Confession time...
Mar. 15th, 2004 02:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hippybngstockngOkay, a while back I got turned on to the FlyLady website by my dear friend ![[info]](https://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
mamishka who I know understands depression and feeling overwhelmed. I spent the better part of a day and then the better part of a week thinking about it, and I did some experiments and some more thinking and I have come to a conclusion.
I am sorry to admit it, but I am scared of the Flylady. I am afraid getting the mail will make me worse instead of better. I'm afraid of even trying it, even for a moment for fear it will be the nail in the coffin that will have me never wanting to clean or sort another thing as long as I live...
You have to understand something about me to understand why I specifically get a really unwarranted chill when I think about attempting to join the flybabies, though it appeals to me of course as it would to any logical human being that's ever been to a really cool bed and breakfast ;) Or even anyone who's ever lived in a clean house.
You have to have lived with my mom as long and as often as I did to truly understand why attempting the Flylady process gives me fear.number42 and uniquecrash5 have been witness to my mother's obsessive compulsive nature when it comes to cleaning, and what emotions it brings up in those who have to live with her. It's not that you don't want the house to be clean, and it's not that you don't want to do your part, it's just something about the way my mother makes a person feel when they are living with her that makes a body... well... combative when it comes to cleaning.
And it isn't just me, 42 can tell you that my missing would-be-never-was sister and I wrote a poem one of the summers she lived there about how joyous it was to be in the house without mom there just because of the ability to NOT CLEAN for 5 minutes and have that be okay, not the end of the world. UC5 who is very hard to anger and even harder to make have a strong negative opinion about a person has gone on 15 and 20 minute rants about my mom and her needs as far as the cleaning in the house or maintaining the yard.
So here I am though now, some almost ten years later and I still get that combative feeling when someone asks me to clean something. I know it's not right, I know it's not rational, but when someone says, "hey, you know you might be able to find what you're looking for if you'd ever reduce the population of the piles of crap around here." I can only barely fight the urge to turn to them in a rage and yell, "BUT I LIKE the piles of crap!" regardless of the fact that it is so no longer true.
I remember when we were selling our house I was so happy, even though life was disintegrating around us and that I knew the next stop was likely going to be my mom's place unless a bleeding miracle occurred, I was chipper. Every morning getting up to my nice neat kitchen, and my nice tidy bathroom and house were just a joy, but those times were special because I was forced to keep it that way. As soon as the house was sold and we were packing it was even beyond the chaos it had ever been before- there were rooms I wouldn't let the baby in for fear of all the crap on the rug, and I could barely get a thing done.
So what I am saying is that something always happens- I get depressed, or something actually get chaotic in our lives to cause the cleaning to not get done immediately and then it spirals from something as small as a pair of socks left out.
Now this is the point where all you flybabies out there are saying, "So what's you're problem you lazy shit, just do it once like she says and then keeping it up will be easy..."
It's not that easy. I get depressed, I mean REALLY depressed. I had this room mate once in Northampton, MA named Ned. I ran into him once a while after we were living together and he told me he'd been down for a while and was between jobs so he was just staying home slacking and being depressed. I said I understood, and I could sympathize, that I had just recently rolled out of bed myself (I think it was probably 4 in the afternoon) and I wasn't feeling like doing much more than checking my mail, and even that seemed like a lot of effort because it involved both getting dressed AND going outside. He told me that the day before he hadn't eaten because "a can opener seemed like too much work." and I laughed, but I so totally knew what he meant, since I had had those days as well...
So yeah, I have days where I don't want to do a single bleeding thing. K and I end up sitting on the couch and watching movies together, or he plays with his toys and I just watch, dazed. I stare at Livejournal for hours between his needs for my attention. I gave up long ago trying to force myself on him to try to entertain myself. Nothing like getting screamed at because you're trying to play to make you feel like the evil emperor, which since I'm the "don't do that" lady I usually understand. I try to "fake it 'til you make it" but that doesn't last.
