Today was a bad day of me doing n o t h I n g. I was wanting to post about it, but I waited . I didn't want to come on here and just whine. If I don't try to get better, I don't deserve any sympathy. Maybe I shouldn't look for sympathy. I have found that encouragement from others does help me. All day I thought about making an appointment with my healthcare provider. I didn't because I figured that would just be me whining to a professional. I did that to death years ago, when I was plagued with depression.

I'm here now to say I think I have a slight plan. The main thing upsetting me is my cluttered house. (It's just an apartment, but it's ground floor with a front and back door, and not real small. So it feels house-like to me.) In the past, I hired a professional organizer when I felt overwhelmed. That turned out to be one of the most worthwhile things I ever spent money on. The first time was back in 2020, after my boyfriend died. I had been staying at his apartment to care for him during the last few years of his illness. Then I closed up his place, turned in the keys and came back to my own place. I brought a ton of stuff from his place to mine. Plus, my place was dirty from renovations the landlord did and lack of attention on other fronts. I was plunked down in what looked like a disaster. Also I was deep in grief and alone. I ended up in a psych unit for a week. Twice. Hiring some energetic young ladies to clean was a good start. They made the bathroom and kitchen clean, but tons of stuff was still in piles. I was sleeping on part of the bed after I moved stuff over. Still depressed, I called the "organizer."

That worked out way beyond my hopes. It was a guy, which came in handy for some heavy lifting and minor repairs. He referred me to another guy who did junk hauling. For a modest price ($70,) that guy took away a bunch of stuff. A crushing weight was off my shoulders . . . and out of my house. The depression resolved nicely. I had the organizer guy back to help me go through mountains of paperwork. All together I had him for three two-day sessions, 3 hours each day ($150/day.) I'm on a small income, but that was the best-spent money I ever spent. I was so glad I hadn't used that money for therapy, which would have changed nothing in my life. So I think I might do that again. A 2-day assault on the chaos would probably get me over the hump.

Just writing this down here is making me feel a bit better - like I may actually have a plan. For days I've been thinking, "I need help." It felt like I needed more pain medication and psychotherapy. What I now think I really need is some concrete, hands on, physical assistance. The "mental" help that I do need is some coaching in how to wrangle this chaos that has spread like a cancer over these three rooms that I inhabit.

There are underlying psychological tendencies that get me into this kind of quagmire. I have a slight hoarding tendency, though I can ruthlessly divest myself of "stuff," when the accumulation becomes oppressive. I get readily distracted and compulsively go off on time consuming tangents when I'm going through clutter. My attention gets consumed by nit-picking concern with too many details. I'll find a pile of old magazines and think I better sit down and read them before I throw them out. The presence of the professional organizer kept me under a kind of discipline, so I was able to move along.

Okay. Maybe I see a path forward. I can't stay like this. It's gotten too awful.