Not hypocritical, just different. I have this issue especially with clothes and such. However for me, the items are essentially in another plane of existence if I'm not directly interacting with them. For me I'm not actively choosing to ignore it, until it hits a certain point i don't even notice.
Used to live with an ex who was like you, she used to tell me she didn’t notice. It’s something she picked up in childhood to survive the stress and trauma.
It's one of the most common symptoms of ADHD. Just sort of piling crap everywhere with the intention of going back later to put it away but then getting stressed by it and ignoring it instead.
Same. Was constantly told "this what you married; all girls are like this; you don't know how lucky you are; etc". I was actually cool with the messes and cleaning up and just accepted it. They were definitely "mildly infuriating" and chuckle worthy.
Things broke down when more serious problems arose and asks were met with unapologetic defiance and flipped scripts. That threw me into depression and feeling like I needed to change my perception. Personal therapy quickly shifted my outlook and couples therapy clearly showed my ex was not interested in changing anything, even with the marriage on the rocks.
Don't be embarrassed about overlooking something that is pretty mild in the grand scheme of things.
Who would choose ADHD? ADHD isn’t a choice. I wouldn’t choose to have a disability if I had a choice.
It’s a disability and everyone in this comment section shaming another person for a messy dresser doesn’t understand disabilities and lacks the capacity for both empathy and awareness. Especially undiagnosed ADHD. And everyone else saying “I have ADHD and I’m not messy”, were you messy before you were diagnosed or did you just develop high anxiety to mask all of your symptoms?
If the first place they turn to is shame instead of compassion, they are doing more harm than good.
I am perfectly capable Myself for my as someone with undiagnosed ADHD and I have tested it, you can overcome things like this, which I did before I found out Ritalin calmed me down.
You can’t use shortcomings as a crutch as to why you cannot become capable of something or you’ll never become capable of it The only thing to do is try and try and try again until you form the habits that can help you
Great I’m glad your ADHD symptoms don’t affect your daily life as much as it does for other people. No matter how hard someone with a disability tries, they cant always be “fixed” no matter how hard they try. Their symptoms can sometimes be masked and temporarily treated with medications or in my experience self-medicating before I was undiagnosed.
If you said that same thing to someone who couldn’t walk, then they would be just as pissed off as I am. “If only you tried hard enough, maybe you could walk.”
“You can’t use the excuse that you’re unable to walk or else you’ll never be able to walk.” Is the same as saying “you can’t use your disability as a crutch to why you’re not capable of something.”
Seriously?
Just because your symptoms don’t affect you the same way someone else with the same disability does, doesn’t mean you should tell them to just get better. Which is basically what you’re saying.
I mean, I intend to clean. Because look at my kitchen counters, so many dishes! But I go to put away the mug and realize the mug cupboard is overly full. So I guess I should go through these and purge some mugs. I'll grab a box to use as a donation bin. But now the box is only half full. What else should I put in there? Something from the closet? Shit, the laundry basket is overflowing in there, better toss a load in. Ew! The detergent is leaking onto the bottle, better try and rinse that-
All day, every day, unless I manage myself big time hahah. It takes so much note-taking, colour coding and alarm setting to overcome all of this that I have hilariously gotten the reputation at work of being super organized and on the ball. Shhh, nobody tell them that I'm secretly a dumpster fire.
Yea I kinda resent it when people assume that all people with ADHD must be slobs. Decluttering and organizing my surroundings is a coping mechanism. An overload of visual stimuli (like this dresser) amplifies the chaos in my head. That can lead to a further downward spiral. So keeping my environment organized is a high priority, even if it takes a lot of mental effort to do.
ADHD is associated with starting a task and not finishing it, like bringing a bottle of water to the room but never opening it or taking one sip, then next time forgetting you brought up that bottle of water and bringing a new one, 🔂
Inattention is one of the 5 criteria. Struggling with chores falls under it. So does trouble organizing tasks and activities, excessively losing things, and lack of attention to detail. All of these struggles make it harder to keep house.
Difficulty breaking large projects down and avoidance of tasks requiring sustained attention are huge manifestations.
Just curious, how does your ADHD impact you? I have it and when the mood strikes I cam clean and organize better than anyone, but the mood has to strike and I can't really control when. I need an external pressure like my MIL coming to visit. I'm not surprised someone with ADHD is clean, because if someone genuinely likes cleaning I can see it being really rewarding and full of dopamine hits, but MOST people don't "enjoy" cleaning. I'm kind of shocked you haven't heard the association. One of the first characteristics I would guess about someone, only knowing they have ADHD, would be that they are disorganized.
Decluttering and organizing my surroundings is a coping mechanism. An overload of visual stimuli (like this dresser) amplifies the chaos in my head. That can lead to a further downward spiral. So keeping my environment organized is a high priority, even if it takes a lot of mental effort to do.
