No money. Mess everywhere. Depressed

[notcopingbugger]

Trying to pull myself together

Our home is in such a state I won't let anybody in or open the door properly

Even if it was tidy I can't afford to decorate it and no energy

I'm overweight and overwhelmed and comfort myself binge eating into an early grave

My health is awful. My home is awful. I'm crap at relationships and unemployed currently

Need help pulling myself up and together. Motivate me please. I want to run away but I can't

notcopingbugger Historical stuff is hard to talk about, isn't it? I know a lot of my emotional things are from abuse trauma and when my GP or CPN asks how I am I find it very difficult to tell them the truth. I tend to present at being better than I am. It is a hard habit to break, I find. The "I'm fine" thing. I tend to see it as a survival mechanism in itself.

Start small. Food wise, make easy meals - baked spuds in microwave, beans on toast, omelette, soup, pasta and jar of sauce - just to get yourself started. MacDs will just suck your money.

If even house is a tip. Make sure your getting yourself to bed at certain time, then getting up, have a shower and get dressed.

Once you have that routine down then start bit by bit tackling the house.

I found writing stuff down, like your posts and handing them to professional to read is easier than actually having to say it

No money for a cleaner. I daydream about it

my cleaner is funded through my PIP partly and partly via council. I had to wait over a year to get the council Adult Care to do anything though.

It's a shame there isn't a website where people who need help can ask for it, and people who want to help can give it. Although, I realise it wouldn't really work because there are bad people out there who would use it for other things. It's a shame. I would happily give up a few hours of my time each week to help someone that needed some cleaning and tidying.

OP - can you ask a friend or family member to give you 2 hours of their time to make a big start on one room? Reward them with tea and biscuits.

How are you feeling today, OP?

I suffer from depression and anxiety. It’s really difficult at weekends to motivate myself to get dressed and get out of the house.

I echo all the posters who say to start small, if you can achieve small goals then it does spur you on to do more. Starting at the front door was an excellent suggestion.

Do that today! Get a bin bag and wazz some stuff.

Let us know when you’ve done it.

How old are your children , can you get them to do even small tasks like sorting laundry or wiping table/worktop. Anything that is in the wrong place should go in a box at the bottom of the stairs so you or whoever goes up next can take it up. Do housework in short bursts of 10 minutes, then take a break.

Work out how much your takeaways are costing each week - could you do burgers and chips for less from Iceland , and eventually make your own from mince , breadcrumbs, egg and onion which would save you money. Likewise plain Pizza bases with drained tinned tomatoes and choice of topping. It may also be healthier and that in turn give you more energy. Stop buying the snacks so if you want something you have to go out and find it, either you would decide not to bother or at least a short walk works off some of the calories. If money is an issue could you talk to CAB about budgetting and making sure you claim everything you should. Some children's centres run courses where you can share tips and have community workers to offer practical and emotional support.

Who takes your dc to school if you only do the pick up? If you have young children at home do they get exercise and fresh air each day? Park, library , walk round the block will all help lift your and their mood. In the shorter term maybe there is Homestart in your area who can send a volunteer to support you.

I found fly lady really helpful, declutter 15 minutes at a time, it took a long time to get that bad it will take time to clear it. Mind - my own home us better than it was but still a long way to go. Google it and see if you want to try it. Rome wasn’t built in a day!

You’re going to get loads of ideas on here, all good and valid, but they might start feeling overwhelming.

My advice? Pick the ONE thing that’s bugging you most. Tackle that and ONLY that for a week. Then choose something for the next week, and so on.

I have found some of the flylady stuff incredibly helpful. Particularly the 30 baby steps which got me into basic routines and the 5 minute room rescue (which is basically going into the worst room in your house and doing 5 minutes only)...My front sitting room is now clear and i couldn't even get the door open a few months ago.

I find the concept of babysteps much better for me than a Marie kondo type approach as i try and tavke every thing, get overwhelmed and give up. i need to learn to let go of perfectionism.

A lot of the flylady stuff is hard for me to access on her website, i just find it cluttered and a bit overwhelming but have been helped so much by watching 'diane in denmark' talk about it on youtube, she goes through all the babysteps in easy chatty videos that i would highly recommend, she is great.

