Okay, I really hope I'm not the only one with this problem. Whenever I try to work on organizing my stuff, I get freaked out and feel this overwhelming sense of impending doom.

I think I know where this comes from. Before I was first molested in my bedroom, I used to love to keep my bedroom in order. Afterwards, I became a slob.

Now, when I feel halfway decent, I've been trying to take more control over my stuff and home because I'm really sick of being a slob. But I get extreme anxiety when I try the smallest thing.

For example, for the last couple of days I've been working on organizing my hair accessories instead of leaving them in a massive messy pile in my linen closet. Should be a no-brainer, right? Wrong!

I take a lot of breaks because this feeling is so strong. Yesterday I managed to collect and dump all my hair stuff on a spare bed and then had to quit. Today I managed to sort out the different hair stuff into piles: barrettes, ponytail holders, etc., then I had to quit. I have all kinds of containers to put these different things in sitting right there, but I can't get myself to do any more on it today.

I hate this feeling that something horrible is going to happen if I finish the task. I argue with myself and tell myself this is irrational . . . with little success.

So...long way of asking: Does anyone else have a similar problem? And, if so, do you have any ideas for overcoming this?

Btw, I do have this on my list to talk about with my therapist, but there are higher priority things I need to do with her for awhile.

OH DEAR YES ! ! !

You are doing exactly what I was going to suggest to you. So, 1 day you work on step 1 and the next day you work on step 2 , and so on. This is how to handle a situation like this. Or should I say this is how I do it.

We get so over whelmed by the mess, don't know wear to start and then get fried after a short period of time BECAUSE we keep looking at what needs to be done INSTEAD of what has been done.

After all, the mess has been there a long time, another day or 2 is not going to matter. But I have discovered that when my environment is a mess, so is my mind.
Just chip away at the mess a little at a time. Fix the hair things to COMPLETION and then tackle something else the same way.

Give yourself credit for what you have done so far. Ignore what is left. Pick a corner and start there. OH OH OH Also. Get a box, anything that does not belong in that room goes into the box. You fill it as you work your way through the mess, and yes get another box if needed. When your room is done----go to the next room---go through the box---- take out anything that belongs there-----put box at door and toss anything that does not belong there into the box. It works cuz when you are done all your crap is in the right room. THEN YOU CAN ORGANIZE! !

I hope this helps, it has helped me. If it takes a month OK it takes a month Just tackle it a small area at a time. It is like wearing blinders Only see the small space in front of you and eventually it gets all put away.

You should see my hallway when I get halfway done with my de-cluttering. OH YEA!


Don't worry about throwing stuff away at this point. That comes next (unless it IS trash)

Good luck, let me know how is goes. Trust me This works Just be patient and don't get upset at the slow pace.

Sorry this is so long but I get excited when I share this cuz know it works

Thanks, Grama-Herc! I need all the de-cluttering ideas I can get, and you have given me a lot of good ones.

The problem I'm still left with is this almost unbearable paralyzing sense of doom. Now I'm thinking, well, maybe it's a trigger (duh). So, now, how do we deal with triggers we can't or don't want to avoid? With baby steps? Aaaarrrgggghh. I hate this feeling.

wow, I love this forum. I thought I was the only one wigged out when tryng to the smallest thing. Once, I had to fall flat to the floor and cry and scream my way through that feelilng of impending doom. I was sweating and jerking and trembling. I have heaviness in my legs, and a pain in the lower back at other times. It feels like all my emotions are coming at me like a tidal wave, and all I can is just stand there and watch it smother me.

I have not come up with a solution yet except accept it as part of my PTSD. sorry!
You are not alone. I do little things at a time and give myself breaks.
Donna

hodge,

Maybe instead of 'organizing' you can just keep a couple of favorite items & put the rest in a box or something in the garage for another day or give to a local charity. By reducing the amount of items you have you automatically organize and things look neater/cleaner.

Hope this helps, people always say that less is more.

nlk

Oh Lordy, I've been through the spectrum on this.

Early on in my PTSD, when it was its worst and totally untreated (no therapy or anything) I could not figure out how to do the simplest things to clean my home ... couldn't figure out how to clean the garbage off the kitchen counter ... couldn't figure out how to clear enough crap off the carpet to vacuum it (and that brought up the question of how to use the vacuum?) ... cleaning off a surface in any room was out of the question.

