House is still a shithole. Pic included

[Shithole101]

A few weeks or so back I posted pics of bedrooms in my house. They were a shithole. Me/kids have managed to keep the bedrooms tidy /reasonable.

But my stairs and living room are a mess. I could probably have it all sorted in a couple of hours. But it feels like the end of the world. I feel so drained. And even when i do start doing it something really silly can happen then I feel like giving up.

Or like a few weeks back I started feeling really positive. And got loads done . But after that period of positive cleaning. I won't get that feeling back for a while and just stop.

It should be really simple but it does not feel like it.

I only get a bath /shower once a week sometimes less. I could smell myself earlier and all I did was use baby wipes under my arms and a bit of deodorant.

Anyway I have added photos again . To Shame myself into actually cleaning up .

@Shithole101 please accept that how your house looks, combined with how you feel about dealing with it, and how you feel about getting your children to help is absolutely not in the normal range.
You are not lazy, you are not a slattern, you are however not coping.
You don’t want to hear it but it exactly sounds like depression, depression makes you physically drained and mentally and emotionally overwhelmed. What you describe is exactly what you would expect from someone with depression.
Secondly, have things always been and felt like this in your adult life? If yes is it possible you have adhd? Again please don’t compare yourself with the stereotypes here, look at female inattentive adhd and ask yourself if it could be you.

She has some videos on her website, if you’d like a watch: https://www.strugglecare.com/resources

I try reply best I can . OK so over the past 3 years life has not been easy i have had hell of alot going on. And I on my own as 1 person has had to manage everything on my own. It's been pretty awful and beyond my control. People tend to think there's help and support out there . Ie get counselling/therapy/professional help etc. But its not actually easy to get.

I have always and still do put myself last because I'm dealing with the needs of others and I constantly have my barriers up. Things are still hard /stressful but have got better compared to what they were. But I still don't trust anything so my barriers are still up .and I can't truly open up incase I fall and can't get back up ( sorry hard to describe)

As much has things have got better I have not move forward mentally. An example could be a certain someone asking for something but the tone feels demanding. As soon as I hear the voice I feel knotted up and all churned up inside and i think something is going to happen. But it does not. But I still can't move forward even though I'm not being logic

So yeah there (could) be done depression there.

BUT. With the feeling tired ,drained no energy etc that is anemia which I'm taking folic acid for but as I said in other posts bloods need to be retaken soon to see what's going on with that . But I get tired /drained just doing general house work makes me tired and breathless . I get really drained my eyes water were I'm so tired . When I walk up my stairs I can't catch my breath and can't talk in sentences vending up and down. Making a bed putting duvet covers in etc mahe me breathless to . It's frustrates me that theses are really simple things.

I guess it could be both

Well done & your kitchen looks great. It's wonderful to see people being helped with this type of forum. I'm sure everyone would love to see a few random pics of house when youve managed to get through the work. I tend to stay tidy simply becsuse I hate clutter. DH office room was a nightmare & he wouldn't let me touch it. Yesterday I persuaded him to do a clear out. We emptied cupboards, took everything off shelves and chucked loads out. Today it looks amazing. It was you OP who motivated me to get on with it so your helping people too by sharing your pics and talking about this. 👍

I have a question for you.
The OP has gone to see her GP. The GP diagnosed anaemia NOT depression.

What makes you think you know better and the OP HAS TO be depressed and you somehow know better from a few posts on a screen???
The OP has explained where her exhaustion comes from. Maybe you should just, I don’t know, accept it?

@Shithole101 please don’t let some posters gaslight you.
We all have some traumatic events in our life that could lead to depression. It doesn’t mean you are depressed and that’s why you are struggling so much.
(It also doesn’t mean that whatever happened in the last few years hasn’t been hard and that you wouldn’t feel better with some support around that)
But I can promise you that all the efforts you do to keep the house clean and tidy, to ensure your dcs are ok, you have a roof over your and their heads etc… all that is NOT what a deeply depressed person does.

Personally I think you are doing amazing.
You are very unwell atm and still you keep plates spinning for everyone. That is a huge achievement.

Sorry to read this. You can only do your best given the circumstances. If your managing a daily walk with your dog at least it gets you out and about. Stay strong.

Sorry, it just means a shorter/summary version.

I don't think there is any complicated language in there. In fact it might have been that she used the word "short" not "abridged" but I was thinking of the word abridged, because that's the word that is used in publishing when they convert books to audio and skip long parts of it to make it easier to follow.

The How To Keep House While Drowning book is not really a plan, more of a mindset change. I think she does have some plans but it's not really a method in itself.

I think the plan with different rooms is The Organised Mum Method or TOMM? I don't get on with systems like that, but as I said before, anything that's worked for you before is worth trying again.

What I like about the A Slob Comes Clean method is that it differentiates between different kinds of cleaning. So you have the big cleans that you do when things have got a bit out of hand. And specific cleans of things like bathrooms. But then there are also daily tasks, which is doing the things that will block other tasks if they aren't done. I find this helpful because it means if I'm having a bad day, all I need to do is something/anything towards the dishes. So if I bring one cup through to the kitchen, then I'm good. This helps me to do at least one thing every day. Even on the lowest motivation day, I can move one cup (as long as I remember, which is sometimes the problem.)

I know that I definitely used to get very stuck because I had similar to what you describe - a kind of all or nothing mindset. So when I felt good and positive and motivated, then I'd be able to clean a whole section or a whole room. But then I'd be exhausted/worn out from that effort, and also I'd think "I just did that!" and not want to do it again, which means that not only would I not do any "big" cleaning, I wouldn't do the daily or maintenance cleaning either. This was a mistake, because within a day or two it would quickly revert to how it originally was.

