It's best if you are not eating when you read this post

Elizabeth says: "Talk about your messy house. I have ADD and a chronically messy house and I loooove to hear about other people's messy houses. :-)"

I bet my house is messier than yours. Or, it was, until I removed myself, my kids and my mess up to the mountains. Now Josh feels all superior keeping the house clean (somehow the little detail of not having kids to clean up after all day has escaped his notice while he breaks his arm patting himself on the back).

I bet you never picked up a dinner dish to scrape the contents into the sink to find those contents moving of their own volition. I thought for a second I was hallucinating (I was really tired) but no, maggots had taken up residence in the previous week's steak dinner. That's what you get when you wait to run completely out of dishes before loading the dishwasher. Now you've lost your lunch. Sorry.

After we divorce, the story will always be that I drove Josh crazy with my atrocious hosuekeeping skills. I know, because that's the story that always gets told about his parents: his father took up with his Spanish tutor because the house was always a mess. True, but simplistic.

A discussion about the cognitive difference between clean people and messy people can be found in this book, which I own, thanks to my mother. It says that messy people have to train themselves to notice small things. A clean person notices specks on the carpet. A messy person walks right past those same specks, the pile of laundry, yesterday's snack plate, and last week's maggoty dinner without registering any of it. They don't mention ADD, but it's a very ADD thing to let details slip by like that.

Comments

[Jo]

You know, it's not that I don't *see* the million cardboard shreds on the floor. I just *choose* not to address them, is all.

I'm what you'd call a "discouraged perfectionist."

[Bethany]

The pile of laundry in my bedroom actually once made me sit down on the bed and cry (or it may have been the 12 times I was up each night with one child or the other the previous 5 nights).

Yesterday, I tried. I told myself "I will keep this house clean." I literally spent every minute that wasn't spent with the children (because I will not deprive them of quality time to keep house) moving and picking up and folding and washing. At 8:00, when everyone was asleep? The house only very slightly less messy than it usually is, and I had to spend an hour picking it up anyway.

[Kirsty]

No you see, I do notice it, I just wait until it's been annoying the shit out of me for days (or weeks) before I actually get round to DOING anything about it.

[Elizabeth]

Haven't ever had maggots, but that's purely luck. There is currently a Crock-Pot in my refrigerator that contains the remains of a chicken dinner I cooked THREE MONTHS AGO. I'm afraid to open it up and look at it. In the bedroom, gigantic piles of laundry compete with piles of clean bedding for the honor of being the focal point of the room. I freaking hate being in my condo. I have just hired a cleaning lady for the first time, who will start next week, even though I really can't afford it. I just. can't. take it anymore! I really appreciate your post, it makes me feel better to know I'm not the only one. I feel so ashamed of my dismal housekeeping skills because I come from a long line of efficient homemakers. My mom grew up on a farm and our house (and my grandma's, and all of my other relatives') was always clean and neat and pleasant to live in. I don't have the excuse of not having the skills to clean a house. I cleaned from the time I was a little girl, I know how to do all the basic housekeeping tasks and then some. But it's just too much for me somehow. I hate having my mother over to my place because (while she is not a critical person at all) she can hardly keep from cringing as she walks in. I'm not even able to adequately pick things up before she comes over, I'm that overwhelmed and disorganized.
Today has been a bad bad day. So bad I couldn't stay in the house amongst all the chaos. I packed DD into the (also insanely messy) car and we stayed gone all day. I wish I enjoyed coming home to my house.
As far as details, I think I must be an anomaly because I actually DO notice details, but they stress me out so much that I have to pass them over. 'Cause if I attended to the Crock-Pot (OK, maybe that's not a 'detail', but you kwim) I'd have to also attend to the crumbs on the floor by the computer. And if I attended to the crumbs I'd have to actually remove the 10 dirty glasses from the desk. And if I did that...you get the picture. I never just see one task to complete; I see a huge overwhelming barrage of tasks that will begin if I attemmpt to take care of one measly detail. So, I pass it by, in full knowledge of the fact that I could easily take care of it, and with a huge inward guilty sigh about the environment I'm raising my daughter in.
Sorry for the long comment. Thanks again for posting this.

[Kateri]

Elizabeth, you don't know how much it means to me that you posted that. I knew I was going to competely gross out a good portion of my readership, so it's good to hear from someone who really gets it.

I hear you on the overwhelmed feeling. If I bring down one basket of laundry, I have to bring down the other five. So it's not worth it to start something that I know I won'[t finish, whether it's because I don't have time or I get distracted and wander off. It doesn't help that most of the laundry is on the 3rd floor and the facilites are in the basement. I wait until I have enough time to do it all, so nothing ever gets done.

[Emily]

I think it is very liberated not to feel you have to clean. I've written some garbled post about being liberal in the past few days but really I am conservative when it comes to the household. I hate the fact that my need to keep the house clean for "appearances" headbuts the fact that I am quite a relaxed and liberal person.

It's very annoying. Take this morning. I am seven months pregnant nearly, it is VERY hot and I've just hoovered. Why didn't I just sit in the garden with some melon and relax. Why am I bothered about the in-laws coming and specks on the carpet? Surely there are more important things to worry about?

But no, the specks are SCREAMING at me "WE ARE STILL HERE AND WE ARE GOING TO DO A DANCE TO THE IN-LAWS LATER!"

Although my other half does a lot of the housework, I wish I wasn't so fixated on "everything has a place and in it that everything shall go."

If messy houses are ADD, then I have slight OCD and possibly a large dose of anal retention. I blame it on my need to feel in control.

But I wish I could lighten up!

[Lilian]

Oh, I am SO with you on the ADD thing and being messy.

I've always been TERRIBLY messy, for as long as I can remember, although my mom blames herself for not enforcing a cleaning and organizing regimen. My own feeling is that it's just my personality, that I was born this way. And I've often wondered whether I have ADD... but I probably don't because as a student I've always been able to concentrate on tasks - although I have to admit to being a terible procrastinator and scatterbrained at times.

Anyway, if it weren't for my husband our house would really be a terrible stinking mess! I do have some cleaning jags once in a *long* while, I think I share some of Jo's perception of being "a discouraged perfectionist" and TOTALLY choosing not to see the things in wrong places or the dirt. You know what gets me to clean and organize? Getting really mad and upset, or nervous - but I haven't been feeling like that often enough to keep my computer table, kitchen, bedroom, closet organized :)

PS I read this the day you posted, but only now had time to read the comments and write one...