I was feeling a couple of different things:

1. I was physically exhausted all the time, literally 24/7/365. It was as if I had just run a marathon. I had no energy. (I now understand this was the stress hormones working their magic in my body)

2. I was intellectually stupid, literally, in trying to figure these things out. I could not even identify what order the steps went, to do something. Like, I knew that the kitchen counter required a garbage bag, and the goal was to have a clean counter. And that garbage went in the bag. But what was garbage and what was not? And where should I start? What do I do first? I was literally stupefied. :(

3. The prospect of taking on a project (like cleaning the kitchen counter, or vacuuming the floor, or cleaning off the bathroom counter, or taking the garbage out) was overwhelming. Not like, I-can-work-through-it overwhelming. I mean, deer-in-the-headlights, flabbergasted, frozen, inconceivable sort of overwhelming. I could not fathom the kind of energy such a project would require, and I was frozen-paralyzed by it, unable to even remotely conceive of how to do it.

4. When I would try to think through the steps to do any sort of simple thing, it was extremely difficult to even remember the steps; I often needed several minutes to recall each. Then once I felt I had all the steps (I wasn't intellectually sure, but it felt right) trying to put them together -- and especially to figure out where do I start? -- was exhausting. Literally, after 15 minutes of trying to sort out what to do and especially where to start, I was physically and mentally spent. It was all I could do to stumble my way to bed, where I would take a 4+ hour nap from the ordeal.

5. Repeat.

6. Repeat.

7. Repeat.


I did get some smarts and energy back, a little at a time (we are talking baby steps over the matter of 8+ months) once I started therapy. The way I handled therapy, I read about PTSD like crazy to learn about it, which in itself was a HUGE turning point for me. Therapy focussed more on core issues (personality traits, how I react to things, family baggage), which had a ripple effect on everything else. Once some of those core issues were figured out, some of my unrest went away. But it was s-l-o-w. For instance, although I now know how to create and take out a full bag of garbage, I still am completely missing most of what I learned in college... information that was very much intact the day before my trauma.


The next improvement was going on a 2nd med, Wellbutrin, for depression. (I was already on Paxil) My doc was prescribing it due to the depression symptoms he observed in his office, but fortunately the Wellbutrin has helped with my PTSD symptoms too. My paranoia and anxiety decreased, my flash-anger was gone (I still got mad! but like, normal mad), and I have a more positive outlook just in general. However the paranoia and anxiety still break through, they are not gone by any stretch, and they wash over me full-force like a huge tsunami if I miss even 1 day's dose of Wellbutrin. :( So it's not like the PTSD is gone. It is still roaring up there in my brain, IMO it's just that the Wellbutrin has corrected a certain element of brain chemistry or function that some of the PTSD symptoms are lessened.

Another thing the Wellbutrin has done for me, is it has made me able to work through mild paranoia or anxiety. It makes the paranoia and anxiety responsive to coping strategies; I can work my way through a full-blown attack even though I feel like I'm dying ... my rational brain now recognizes it as paranoia, and panic, and "this is the PTSD" and I can work through the attack with controlled breathing and repetitive thoughts/rational reasoning. The overall ordeal will still last for several days, but at least I can breathe and talk myself through the acute attack part. Identifying the PTSD in black-and-white was impossible, and coping strategies were not effective, pre-Wellbutrin.

It has also given me strength to stifle the flash-anger when it occurs. There is a whole pile of agitation and continued irritation that goes with it, but I can breathe and talk myself through it. Previously, this has been impossible. Previously I have gone into full-blown attack, which set off the suffocating cycle of PTSD crap (fear, shame, unworthy, afraid of judgment, feeling horribly ugly, feeling inept, incapable, stupid, broken, at fault, in danger, etc.) and I had to physically run away from where I was ... and I couldn't go back there (wherever it was) for weeks.

Thanks to the Wellbutrin, I'm able to do "normal" things some days, in short chunks -- clean the house, vacuum the carpet, take the garbage out, even work on finances and personal paperwork. I still can't open the mail :( (*terrified* of the mail) but I can at least sort it into a box labeled "Mail." Sorting means I am cleaning out something, or getting rid of a pile and that's obviously a HUGE improvement. I hadn't been able to figure out how to clean out a box, or get rid of a pile, in years.

Life is not all better and dandy for me, but I have at least gotten back some of the ability to do normal life-maintenance activities in very small, very spaced-out chunks. Sometimes I can do stuff for a few hours/day for like 3 days in a row (woo hoo!) ... other times I go a whole week without having the energy to do much of anything. But this is much, much better than I was before.


I'm not touting Wellbutrin as "The Fix" or anything... I'm just mentioning it in terms of it being one of the turning points for me, as well as how it's helping. For most people it would probably be another med that works for them, because of how different our brain chemistry is. And for many there might be no medication that works.

