# Depression cleaning



## As'laDain (Nov 27, 2011)

So, i have noticed that my wife and i have very different methods of cleaning a room when we are depressed. 

I'm not talking about normal cleaning... I'm talking about what happens when you get depressed, get lazy, and then eventually look around and realize that the mere thought of cleaning it is overwhelming. The times when you get anxious about it just walking in the door. 

That is depression mess. My wife usually starts with one small area and just cleans that. It may be just a tiny corner of the house... Usually just a single square foot to start with. But, it doesn't overwhelm her, so she can do it. But, then she has to stop. Sometimes, it takes her a week to get throught the house. 

My method is kinda the opposite... I stead of cleaning a small spot to start with, i condense the mess into a small spot. Everything on the floor goes into a pile in the corner. And i mean everything... The rest of the room looks clean pretty quick. It really doesn't take long at all to shove everything in a corner. Just think about how long a kid can shove everything into their closet when they are told to clean their room. 

After that, I'll usually take a break and then pull things out of the pile by category. First, all the dishes. Then all the clothes, then all the trash, etc etc etc. It takes my wife ten times longer to get the same room clean, but she doesn't work as hard when she is cleaning it. For me, it ends up working better if o get as much done as possible while i have energy to clean at all. 

If she were to use my methods, the giant pile of stuff would overwhelm her. If i were to use her methods, i would burn out before i got much done. 

She CAN do the giant pile thing of i am there... She just needs someone to remind her that the next step is to ONLY look for the cups. Or the socks. Or whatever, and that it will only take a minute or two to pull all of them out. I can do her method too, but i need someone to talk to to keep my mind off of it. 

Usually, our house only gets like this when we have a whole lot of stress. There have been many times when i was deployed while my wife was going through severe medical issues, and you would be surprised at how fast things can get super messy when you are by yourself and dealing with chronic pain. That happens to me too. I'm currently living apart from my wife and daughter due to military orders coming with zero notice because of COVID. By the time she moves up here we will have been separated for almost a year. Well, the last couple weeks, i let the house get pretty messy. Very very cluttered. Mainly because i have been in a lot of pain and didn't really have the energy to do anything when i got home. 

I went to the emergency room recently and as it turns out, i have been passing a kidney stone that is 5 millimeters wide and 8 millimeters long. I actually thought that the pain i was feeling was coming from a pinched nerve...

After getting some medications that helped a lot with the pain, i did my trick with my apartment and cleaned it in just a few hours. It certainly feels better to see the apartment clean again. I'm still waiting on the kidney stone to pass, but at least now the pain is low enough that i can get to sleep. 

Anyway, this is something i was just thinking about... So i wondered if anyone else has developed methods for cleaning up the "depression mess". 

I'm not talking about normal day to day stuff. I'm talking about the kind of stuff that builds up to the point of causing anxiety.


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## In Absentia (Aug 21, 2012)

I've had a 1 cm kidney stone when I was younger and it was the most excruciating pain ever. I feel for you. Regarding the cleaning, my wife - being depressed - is similar, but she still manages to do it. I don't say anything... I let her doing it at her own pace or I just do it. But I don't mention it. In fact, I was never able to have any conversations regarding cleaning with my wife. If I did, she wouldn't talk to me for weeks.  Sorry, this probably doesn't really help.


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## Andy1001 (Jun 29, 2016)

If you can afford it, a cleaner for a few hours each week would solve your cleaning problem. As depression, are either of you having treatment?


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## Fozzy (Jul 20, 2013)

I do it like Asla does, except the dishes come out before i make the pile. Then all the shoes, sweaters, papers, books, toys...everything goes in a pile in the hallway where people have to step (or sometimes jump) over it. Since most of the mess comes from my kids, it gets solved pretty quick. I've only had to talk to them a few times about stepping over 'the pile'.


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## As'laDain (Nov 27, 2011)

Andy1001 said:


> If you can afford it, a cleaner for a few hours each week would solve your cleaning problem. As depression, are either of you having treatment?


We can certainly afford it, and we have done so in the past a few times. But, we have found that we get back to normal a lot faster of we do it ourselves. I guess it's a psychological thing. 

It's usually a fairly temporary thing. I come home from a deployment where i just lost some friends, and spend the next two weeks doing pretty much nothing but drinking and at my fish. My wife wakes up with a severely painful pinched nerve and just doesn't do much because it causes her excruciating pain to move her arms. By the time she is feeling better, she is already overwhelmed by the mess, and it just gets worse from there. 

So far as treatment, yes. We have both sought treatment when we need it. Cleaning the mess ourselves is actually part of us "doing our homework".

My wife and i talk about these things a lot to try and find ways to help each other self-correct.


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