I have this fear that if I open up my inbox to "cleaning inspiration" that it's going to be one enormous mom flashback because, well, Flylady pretty much is my mom, just a bunch more polite, and hopefully with a lot less guilt. I feel like if I start getting these mails that tell me what to do and what to throw out that my reaction is going to start being one giant, "How about you bite my ass!" and then I will "go on strike" which is internally what it feels like I am doing. The problem is I usually don't announce that I am on strike, I just stop. I stop picking up because I feel like no one else is, even if I am the one who started it. I stop cleaning the kitchen until you can barely enter it, not to mention cook. This is a risk because part of it is getting your family to do it too, and well, some of my family simply won't because he's not even 3, the other human will attempt to keep from incurring my wrath, but he too is recovering from my mother lately, and agrees that this feeling is a problem in both of us. We kind of like the filth because it's ours, finally.
So here it is- I know some of you are flybabies out there, and some of you have tried it and run screaming into the night. Those of you it's working for, I am curious why you think it works for you in particular. Those of you who ran screaming, was it for similar reasons to the ones I am worried about? Was it just too much "You can do it!" that you simply didn't have the strength to take? Did it make you feel guilty and useless if you didn't get it done?
Also it seems to me like she expects you to become this All-seeing-All-knowing controller of everything you survey, and there again is another problem for me. I am firmly of the belief thatuniquecrash5 is a big boy and can do his share of the work. I want to make a cross stitch to go somewhere in the house that says "Your mother may work here, but this is only her Part-Time job" or something to that effect because I do NOT consider myself to be the one sole person to bear the brunt of the work when we all share the house. I don't give him the time consuming jobs because of course he is only here a fraction of the time that I am, but still, he has to have something that is his or I would clearly be his maid. If I take on all this extra flylady crap, he's going to have to take on something else as well because I am sure that will start a strike spiral in me, but... Well, you probably know where I am about to go so anyway- How much luck have you had with your family- REALLY. UC5 has invited me to put up the occasional threatening haiku or similar if there is something he is constantly needing reminders about, but I can't seem to come up with anything that isn't just a little abusive like the kind my mom would likely have written had she thought to put to pen any of the horrible things she used to say about my cleaning habits, or lack thereof. I have come up with the occasional gem, like "Refrigeration; the five extra seconds that could save your marriage..." but usually my inability to tell whether I am being a tremendous jerk gets in the way, and I end up bitterly cleaning up the same things again and again when I know a note could likely be left reminding him and I am too much of a coward to leave it. I know that's another one I should be able to do a "get over it, stay over it" with, but the last time I did that in a relationship, I didn't get to stay in the relationship. I love UC5 just a little too much to drive him away with neurotic post-its about really stupid crap, regardless of whether that crap might keep me a little saner.
I just don't know if I can get over my fears.
So feel free to descend upon me, send the swarm if you want, I admit I am curious enough to listen, and I appreciate you listening to me bitch. As I said, part of me really wants to try it, but it gets a little like the yoyo diet effect, I hate cleaning a little more the more I fail at it, and I fail at it a lot.
mamishka who I know understands depression and feeling overwhelmed. I spent the better part of a day and then the better part of a week thinking about it, and I did some experiments and some more thinking and I have come to a conclusion.I am sorry to admit it, but I am scared of the Flylady. I am afraid getting the mail will make me worse instead of better. I'm afraid of even trying it, even for a moment for fear it will be the nail in the coffin that will have me never wanting to clean or sort another thing as long as I live...
You have to understand something about me to understand why I specifically get a really unwarranted chill when I think about attempting to join the flybabies, though it appeals to me of course as it would to any logical human being that's ever been to a really cool bed and breakfast ;) Or even anyone who's ever lived in a clean house.
You have to have lived with my mom as long and as often as I did to truly understand why attempting the Flylady process gives me fear.
number42 and uniquecrash5 have been witness to my mother's obsessive compulsive nature when it comes to cleaning, and what emotions it brings up in those who have to live with her. It's not that you don't want the house to be clean, and it's not that you don't want to do your part, it's just something about the way my mother makes a person feel when they are living with her that makes a body... well... combative when it comes to cleaning.And it isn't just me, 42 can tell you that my missing would-be-never-was sister and I wrote a poem one of the summers she lived there about how joyous it was to be in the house without mom there just because of the ability to NOT CLEAN for 5 minutes and have that be okay, not the end of the world. UC5 who is very hard to anger and even harder to make have a strong negative opinion about a person has gone on 15 and 20 minute rants about my mom and her needs as far as the cleaning in the house or maintaining the yard.
