Why Asking for Help is so Hard
February 15th, 2007In the previous post to my blog, I hinted at some of the difficulties I have at home – my house is unhealthy. I simply cannot manage to keep my house clean. In the past, I’ve remarked to a friend, “I choose between working, eating, or cleaning – I can manage any two of these at a time, but I’ve never been able to do all three during any period of my life.” Right now, I am working and eating. Thus the house is a disaster.
First, my problem is not a problem of money. I can afford to hire a part-time housekeeper.
It’s also not a problem of motivation. I really do want the house cleanish. I function best in an orderly environment – I loose energy and abilities when I live in an environment like the one I’m in right now. I’m also worried about what would happen to me if some people knew exactly how bad off I am in this area.
The problem is that asking and getting help is difficult. I’ve not found a magical way of getting past this, and this is an area where it’s really hard for me to trust someone else – after all, it is my house, my private space, and I don’t want just anyone making decisions about it. Yes, I realize that sometimes we have to compromise in life, but of course compromising depends upon me having excess coping capacity. I don’t have that.
I also am very hesitant to have my very few friends help me with this. While I trust them, I can’t risk burning them out. I may have a real crisis one day, one that I don’t have the option of trying to live through or ignore. I’ve watched other disabled people use friends and family for support – and often the result is friends that end up trying to avoid the disabled person while the disabled person, as a result of the friends avoiding having to help, has to resort to deception (“Hey, this will take just a few minutes”) to get the help he needs. The end result is a loss of true friendship, and resentment on both sides. My friends need to be friends, not support staff. In fact, I’d say friendship is far more important to me than the support staff is – despite having problems which are growing to the point of becoming dangerous to me, and not having support staff to work through those.
It’s okay to ask friends for occasional help. That’s what friends do. But because I have so many issues in my life which could need help, I need to do some triage and use my friends for the things that I have no choice but to ask.
Another problem with outside help is that the current state of my house – which would take a full-time person weeks to straighten out, I think – is so horrible that it’s not clean enough for a housekeeper yet! This is probably ego and pride getting in the way, but it is there.
The only solution is for me to get help. But that help is still inaccessible to me. I’m not blaming society or others, certainly I got myself into this mess. But I really don’t see a way out that wouldn’t involve losing some freedom or control over my life. I also worry about losing my job. Control and employment are very important to me. I could manage without either if I had to, but right now it hasn’t yet got to the point where I have to. That point is approaching, and it scares me, but, not yet. Not being willing to do what I need to do when there is no good answer is definitely one of the more dysfunctional parts of my personality.
I’m a bit shakey on my facts but I believe that many people qualify for in home respite [housekeeping] duties – connected with social security. Once you’ve been assessed you would have access to agency staff which avoids the liability issues. Once you’ve found someone from the agency that you like / feel comfortable with they might be willing to come extra hours [days] so help sort things out gradually over an extended period of time.
Best wishes
The “Children of Hoarders” website has a list of companies that deal with cleaning up “hoarded environments” – a cleaner like that might be able to help, if it’s that bad. I hope you find a way to resolve your dilemma.
All the best.
Not sure if this will be any help, but I would imagine that your friends would probably be fine with assisting you in this regard. I really doubt that they’d rather see you damage your health than ask them for assistance, regardless of the nature of that assistance. And there’s always the fact that if you wait too long, people will likely need to provide you with even more assistance.
But I definitely empathize on the executive-functioning-bandwidth issues. I only just figured out how to eat regularly fairly recently, but work has been so logistically confounding this week that my lunches have been fairly pathetic. I think that the fact that I live with someone probably helps me; we are both very independently-minded so we don’t crowd each other’s space, but having someone there can help trigger me into action when it comes to cleaning up and eating, etc. (Not that they nudge me physically or anything like that, but sometimes just seeing another person around helps me not “go off in my head” so much..)
The good news is that you recognize there is a problem, and you want to find a solution. The other good news is that you have some financial wherewithall to accomplish this (which means you can do this without having to tap into your friends’ goodwill).
With those two things, I think you will find your way out of this.
I think you need to decide if you can stay in your present space. You may need to talk to someone objective to help you decide if that is a good way to go.
If you decide to stay, then a major clean up by a company followed by a regular housekeeper might be the answer.
If you decide to leave your present space, you may still be able to be independent in a smaller, more defined space (as I think someone mentioned yesterday). Otherwise, it may be a matter of making other arrangements.
Again, I DO think you will work your way out of this.
Good luck, and hang in there. You’ve got a lot going for you.
