Is Your Messy House a Sign of Something More Serious?

When someone has a lot of clutter, one of a few things could be going on, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist Neda Sanai of Group Therapy LA told Mom.com. Someone could be reacting to a a traumatic life event, like the one we’re all living through right now with the pandemic, combined with having kids at home 24/7.

When you’re stressed at work or find it difficult being at home all the time, you may feel overwhelmed, Sanai said. That could manifest itself as dishes piled up in the sink or laundry stacked next to the dryer. “If you’re overwhelmed with your life in general, your environment is also going to show that, so your house is going to be filled and it’s going to be cluttered,” she said.

Sanai also suggests it could be a sign of depression that you don’t have energy to clean up or may find that there’s no point in putting shoes in the closet when there’s nowhere to go anyway. You may be holding on to guilt or anxiety or grief.

A disorganized house may also mean you have a disorganized mind. “The way I explain clutter is if your mind is not organized, your environment will show that,” Sanai said.

Dana Dougherty Reinke didn’t know what was happening to her when she became a stay-at-home mom. She had been a successful journalist and was able to work well under pressure. Being at home was something altogether different. She had stacks of bills and paper piling up and would forget where she was supposed to be taking her kids.

“I honestly thought I was turning stupid,” the Ontario mother of three told Mom.com. “I actually asked my doctor, ‘Is it possible I have early onset dementia or something?’ I just don’t understand why I forget everything.”

After one of her kids was diagnosed with ADHD, she realized that she had it as well and that’s why she had a hard time keeping up with the day-to-day tasks of her household.

“All those executive functioning skills that you need and don’t have as a person with ADD maybe are not important in your regular career, but they’re very important if all of the sudden you’re in this stay-at-home mom ‘be the organized person for your entire family’ role,” Reinke explained.

ADHD can make it difficult to get through a task like cleaning the bathroom. You may be fixated on one thing and then jump to another thing, which makes it more difficult to finish what you initially started to do, Sanai said.

Organizing and Productivity Specialist Dr. Regina Lark said to look at how long the disorganization has been going on. Some people may have thought that being home during lockdown would mean they would be able to get all of the household projects done that they had been putting off. But if you were not able to start or finish a project before COVID, it’s unlikely you’d have that skill now.

Lark suggests asking yourself these questions: “Is it a chronic thing? When your parent told you to go into a room and clean it, was it efficient? Or were you daydreaming? Did you not know where to start? Do you still not know where to start? Or is this condition really a product of this last year. Did you have it together before this?”

When should you get help?

Sanai said it’s time to look for help when you’re feeling depressed or anxious and your home is no longer a place of comfort. If it “makes you uncomfortable stepping into the house. When you feel that gut feeling of too much anxiety or embarrassed to invite people over.”

So let’s say you are going through a hard time or you do have ADHD, is it impossible to have a clutter-free house? No, you just have to start small. “Start with the junk drawer,” Lark said, and set a timer. Don’t leave or do anything else until the task is done.

Have a recycle bin, a trash bin, and a container of warm, sudsy water to clean anything gunky in the drawer. And stay put until you’re done. “If you leave the station, you’ll be distracted and run out of time,” Lark added.

Definitely don’t make a declaration that you’re going to clean the entire house, Sanai said. Just tackle one thing at a time.

“It’s very small movements and little by little, you’ll be able to organize the entire house,” she said.