So here I am though now, some almost ten years later and I still get that combative feeling when someone asks me to clean something. I know it's not right, I know it's not rational, but when someone says, "hey, you know you might be able to find what you're looking for if you'd ever reduce the population of the piles of crap around here." I can only barely fight the urge to turn to them in a rage and yell, "BUT I LIKE the piles of crap!" regardless of the fact that it is so no longer true.
I remember when we were selling our house I was so happy, even though life was disintegrating around us and that I knew the next stop was likely going to be my mom's place unless a bleeding miracle occurred, I was chipper. Every morning getting up to my nice neat kitchen, and my nice tidy bathroom and house were just a joy, but those times were special because I was forced to keep it that way. As soon as the house was sold and we were packing it was even beyond the chaos it had ever been before- there were rooms I wouldn't let the baby in for fear of all the crap on the rug, and I could barely get a thing done.
So what I am saying is that something always happens- I get depressed, or something actually get chaotic in our lives to cause the cleaning to not get done immediately and then it spirals from something as small as a pair of socks left out.
Now this is the point where all you flybabies out there are saying, "So what's you're problem you lazy shit, just do it once like she says and then keeping it up will be easy..."
It's not that easy. I get depressed, I mean REALLY depressed. I had this room mate once in Northampton, MA named Ned. I ran into him once a while after we were living together and he told me he'd been down for a while and was between jobs so he was just staying home slacking and being depressed. I said I understood, and I could sympathize, that I had just recently rolled out of bed myself (I think it was probably 4 in the afternoon) and I wasn't feeling like doing much more than checking my mail, and even that seemed like a lot of effort because it involved both getting dressed AND going outside. He told me that the day before he hadn't eaten because "a can opener seemed like too much work." and I laughed, but I so totally knew what he meant, since I had had those days as well...
So yeah, I have days where I don't want to do a single bleeding thing. K and I end up sitting on the couch and watching movies together, or he plays with his toys and I just watch, dazed. I stare at Livejournal for hours between his needs for my attention. I gave up long ago trying to force myself on him to try to entertain myself. Nothing like getting screamed at because you're trying to play to make you feel like the evil emperor, which since I'm the "don't do that" lady I usually understand. I try to "fake it 'til you make it" but that doesn't last.
I have this fear that if I open up my inbox to "cleaning inspiration" that it's going to be one enormous mom flashback because, well, Flylady pretty much is my mom, just a bunch more polite, and hopefully with a lot less guilt. I feel like if I start getting these mails that tell me what to do and what to throw out that my reaction is going to start being one giant, "How about you bite my ass!" and then I will "go on strike" which is internally what it feels like I am doing. The problem is I usually don't announce that I am on strike, I just stop. I stop picking up because I feel like no one else is, even if I am the one who started it. I stop cleaning the kitchen until you can barely enter it, not to mention cook. This is a risk because part of it is getting your family to do it too, and well, some of my family simply won't because he's not even 3, the other human will attempt to keep from incurring my wrath, but he too is recovering from my mother lately, and agrees that this feeling is a problem in both of us. We kind of like the filth because it's ours, finally.
So here it is- I know some of you are flybabies out there, and some of you have tried it and run screaming into the night. Those of you it's working for, I am curious why you think it works for you in particular. Those of you who ran screaming, was it for similar reasons to the ones I am worried about? Was it just too much "You can do it!" that you simply didn't have the strength to take? Did it make you feel guilty and useless if you didn't get it done?
Also it seems to me like she expects you to become this All-seeing-All-knowing controller of everything you survey, and there again is another problem for me. I am firmly of the belief that
uniquecrash5 is a big boy and can do his share of the work. I want to make a cross stitch to go somewhere in the house that says "Your mother may work here, but this is only her Part-Time job" or something to that effect because I do NOT consider myself to be the one sole person to bear the brunt of the work when we all share the house. I don't give him the time consuming jobs because of course he is only here a fraction of the time that I am, but still, he has to have something that is his or I would clearly be his maid. If I take on all this extra flylady crap, he's going to have to take on something else as well because I am sure that will start a strike spiral in me, but... Well, you probably know where I am about to go so anyway- How much luck have you had with your family- REALLY. UC5 has invited me to put up the occasional threatening haiku or similar if there is something he is constantly needing reminders about, but I can't seem to come up with anything that isn't just a little abusive like the kind my mom would likely have written had she thought to put to pen any of the horrible things she used to say about my cleaning habits, or lack thereof. I have come up with the occasional gem, like "Refrigeration; the five extra seconds that could save your marriage..." but usually my inability to tell whether I am being a tremendous jerk gets in the way, and I end up bitterly cleaning up the same things again and again when I know a note could likely be left reminding him and I am too much of a coward to leave it. I know that's another one I should be able to do a "get over it, stay over it" with, but the last time I did that in a relationship, I didn't get to stay in the relationship. I love UC5 just a little too much to drive him away with neurotic post-its about really stupid crap, regardless of whether that crap might keep me a little saner.I just don't know if I can get over my fears.