The whole point is to say "I totally understand" and share my similar experience. These are symptoms that I have never seen mentioned in a brochure or a book :( so I hope it helps someone feel reassured about this if they're going through it.

Bailey

Hey Hodge,

Lots of good ideas listed here. Especially the parts about doing small things in small increments of time. Basically I strike when the iron is hot. I got up and was doing bills at 6am on Friday morning last. Who knows why...I wanted to sleep in due to it being a holiday. But I'm glad I did because I had a really, really rough weekend after that.

As to the feeling of impending doom while cleaning/sorting...have you tried seeing if you can work through it while it's going on? Example: A couple of years ago my SIL (who's my age) had a heart attack. Every time I worked out-even doing yoga-I was scared that if my heart rate went up that I would have one, too. And the anxiety it generated didn't help at all. I got through yoga class by talking to myself when the anixety would start that everything was ok, it was anxiety causing the muscle pain and that my heart was healthy. Plus, there was an MD in my yoga class and that helped a lot, too. (I figured if I fell out that she would take care of me.) Basically I learned to breathe through the panic and feelings of doom. In fencing I would get busy and forget that I had this fear. Of course this was after my husband had literally pushed me out of the front door with my gear in my hands.

Being alone when you feel like this is the worst. There's nothing to break that loop that runs through your head. Try having your husband in the room with you and chit-chat while you're sorting. And if the feelings return, talk about them to him. Talking about the fear (at least for me) breaks it down and makes it so much smaller and more manageable.

Lisa

Thank you, everyone, for your responses and ideas and making me feel not so alone with this. I'd like to comment more on what you've all said -- lots of good ideas and things I can relate to here -- but need to wait for another time.

I really think this is so personally connected to my first trauma -- keeping my room nice and neat, then having someone come in, attack me, and literally corrupt my space, my "safe" place.

I do quit working on organizing my personal things when the anxiety gets overwhelming and work on it in in baby steps. Thankfully, I don't have so many items that I get overwhelmed by that, at least. But then the pain and sense of doom torture me for hours, days afterward.

Right now I'm thinking of this as being like my nightmares. There are the same recurrent themes, and I suspect the only way it'll really get better is to work through them in therapy, because as of yet I'm unable to figure out how to work through them at the time.

I have a hard time cleaning and organizing, though I wouldn't describe it as incapacitating. Just...overwhelming.

I noticed a few years ago that I'm averse to organized clutter like knick-knacks. I like things to be put away in boxes. When I was a kid, a pre-teen, I kept all my nail polish and perfumes and stuff organized on little trays on my dresser, and when "he" got mad at me, he'd throw everything on my dresser to the floor, and I'd have to pick it all up and set it up again.


I think you make a good connection between the dread you feel and the abuse, hodge. It's likely and it makes sense. If something strikes us as unusual, there is always a reason for it that makes sense (even if we don't like it!).

FInding strategies to cope with it--like doing one task and resting, using lists, breaking tasks down--those help us get through the things that we dread because they trigger us. No different than any other anxiety-producing task, though maybe we feel differently because we want home to feel safe and calm.

Kers, thanks for sharing your experience on this. It sounds so similar to mine in the sense that your space was invaded and your stuff was disrupted, to put it mildly. It reminds me of another aspect of that first trauma of mine, something I mentioned to my therapist a few years ago...a vague memory of him leaving my room and knocking into my dresser on the way out. I'm finding this attempt to organize is the most difficult when I'm dealing with my most personal objects . . . things I wear, like the hair accessories.

I think it makes sense, too - the connection between the dread and the trauma. I'm afraid that if/when I get it done, something bad will happen again, just like it did before. Maybe (I hope) it's like some of the other symptoms, such as flashbacks and nightmares: as I deal with the traumas better, it might lessen. In my effort to overcome slobness, I've noticed that a major part of this is that I'm trying to reclaim my space and my stuff. I know there's more to this, but it's not coming through in words yet.

Another sort of related thing I've noticed: around the time of this trauma or a couple years before it, I remember having this particular outfit with my favorite colors. Then, for years I wore dull colors, black, neutrals, etc. It was only after entering therapy a few years ago and being diagnosed that I had begun being attracted to and wearing those colors again, as well as other colors. Now I have several tops in varying shades of my favorite color. I'm also doing a remodel of my bathroom in order to paint it my favorite color. So far, I'm not anxious about working in my bathroom, i.e., stripping the wallpaper, etc. My goal is to finish it without the fear that something bad will happen if I do.