Clutter; Wordstew entry 12/12/11

Challenge: STEW ON THIS for Monday, December 12, 2011: "Whenever I come across clutter, the energy field is unmistakable. It presents an obstacle to the flow of energy and has an unpleasant, sticky, unclean feel to it, as if I'm moving my hands through unseen cobwebs. This is what made me realize clutter causes problems in people's lives. [Clutter] creates stuckness and/or confusion in the lives of the occupants." Karen Kingston, "Clean Your Clutter with Feng Shui: Free Yourself from Physical, Mental, Emotional, and Spiritual Clutter." Describe cleaning your clutter.

My apartment is cluttered. I am not disorganized, lazy, or a procrastinator. I simply do not like a perfectly clean living area; it freaks me out. Why? With all of the research done today showing that a clutter free living space leads to a clutter free life, why would it be the opposite for me? Well, the answer is as complex as it is simple. The trauma I endured as a child was inflicted by someone who was a complete neat freak. Her house smelled like Lysol everywhere and all the time. "A home for everything and everything in its place". I still can't stand the smell of Lysol, it sends me into panic attacks. Unfortunately, I spent a lot of time at that house, and since I was only a child, I tended to forget to put away my crayons right after using them, I'd forget to take my shoes off when I came in from outside, etc. The result was not pretty, and I'm not going into details now. I don't want to think about them, and I'm sure you don't want to read about them.

So now, on the rare occasion that I do have to get everything put away and make my apartment nice and tidy and looking as though no one lives here, I feel like I'm six years old again. I find myself afraid to set anything down in the "wrong" place. I can't sleep until I've straightened everything up. I have nightmares about my abuser.

Don't get me wrong, my apartment is not filthy, just messy. I dust and throw out my garbage and I shuffle things around so I can vacuum the carpets. I don't trip over anything except my cats when I walk around at night. And as for books, if there is any chance at all that I will read them again, they stay. Torn covers, food stained pages, and broken spines show that a book is cherished; a bit like the Velveteen Rabbit.

My apartment is cluttered; which is exactly the way that I like it.

What will I talk about in therapy?

I won't be starting therapy until May 14, but I'm already trying to figure out what I'm going to talk about. I suppose the first session will be mostly answering questions; it's been so long since I've started with a new therapist that I don't remember what the first sessions are like anymore. I hope I don't have to give my life story...that would take a lot more than an hour! I'm afraid I'll get there and he'll ask "What do you want to work on?". So I thought maybe if I tried to write about it, I'll be ready to answer that if he asks.

One thing that bothers me is my inability to follow a set schedule...like a work schedule or a group schedule...anything that is consistant, week after week. For example, about 10 years ago I decided to try working part-time. I got a job cleaning rooms at a small motel only 2 blocks from my apartment. I only worked 2 - 3 days a week, about 4 hours at a time. My boss knew that I had bipolar (I told her when I applied for the job) and she was SO nice. She allowed me to take extra breaks whenever I needed, or to go home early if I was having a really bad day. I enjoyed the work (well, except scrubbing showers and bathtubs) and I enjoyed the company of my co-workers. However, after a few months, I started to get panic attacks the night before having to go to work. It was like..."Oh my god, I HAVE to be there at 8:00am; what if I can't sleep tonight? What if I'm depressed in the morning?" It was a feeling of being trapped. Like I had no control over my life anymore. I felt like I was a puppet and someone else was pulling the strings, and I had no way out. I pushed through it for a couple of weeks, but then I started getting panic attacks a couple of days before I had to go to work. I started to get very depressed, and after another 2 weeks, I had to be hospitalized because I was suicidal. I quit the job. It's been like that with every job, every group, every therapist, etc. Any time I have a commitment to something long term, especially if it is something weekly or more than once a week.

I think this comes from how I felt about going to school; I was bullied and although I got straight A's in grade school, I had some trouble with History and Science in junior high. I do have a high IQ, but for some reason I have a lot of trouble with memorizing cold facts, like dates and names. I did enjoy learning about history, but the tests all required memorization of the dates, names, places, etc. No matter how many times I read the material, I just could not get it to stick. I got some low grades, and my parents never asked me why or if they could help in some way; they just punished me. I was still getting good grades in other subjects, but my parents insisted that I was "lazy". So between the bullying and the trouble with those classes, I started to hate school. But I had no choice. I HAD to go. I stayed home "sick" as many times as I could get away with. I was having panic attacks before and during school, although at the time I didn't know what a panic attack was...I just knew I couldn't breathe, my heart was racing, and I was sweating. Often I hid in a bathroom stall and cried; I was so afraid!

I also felt trapped at home. We lived out in the country on a farm, so until I got my driver's licence, I was stuck there. We rarely went anywhere, since most of the time we had babysitters. Occassionally someone would invite me to their house or to a birthday party, but I didn't have many friends and the friendships I did have didn't last long. Speaking of babysitters, there was one woman who watched us that lived in town, and we went to her house instead of her coming to our house. She had a son my age, and a daughter that was a year younger than my sister (and a year older than my brother). I was about 7 at the time. She was abusive, physically and emotionally. As far as I can remember, she was only physically abusive to me and to her son; because we were the oldest, anything that happened was our fault. Either we had "been a bad influence" or "we should have been watching the younger children". I remember Robby and I hiding in his closet, in the living room closet, in the treehouse, in his dad's office, etc. We knew she would find us eventually, but I suppose it was instinct to try and hide. I did tell my mom at one point that Jan was "mean to me", but she said that was nonsense and left it at that. They moved away when I was 8 or 9, and I remember that I was happy for myself, but scared for Robby. So I guess I felt trapped there as well. Even though she lived near the grade school, she rarely let us go play on the playground, so we were stuck there with her.

The thing is, even though I am pretty sure that all of those things from the past are the cause of my feelings of being trapped today, I still can't seem to overcome that. I'm hoping my therapist will be able to help me figure out what I have to do. How do I let it go and move on? I've tried to let it go, but the memories still haunt me. They will pop up out of nowhere, and I've tried repeating to myself "it's in the past, it's in the past" over and over again, but the thoughts don't go away. How do I make them go away? I've often wondered if I should try hypnosis. I guess I'd try almost anything at this point!

It looks like I've figured out at least one thing I want to work on...I know there are more, but I'll have to think them through. I do believe that a lot of the things I want to work on are all tied together somehow. And as frustrating as the bipolar is, I think most of the things that I want to change but can't are linked to my PTSD. And I'd like to know why some of the things that happened were traumatic to me when the same things have happened to others and they weren't traumatized by them. They were able to get through it and move on. So what's wrong with me? Am I just too sensitive? Am I just being a big baby about things and making a bigger deal out of them than I should? If that's true, how do I change that? I don't know what to think anymore. It looks like Mark (the therapist I will be seeing) has his work cut out for him...and so do I.