So feel free to descend upon me, send the swarm if you want, I admit I am curious enough to listen, and I appreciate you listening to me bitch. As I said, part of me really wants to try it, but it gets a little like the yoyo diet effect, I hate cleaning a little more the more I fail at it, and I fail at it a lot.
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no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 12:15 am (UTC)I too slide into depressions and I won't clean except what I have to. Hubby is helpful sometimes but let's just say he misses big spots ;)
The older I get the more I come to a happy medium about cleaning. I'm not my mother. I'm not the slob I was. I joined flylady to see if I could stick with it and if I can't it's okay. I'll just unsub. It's that easy.
I battled the flylady thing for 6 months refusing to join. So far my house is a lot cleaner and it doesn't take hardly any time at all which is RIGHT UP MY ALLEY let me tell you :)
no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 09:07 am (UTC)I noticed you're on the "batlady" list which I found because someone ironically posted this same question on hip_domestics :) How do they compare? I sense their stuff is all "friends only" because I didn't see many missions on the page and I was curious.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 09:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 09:55 am (UTC)Oh, and I got the reply to my "please friend me"- I did that a WHILE ago :) I think it was some of those delayed comments people have been receiving much later than they happened :)
no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 12:45 pm (UTC)I've found that with Flylady I don't open the emails unless I'm confused. The title tells me what to do and it's so quick and easy, except for the weekly things. Last week was clean your kitchen and it was broken down rather well.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 04:31 am (UTC)My mother isn't quite OCD about cleaning, but she's definitely a master at guilt-induction. And FL definitely reminded me of her.
I felt like it was a combination of nagging and cheerleading. I don't do well with either, and I don't need any more guilt in my life.
At this point, curgoth and I clean when things are getting entirely out of hand, or when we've got some time and energy, or when we have people over. We do dishes in small bursts through the week, and then one large go on the weekend. Laundry gets done all at once, usually on the weekend.
Curgoth is a packrat, and we're both slobs, so it's always interesting what will cause one or the other of us to snap and start cleaning.
I like the idea of leaving a note if there's something that your partner keeps forgetting to do. I think curgoth needs to leave me a note about refrigeration (I left the last couple eggs out on the counter on Saturday morning. He found them Sunday morning.)
no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 09:35 am (UTC)And funny true story about eggs- My mom used to make hard boiled ones for Easter and we'd decorate them and then she'd hide them Easter morning. So one July my mom finds one of these gems behind the couch that I had never found. "So that's what that smell was!" she said, then shook the egg which rattled like a maraca :)
no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 08:24 am (UTC)Also, I don't do everything on my own. My husband has started helping me out (he always was inclined to help). At night, he cleans the kitchen and shines the sink. In the morning, he makes the bed and takes his clothes downstairs. When he saw what I was doing around the house, he naturally wanted to follow suit. He has his off days, too, when he doesn't make the bed, but it's not a big deal.
I have more to say, but I don't want to bore you and ramble. :p If you don't want to do Flylady, don't. I was scared to try, I didn't want to feel forced into anything, but in the end, the whole thing has turned into a blessing. And it's cheesy, but I feel like it changed my life.
I really will stop now. lol
no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 09:18 am (UTC)I was concerned about her tone because in a gentler way she does say the exact same stuff my mom has always said. I fear I will not be able to get over her tone for that reason, though usually I have that hypocrisy where if someone says the exact same thing my mom says I will listen and agree with them whereas my mom got an argument, so who knows :)
Man, I'm 33 and sometimes I still feel like I'm just a 12 year old waiting for someone to piss me off :)