The Mess I'm In
living with clutter, living with depression
Things are piling up and I’m starting to feel anxious. Unopened mail, laundry, Christmas presents still in their boxes, books and records that seem to arrive daily. Did I really order that vinyl copy of the first Traveling Wilburys album? Am I ever going to hang that kitchen clock I got? How much of that mail is a level of importance that it should be opened now?
I’ve been spending a lot of time on my couch. I know I’m deep in a depression because there’s an indent on the couch where my ass sits. I’m there too much. I’m not where I need to be; straightening up, putting things away, sorting, filing, cleaning, organizing. All things I hate to do under normal circumstances. Being depressed and having to face all of these tasks is overwhelming. I don’t know where to begin. Or if I even want to begin.
I have this idea of how my house should look and it’s not the same idea that other people - more organized, mentally vibrant people - would have. Whose standard am I holding myself up to, my own or the standards of people who will never see the inside of my house? My home is lived in. It’s messy but not dirt. I do the dishes, clean the stove, sweep the floors, wash the towels. The bare minimum, but it’s something. The rest of the mess is just how I live now. Scattered books and albums - all bought with the idea that purchasing things would make me feel better - clean laundry piled up in my bedroom, pet food boxes that need to go out to recycling but might come in handy, they are all things that are not harming anyone. So why do I feel so bad about myself for not taking care of them? Why do I imagine that I am being judged on my housekeeping when no one has really been to my house since the pandemic began? Why do I care?
I am trying to do things that make me happy, things that bring me out of my funk. I don’t want to spend my time unpacking boxes or putting records back in alphabetical order or sorting through mail that is mostly junk. I want to sit on my couch and half heartedly watch a hockey or basketball game while I scroll twitter and listen to sad music. This satisfies me in a way that organizing my books won’t. I don’t have it in me to do physical activity right now, and the things I choose to do don’t require that. So I sit. And I watch. And I scroll. And the stuff piles up and I get depressed about, assuring that I will never break out of this depression cycle at this rate.
For those few hours a night I am on the couch, I am content. I am happy. I am in a world of my own making, where there is no mess, no chaos, no imaginary person hovering over me and berating me for being messy. In the midst of my depression, I found a space where I feel good for a little while. It’s when I stop the scrolling and the watching and the listening, when I look up and see the untidiness, see objects sprawled throughout the house, that the overwhelming sense of helplessness takes over again. I can’t do it. Not now. I can address the dishes in the sink, I can address that the bathtub needs to be cleaned, but I can’t begin to address the clutter. And I shouldn’t have to! Who is there to be bothered by it but me? Why do I care?
Part of me knows I need to clean up the mess because of everything the clutter represents. That big pile of books represents my inability to read more than a page at a time these days. The scattered albums represent my penchant for buying my way out of a bad mood. The unopened mail is my refusal to deal with anything that requires effort on my part. If I tackle these chores, if I can just get my clutter squared away, maybe my problems will no longer be staring me in the face all day and I can get on with my life.
But here I sit, tucked away in the indent in my couch, trying my best to ignore everything. I feel torn between needing to take on the mess and needing to make myself as happy as possible. So I add to the mess with more albums and books. I watch some hockey, I listen to “Oh! Darling” ten times in a row, I eat a pint of ice cream. For a few hours, I’m happy. I’m content. The books can wait, the mail can wait, the boxes can remain unopened. I know I have issues I need to tackle head on. That’s for another day. Today is for feeling okay.