Because of this, I also had this idea in my mind that "cleaning" = a whole lot of effort, energy, work, it takes a long time, it's unpleasant, it probably means dealing with icky stuff. The idea of having to do this EVERY DAY UNTIL THE END OF TIME is depressing and makes me want to hide in a pit of despair.

I didn't realise that maintenance cleaning, when the house is already fairly clean, is not like this at all. It's easy, it takes about five minutes, and if there is any left over food etc then it can just be easily thrown away rather than having to be chiselled off. Nothing is smelly and/or slimy because it hasn't started to rot.

OK she did use the word abridged - but she also calls it a "shortcut journey".

@LeRougeEtLeNoir maybe you should have actually read my post before commenting on it 🙄

@Shithole101 Only time will tell if the problem is just down to iron levels, hopefully you will get your answer soon. And certainly you would want your gp to deal with any physical issues such as low iron before addressing the possibility of depression etc.

Don't beat yourself up over it particularly as walking up stairs even tires you o ut. You are managing to keep a family going on your own so doing very well indeed.
Also every family is different on its domestic standards. I tend not to have anything on the stairs at all for safety reasons so might be worth kicking everyone on the stairs down to the ground floor which would take about 30 seconds. Then I would be hoovering the stairs but it is my least favourite hoovering job (I did it yesterday and do it once a week at the weekend) but just removing the stuff from the stairs would make them safe.
Then if you have the energy anything rubbish on the stairs put in a black sack. Anything to be kept put in a corner downstairs for later if you cannot sort it out now.

If the children won't help give up and do it all yourself. I have often had to do that. It is not ideal but stops rows.

@FlowerBarrow , you said

You don’t want to hear it but it exactly sounds like depression, depression makes you physically drained and mentally and emotionally overwhelmed. What you describe is exactly what you would expect from someone with depression.

My post was an answer to that.

Maybe I should not have given the reply I did 👀. Never mind to late .

I just start to think well maybe some people asking about depression may have a point . Some of the symptoms are simlar so I start to take the point in board . But then I bounce back to the no its not because depression does not make you breathless walking up the stairs bending up and down etc .

The tiredness, lack of energy, the mess in the house is bringing me down. But that's probably normal.

That's great glad it's helped some people . I don't think I will ever be a tidy person to ve honest reasonable is ok . Just want to stop it being a shit hole.

TOMM is good for families. You do the lists and that's that. Looks lived in but you can always find clean clothes, bathroom is clean and you all have a made bed to climb into at the end of the day. I have physical disability. I throw in the flylady sink thing and even on a bad day the house is OK.

Yes. I have done TOMM in the past I need to get ink so I can print of the tasks

(I certainly did not mean to write kicking "everyone on the stairs" downstairs! I meant the physical items on the stairs ( to ensure the humans don't fall).

I do desperately need to find some energy today I have yawned at least 8 times in the past 15 mins . My eyes are watering as well . I can't shake of that just woke up feeling.

My living room, hall ,stairs are worse than they were yesterday. I also need to get some meals sorted for the week.

I can't do it tomorrow, as I have school run to do in morning. Back around 9.15_9.30 then dd meets me to walk the dog/s that takes till 11ish. Then I have GS with me till/when I pick the kids up .

Tuesday I'm not home all day.

Wednesday I have an appointment from 10-12. Then I have GS again.

I'm tree on Thursday. But by then it will all be a fuck up.

It really Dosen’t look that bad, yes there are things everywhere but it Dosen’t look like it would take that long to tidy.

I definitely think a lot can be done in 10mm a if you treat it as some kind of challenge to see how much you can get done in that time, you would surprise yourself, try it today tomorrow and then if you see an opportunity mprovement it’s encouraging so do 10mins every day this coming week

Guarantee the house would be in a much better state by the end of the week.

🤣 I never noticed till you pointed it out .

It's having the energy to do it in the first place

May be it is just the lack of iron that is the issue but the tablets for that should be working by now (eg I had those tablets in pregnancy as everyone did in those days even if they also ate a lot of red meat). I suppose you need to work out if the lack of energy is mental or physical. I remember after a bad virus for 6 weeks feeling utterly weak. I was really happy and not fed up but although I could type/work at home I could not even walk to the end of my road to watch my son in a sports match. After that I really did understand how frustrating it must be for people with ME/post viral illnesses to be told it was inthe mind when it was physical. that is complicated by the fact that if you are physically ill for a long time that also does make some people depressed so lots of over lap between physical and mental.

I can't shake of that just woke up feeling.

Shower does the job for me here OP.

Do you work outside of the home?
If you do, take a couple of sick days to regain your energy, you do sound anxious and exhausted which won’t improve until you stop and get some rest.

I suffer from quite bad anxiety and sometimes things mount up and get on top of me aswell which take me ages to then sort out because I’m also a huge procrastinator!

Sorry if you have said this before @Shithole101 but how old is GS?

With the stairs I try to just take one or two things up, or down, when I go up or down (if I'm not carrying something else / in a hurry etc).

It doesn't always work though. (We actually have a box on the stairs for random objects so as to try and avoid causing a trip hazard and I am very bad at keeping up with it).

Hmm, I’ve been on the fence as to whether or not to post as I know I will get jumped on.

I’ve seen your previous thread as well as this one and actually how you are living is not normal or ok for your children.

your home is not “warm” as a pp suggested, it is a neglectful environment for your children.

in addition you admit to feeding them several take outs per week or sandwiches.

you really need to get this sorted. The stairs in particular are a potential death trap in the event of a fire.

I would be really concerned for your children if I saw how they were living and I suspect this is partly why you don’t want visitors.

before the pile on becomes colossal, I’ve been a social worker for well over a decade and I’m certainly qualified to identify neglectful home environments.

please seek help op