Remember if it did't get messy in a day its not going to get clean in a day, but ebvery night you can go to bed knowing you're a bit nearer.

Tonight I have cleaned the kitchen worktops, cleaned the bathroom, cleaned the toilet, organised washing into piles and put bins out and hoovered around remaining mess.

Bloody hell notcoping, that's an amazingly good start.
Do not worry about the food. You are starting with the tidying. One thing at a time.
Are you on your own or are there dc/dp?

Op many of us have been there. I have watched an ikea bag on dc floor splayed out with crap for a year (as well as other rubbish). I only tackled it this week.
As other pp say teeny tiny steps. Your not going to tackle whole mess, just five minutes worth that's all.
You look at the teeny part you tackle and you say....

I am in control of Me, I can choose to not do this, leave that mess and carry on feeling miserable or I can take control and choose to spend five minutes on that. What am I going to choose.

BTW I ended up in a flow and did whole of dd room, I feel pure joy stepping in there now and she gave me a massive hug when she came home. It's pure joy in there. (just don't look in other dd room where lots of stuff got plonked)

One more thing, make sure you have plenty of plastic bags to immediate hand for rubbish and charity shop stuff. Getting into a rare and precious flow mindset to clear then having to vacate to room to search for rubbish disposal can be end game.

Whatever the historical stuff is and even though you have had some sort of counselling it obviously didn't work for you. Maybe you weren't ready to really talk, maybe you didn't click with the therapist or maybe it was just entirely the wrong sort.

As much as I hope you can tidy up your home over the next few weeks unless you find the right kind of way of dealing with your historical stuff this pattern will sadly very probably reoccur. It's not a criticism it's a genuine hope and push that you will seek out and find the right therapy for you. Good luck.

Try an unfuckening? www.unfuckyourhabitat.com/

You didn't get to where you are in one go so don't put pressure on yourself to get it sorted in one go. You'll run out of steam. Take a picture, Set a timer, clean for 20 mins or whatever is manageable, rest for 10 mins and repeat. You'll get there one step at a time

Not read the full thread, but my immediate reaction to your post is that all of these things sound like a manifestation of being depressed.

Don't try to make yourself change everything at once. See your GP, tell him/her how much you are struggling, ask to be referred to a weight loss group where others will help support you. Once you start seeing results there, that will boost your confidence a little.

Housework - when I was depressed I was terrible at doing the housework. It felt absolutely pointless doing anything because I felt like I had a mountain to climb, so was crap at doing much at all. It felt like doing any one thing would still leave so much to do, so what was the point in doing any one task? THAT is how depression gets you. But even something as simple as cooking myself a proper meal made a difference as it made me feel like "ah, okay, I can do things". Getting started was always the hardest part though!

Tackle your problems one at a time in manageable chunks and give yourself credit for everything you achieve along the way.

Hope it works out for you xxxxx

some great advice here. Flylady def worth a try. Also music while you were. Housework often seems so pointless but if you've got your ears plugged into something funny on iplayer you can clean on autopilot whilst entertaining yourself. It does lift the spirits. Good Luck x

Google adult ADHD

And re tidying, set timer for 8min and just do that. You are capable of change, I promise.

notcopinbugger
Yes! To all the above. Just make yourself do some tidying/cleaning for ten minutes a day. Music on! Little jig maybe as you do it! You will soon notice the difference, then you will feel better, in yourself.
Let us know about your achievements, however small, each day.
We will encourage you, sweetheart. You are not alone!

Make yourself a daily timetable each morning and stick to it no matter how mundane and insignificant each 'job' seems.

For example, start each day with:

8am - Get up, shower, wash/dry hair, get dressed
9am - Breakfast: toast, cereal etc. Write daily timetable whilst eating breakfast.

It will give you a focus for the day and will probably be quite hard at first to actually put into practice.
You have to force yourself.
It's horrible I know OP.

Don't write a timetable! You're setting yourself up to fail. I

Just do eight minutes. Or six if eight feels too much.

tims
I disagree.
After endless days doing exactly what OP describes every day, this is what saved me.