Once you get your house back in shape and/or move to a more manageable space, you might consider hiring a professional organizer to analyze why clutter is building up and design ways to make dealing with it on-the-spot so easy you don’t even have to think about it.
In fact, it might be beneficial to have that person come see your house now (or as soon as you can stand to have it seen), in order to understand where the issues lie.
You’ll get through this!
i am a hoarder, so i understand. except i can actually work around the “piles” and get to a point where i don’t see them… which is better and also worse than your situation, where the mess gives you problems. but my piles make my husband crazy, so i will have to clean eventually. he is maybe more the kind who can’t work well in the midst of chaos.
my other problem is that i can’t let other people sort out my junk because there are things in there that i “need” to save, and i put this in quotes cos that’s how others will see it… but i feel it as a strong almost physical need, not to lose certain things… some of my husband’s drawings (in his school notebooks, instead of notes), old cards from friends… i feel like if i throw out the thing, i throw out part of the person. so only i can sort out the trash from the “treasures”.
i wonder if you could trade time with your friends, assuming you have different skills from them? you will fix their car or their computer next time it has a problem, if they help you clean. etc. i think sometimes a trade is better than a favor, as long as people are not too exact about it (“i worked 3.7 hourse for you so you must work 3.7 hours for me”, no, that would be just too silly).
i would be absolutely freaked out about having professionals in, for a number of reasons. a few friends have seen my house (and my office, which is a preview) and are still my friends.
i hope/pray you can get this sorted, in some way. the way that can work for you is the best thing for you to do, regardless of what advice any of us might give you.
I relate all too well. I read the suggestions people made in the replies and so many sound overwhelming.
And yet, if I lived near you I would be ahppy to help
Definitely ask for help. Just do it, as they say.
I don’t know how it is for you, but past a certain level of disorganization, my mind completely freezes up. I’m simply not wired to handle it in any sort of efficient manner. But there are people who have that wiring, such that things that look like an irreconcilable disaster to me are no big deal to them. You need to find one of them, whether a friend or a temporary personal assistant or a professional cleaner, and prepare to bask in the pleasure of watching a task done well.
I will be eternally grateful to the friend who, before my recent move, came to my place to help me sort through things and figure out what to get rid of. With her there, it all made sense, we went through drawers and boxes according to her system and then like magic, I had less stuff. It was freakin’ fabulous.
Anyway, I bet you’ll be so relieved that you’ll wonder why you ever waited.
First of all, you are not alone! LOTS of us (yes, even NTs!) have trouble managing the cleaning and organization of our homes. And once it gets bad, it is too overwhelming to do anything. And the shame keeps us from asking for help, or we don’t know where to begin.
I don’t know whether your problem is solely the cleanliness of your home, or if you have a problem with organization as well. With me, my piles of crap get so big that it is hard to mop and sweep.
If it is just a cleanliness issue, I would hire a cleaning company to do a big sweep. If you live near a university, look for companies that clean the campus apartments. (My parents are campus landlords. You wouldn’t believe the condition of those apartments when the kids move out… Anyway, my parents use cleaning companies in the campus area that specialize in “move-out” cleans. Nothing shocks them, and quite frankly, they couldn’t care less about judging the former tenants.) If you are too overwhelmed, ask your friends to make the call for you. Honestly, this is not too much to ask from your friends.
Once your place is clean, you can then set up a part-time housekeeper. Of course, if you need organization help, you (or your friends) can call a professional home organizer to come in and work with you. But the cleaning has to happen first.
Good luck!
I found “The Flylady” (flylady.com) to offer a great way to begin the process of combatting total chaos. It involves very simple beginning, and the building of step-by-step routines that end up taking only seconds each once the process is implemented. This sounds like bunk, but I’ve done it, and created organization for my home with several kids. I’m off the bandwagon now, with a baby who is bent on destruction, but once she’s under control, I’m going to get back to those easy little routines that totally keep everything in shape with only a few minutes spent a day. The most important thing was, there’s no guilt, no pressure. Just starting right where you are with small steps. It’s worth checking out.
I have a similar problem. It got worse after a brain injury. I’m extremely motivated not to live in filth, but I can’t figure out how to do that. I tried to get help from brain injury groups, but their position was that if I could cook and keep myself clean, then I didn’t qualify for services. People give me helpful hints such as “clean just one area a day, and pretty soon they’ll all be clean” and while I can understand the theory behind that, it just doesn’t work for me.
And I don’t think it’s just laziness or depression–as people have suggested.
Thanks for posting this. I know I’m not the only one.