Tag: ocd

Letting Go of Things

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Disclaimer:

With this kind of post, there is a tendency to see it as a pity post or complaining. that is not the intent. With issues like OCD and ADHD along with others, I think transparency is very important. Part of the difficulties of being neurodiverse in these ways is feeling like you are alone. I think talking about the things that are difficult for us are important.

I love a clean house. A clean car. A clean yard. You get the picture. I really like things clean. I actually don’t mind cleaning. It helps me to destress.

Having kids in general challenges that. There is a certain level of mess in between cleanings that you just have to learn to live with or you are constantly cleaning all day, doing nothing else.

When the kids were younger, it was manageable to keep things clean. I had a system. I would clean at night time and return everything to its place. If needed, I’d pick up a little during the day. I made sure that everything had a place and then it was easy to clean up. I got a roomba and that helped with the floors.

But then E got older annd learned to get into things. He loves food, and he loves making messes. He craves the sensory aspect of smearing things. (Not just food if you catch my drift.) We lock up our cupboards. Lock up the cabinets, lock the rooms he is not in, but he still manages.

I cannot watch E every second and so I have had to learn to be okay with his messes. His trails of crumbs. His getting into my purse and tracking things out. Turning on the water. Taking things off bookshelves. It is like having a perpetual two year old but with the intelligence of an 8 year old in figuring out how to do things. He has the emotional age of 2-3 and the intelligence of an 8 year old.

He is a smart boy and sometimes when I am not looking, if I have the cabinet open to get dinner ready or something else, he will grab food coloring or crystal light packets. Something. And hide it for later. Then when I leave the room, I come back to red floors and walls. There are certain things that we stop buying, but on the other hand, there are certain things that I do want to have on hand. Crystal light helps him to drink more fluids.

We use lockboxes for keys ever since he stole my keys once and started the car and locked us out. (That’s a story for another day)

He has discovered a fondness for art and drawing. He has also discovered that his preferred medium is my walls. It’s easy to say, lock up anything that writes, but harder to do. Especially when you have a 10 year old who might leave something out for homework or forget to lock her room. Or is playing with E in her room and he grabs a marker and hides it.

I have learned that if E wants to do something he will find a way to do it. I try to then simulate the desired experience in a controlled environment. Like having E help me bake a cake, however he desires his independence and wants to do these things alone.

With the constant cleaning up after E, some things can wait till night, while others like sticky or wet things can’t, I don’t have time to do other things that need it. The car, my room, laundry, bathrooms. Some of the things I can hire a cleaning lady for, but others are more difficult.

Learning to live with this mess has been very difficult for me. In the past, cleaning is how I maintained a visage of control. It is my outlet, and it is my OCD. Without it, I don’t know how to cope.

I don’t judge other people on the cleanliness of their houses. I don’t even notice it. But mine, hugely.

I will create organization plans and schedules, how to keep on top of things. Those work for a little while. But then I get sick or am out of town, and things go downhill again, and I have to make up for it.

I wish I did not care about the cleanliness of my house. I wish I could let it go. I am trying, but old coping skills are hard to break.

With ADHD, there is a lot of all or nothing thinking. Like either it is all clean or not at all. Once my room starts to get messy, I think whatever, and then am not careful about putting things away.

I like to have time with my kids and I don’t want to pass on unhealthy habits or have A afraid to make messes, so I am learning to let things go and be okay with something level of mess.

I tell myself that there are more important things than a perfectly clean house.

So in the mean time, until I find that happy medium… Don’t judge me for dirty baseboards and messy room.

TLDR; I I hate messes but am learning to deal with them and not be a control freak.

What do you all struggle with? The hardest thing for you to let go?

A Story About Clay and Skepticism

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When I was 6 years old, my older sister took a pottery class. We lived in Columbus Ohio at the time. While we did not have a lot of money, there were some community free one-time classes that we were sometimes able to attend. Because we did not have a lot of money, this kind of thing was more of a special experience.

My sister brought a home a bowl from the class. What interested me about this bowl was that it air dried. I had seen videos on PBS about making things out of clay and putting them into the kiln. This was something I had never heard of! I made things out of play-doh but those never dried into anything tangible like a bowl. She told me about her class and explained the clay to me and how it was already dry but what would harden up even more.

Everything that my older sister did was interesting to me. I envied most activities got to do and toys that she got as gifts. This was no exception.

I was in awe. It became an obsession. I watched it in continuous astonishment throughout the day. Most of my brain believed her, but there was a small piece that thought maybe she was mistaken. Or perhaps the teacher was mistaken.

How could something like play-doh turn into a usable object.

I couldn’t get the thoughts out of my head. I would play a little bit and then come back to this bowl. I’d touch it softly when no one was looking to see how far along we were on the process.

When you are a child, time goes on forever. This story may have spanned a few days, but because I was younger, I don’t remember exactly the timeline.

What’s important is that I just didn’t think it was hardening and I was beginning to think that one of us had been duped in this situation. I even felt a little bad for my sister. Poor, naive, going into this pottery class so excited to make her masterpiece. The teacher was an art major, but of course as a child, we always know better than anyone else. It was definitely a possibility that she was wrong.

After being warned off of touching it a dozen or so times, over the span of a few days maybe, I lay in bed at night thinking about the bowl. I wanted to believe in this magic, but my belief was fading.

My sister and I had bunk beds. I was on the bottom. She was on the top. I was pretty sure I could sneak out after she was done reading to check on the bowl. I needed to do it on my own without people telling me to stop touching it or to get away from it.

Our bedroom was upstairs right by the staircase. The bowl was downstairs on the dining room table just off of the staircase a bit. I checked on the top bunk to see if my sister was asleep. She was. In the hallway, I listened carefully for my parents. Were they still awake? Not hearing anything, I made my way downstairs. I checked on the bowl again. Finally in peace assessing the masterpiece. Again I was disappointed.

Since no one was around, I decided to test its strength. Pretty sure they would thank me for this later. I picked the bowl up off of the table and raised it high above my head. With force I threw it down on the ground. It made a huge breaking sound because turns out it was dry.

My parents and my sister came down to see what was going on. They looked at me standing guilty by the table and the bowl broken in pieces all over the floor. My sister was devastated. She already saw me as the obnoxious little sister and let me tell you, this did not help things at all.

My parents were so confused. What in the world? Why did you wake up in the middle of the night to come and break your sisters bowl? I didn’t know really how to explain it except with the truth. I wanted to see if it was dry. I don’t remember the rest of what happened. I am sure I was duly punished, but there was no replacing my sisters bowl.

Whenever I complain about my sister being mean to me as a child, this story inevitably comes up along with a few others. But, I can’t blame her. It was pretty weird of me.

POST NOTE:

Later in life, I was diagnosed with OCD and incidents like this made a lot more sense.