Related Posts
Inflation is a b*tch
Pro
How I’m feeling right now..
More Posts
Bowl Leader
Conversation Starter
Additional Posts in Depression/Anxiety Talk
Opinions on AbleTo?
Chief
Rising Star
Conversation Starter
New to Fishbowl?
Download the Fishbowl app to
unlock all discussions on Fishbowl.
unlock all discussions on Fishbowl.
DMed you!
Chief
You feel out of control about something and you need to address it stat. Compulsive cleaning escalates ugly if not treated.
Chief
Yes my own dad was like this, and I have an aunt with the same issue. By the end of his life he was compulsively collecting items until he passed with 70 Fresca bottles in the garage (all expired). The issue is he wasn’t even cleaning what he thought he was cleaning. A neurotypical looking to clean would invest an hour or two now and again and clean the entire space properly, but the patterns in his type of cleaning were like using clean parts of an old sponge to swab the same part of the counter at the same time every day while leaving crumbs on far flung parts of the counter. He’d put tub powder to scrub but would leave mildew on the walls.
When you stand back and empirically see it, if you are spending more time cleaning the same items or organising them regularly but do not see a corresponding shift in their cleanliness commensurate with effort, there’s a flag. Today I organized my lipstick by color, tomorrow by brand and finish then color..it’s a waste of life. I’m mild on this spectrum, and I know I’m avoiding the difficult issues around my breakup, health, and life not being where I want them to be at this age. I feel worthless, so I’m investing in worthless details and activities. At this point the $1000 I spent on this lipstick would better serve me if I even threw all of them out.
You’re avoiding something in your life and using this cleaning as a low effort activity to feel productive when it’s just an excuse, and whatever that thing is is making you feel a loss of control over your life. So instead of attacking the difficult problem, you’re focusing on a small fry activity because it is easy. Your level of attn will go from high up down to lower and lower until you’re paranoid about germs. It’ll be anything except dealing with the giant difficult emotions or issues driving you to this behavior.
You’ll create bigger problems for yourself and this will snowball until it overwhelms you, so I suggest getting someone to methodically guide you out of your habits one step at a time before this gets worse. Nip it in the bud. My aunt second removed is OCD extreme, and she has a weird plastic bag system for going to the bathroom because she feels the seat is unclean. The raw sewage in a plastic bag is no better. She’ll scrub her skin in boiling hot water until it comes off and bleeds.
I mean..no matter what ghost you’re avoiding, you cannot love yourself so little as to let yourself slide. Self care looks like pulling out the big guns and tough love more than it looks like a day at the spa.
I wonder what it is you’re dealing with that has driven you to this place? Sometimes people even need help identifying it. In the short term you may want to downsize or rid yourself of a lot of belongings so you have less to maintain.