Podcasts help me through the process (which, admmittedly, is inefficient. A labelmaker and plenty of baskets/boxes in closets and drawers help me).
Podcasts are the greatest recommendation for things like this! For some reason I went through a period where initiating showers was super hard for me. I couldn't tell you why. In there, I was happy as a clam. Anyway, I decided I could ONLY listen to my favorite crime podcast in the shower. It worked and shortly after I could shower just fine again. ADHD is weird.
Also, I LOVE decluttering. Like, could be a professional organizer. People at work think I'm super neat. Nope. I can't get myself started at home with no pressure. I get super depressed if I let it get messy and I hate it, but task initiation is ridiculous for me sometimes. I will sit in one place dreading and trying to will the moment I get up and start.
I'm pregnant(yay!) and off my meds, which is why I am on the couch at 2am rambling to you instead of getting my ass up and in bed. I'm begging myself to stop the reddit hyperfocus and take the 10 steps. I can keep answering you in there! But just like when I intend to clean, I will just finish this one comment and then start.... ❤️ hope your strategy keeps working for you!!
No, but I think it's about to be! At the time it was Crime Junkie, but I dropped that hyperfocus months ago. I just finished a couple audiobooks so I will give MFM a try. Maybe it will help me sleep today lol
“Maybe it will help me sleep today…”
Nnnnope. 😅
But I love it! I’m up to episode 42
( just discovered April ‘24 but it’s about 8 years old🙄.)
It’s wonderful, and full of recommendations for other good ones.
And let's be real, if some water bottles not making it to the receptacle is the worst issue in a household, that's fuckin great(especially if they have adhd or depression)
I'm saying that people suffer from adverse mental states beyond their control that can manifest as untidiness. I'm not saying that they're incapable of throwing out some bottles, it's not a complicated concept.
If (as the subtext claimed) the author graduates early from school and college and overexerted themselve then coming to the realization that some rest and recovery are justified is pretty natural
But that is such a niche situation. Id be more than surprised if any of their research can be replicated even once.
How is this beyond control? I dont care about anything in my life and i dont really feel myself as a person anymore, there is no actual meaning in anything, not a single reason for any activity, but i still am able to keep everything somewhat organised even if it doesnt look clean, this guy placed everything in the most random places ever.Just make it easier for yourself and clean it up a little. If you are going to keep up with everything looking like that than you are the opposite of depressed
The wierd thing is, if you're online enough, you know exactly how that commenter came to that conclusion.
There's a phenomenon among depressed people to accumulate garbage and clutter in their bedroom, often resembling the living situation of an extreme hoarder. When I say extreme, I mean very fucking extreme. At the peak of my struggle with it, I accumulated 4 foot piles of garbage; paper fast food delivery bags with food in them that were several months old, among other random crap. The floor of my room was completely covered with 1-2 feet, at least, of garbage which attracted mice and all sorts of bugs, save for the couple square feet of floor necessary to open and close my door.
The phenomenon has been called "a depression den/depressions dens" on social media. There was a brief trend of photos of these situations being posted on reddit, sometimes in the form of before and after shots.
All that being said, it's weird watching people, in real time, expand the definition of the term to the point that they're applying it to a moderately cluttered dresser. Kinda follows this general trend of people pathologizing everything/reframing everything in psychiatric terms.
Yeah it's foolish to assume based on a photo, but even so a messy living space is usually an indication of something else. People are just more aware, and that may or may not be a good thing
Yeah... people have watched too many episodes of Hoarders and think everything is a mental disorder. Unless you count being a lazy slob a mental disorder.
Yeah. That’s all can think about. This woman is drowning. People go through things, have busy weeks, get sick and their night stands get cluttered. But this looks like so much longer than a rough week.
OP needs to try to offer some help.
For real. Forget the buying water issue, my first thought was that an adult who’s bedroom looks like that is the sign of a much deeper problem that asking her husband to buy more water without finishing what they have. The place is a dump.
Criticism and contempt are two of Gottman's Four Horsemen of the Relationship Apocalypse. As grandiosely as he has titled it (mostly because he has a sense of humor I think), it really does make a difference.
I would say ADHD dresser, but there’s a lot of crossover there. She is disorganized in a bad way, and that can have a multitude of reasons. But for me, the fact she can’t remember where the water is, tells me it’s ADHD, since that can be a major symptom.
For sure. He is posting this to humiliate her, as if he isn’t part of the problem too. If she is struggling to keep things straight, why not help her out a bit? Or help her get other forms of support, get counseling or something. I understand not wanting to clean up after your partner, but it’s a whole other thing not help her AND post images shaming her for a mental disorder out of her control. It’s people with low self esteem that often struggle the most to take care of themselves and their environments. Shaming her will only make that worse. She needs encouragement, not insults.
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u/cherrylpk 27d ago
Depression dresser.