throwing things away.  I can’t be certain,  but I may have gotten slightly high from it.

And you should see my closet now.  I can almost hear angels softly singing “Hallelujah” when I open up the closet doors. It is organized; it is tidy – not over-filled. And it feels good when I look in there now; it makes me feel “together”. When I go to get a shirt, my brain stays calm as opposed to feeling that sense of dread that I used to get when looking in there.

How great would it be if I felt that way every time I walked into any room of my house?

But, I live in a house with a lot of rooms so I have a long way to go before that happens.  And with 5 kids,  who am I kidding?  I may never achieve that goal.  But I am going to do the best I can to make a plan and make it happen and train myself to quit being such a disorganized person.  I honestly believe my life will be better for it and I really recommend you try it too if you feel that you have issues with clutter.

The state of our mind affects our surroundings and our surroundings affect the state of our mind.   If the two are in sync….in a positive way….I think it could really help bring some calm into our lives.

For more information on decluttering, check out this amazing resource.   It has tons of great ideas to help you get your home in order.

If you are looking for further information or support on this, or any other anxiety related topic, I am happy to help!   Click here for details.

AnnaLisa Scott
TheWorryGames.com

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