Has anyone else experienced this?

I'm wondering if I'm alone in this. I was always a very tidy, organized person. I always kept my flat very neat and tidy, never had a dirty dish in the sink for more than a few hours, etc. My mother was messy when I was a kid and I was always cleaning up after her. I needed things around me to be neat and organized in order for me to feel relaxed. External visual chaos equalled internal chaos for me.

In 2004, I started taking Celexa as a treatment for agoraphobia and panic attacks. It helped a lot with the agoraphobia and panic attacks and within 6 months I was well enough to go back to work, but something strange happened after I started taking it. After I was on it for a few weeks, my perfectly tidy flat started getting messy. It started off slowly. I went away for a weekend, came home and dropped my suitcase in the middle of the living room floor. It stayed there (unpacked) for 4 months. I would just walk around it. It would probably still be there if my niece hadn't asked to borrow it for a trip. I thought it was a side effect of Celexa -- my "inertia" pill, but I went off Celexa about a year ago, and was on no ADs until I started taking Lexapro about 5 weeks ago. The laziness and messiness stayed with me, though.

I stopped cooking around the time I started taking Celexa too. I eat take-out or frozen microwaveable dinners because I know I won't wash dishes if they get dirty. My cat eats off paper plates and I use plastic utensils.

I went back to work in January of 2005. I've been working since then and have recently started an even busier, more demanding job. I'm very organized and competent at work. I'm a Communications Coordinator, so I'm multi-tasking all day and I have to be extremely organized. I do it very well. I look very well-groomed and well put together. I have lovely clothes, my nails are always done, my hair is always perfect. My purse always matches my shoes. My office is neat and tidy. No one would ever imagine that my home is a disaster area. I don't invite friends over any more and it takes me longer than before to get ready in the morning because I waste time trying to find things because nothing is where it should be.

I hardly ever clean up and my flat has been a mess most of the time since the fall of 2004. I do things like leaving the box from a new tube of toothpaste in the sink for a week, stepping over shoes that are dropped in the middle of the living room floor, leaving clean laundry in bags for months -- never putting it away, just taking things out as I need them. I still haven't unpacked my suitcase from a trip I took in August! I feel stressed and overwhelmed when I look at the mess and the thought of someone dropping by unexpectedly to visit me scares me. There's no way I could let anyone (other than my parents and my sister) in here to see this disaster. It's my dirty (very dirty) little secret. My flat is very small. That's part of the reason I always kept it so tidy; organization was essential with so little space to work with. I also have white floors, so I used to wash them every 2nd day. Now I just have seagrass rugs over the floor so I can't see the dirt. Once in a while (very rarely), I get up some energy and decide I'm going to start tackling the mess, but I get overwhelmed so quickly. I don't know where to start and I can't figure out where to put everything. I feel like I have lost the ability to clean and organize. I don't understand it. I was a neat, tidy, organized person for 34 years... and now I'm a slob. I'm still neat, tidy and organized at work. Why can't I bring that home with me? Has this happened to anyone else? I'm not depressed. I don't have a major problem with anxiety anymore, but I'm so damn lazy when I'm at home. I hate the mess. Messy, chaotic surroundings still bother me and make me feel unsettled and interfere with my ability to concentrate, so living in a messy place stresses me out. I don't know how to clean it up and keep it clean, though. I don't know how to snap out of this.

About 6 months ago, my landlord called to say he was going to have an appraiser drop in and see my flat. I was in a total panic. It was the kick in the *** I needed and I spent two full days cleaning. It was very hard and stressful getting it clean, but I did it and the place looked lovely for the appraiser's visit. So, I know I'm capable. I got it all neat and tidy and clean and felt so good about it. I was determined to keep it that way. Within a few weeks, it was a mess again, though. It was like the mess materialized without me even noticing. I don't know how to MAKE myself clean it up again, though. It seems like I need something external (like an appraiser visiting) to get me in motion. I want to clean up this mess, but I can't make myself do it. It feels impossible and it's on my mind a lot. I hate it.

Has anyone else experienced this? Any advice?

No, I have never experienced this because I've always been a bit of a slop at home.
It must be pretty annoying though. I hope you can think up some options of what to do and try to do a bit at a time. If the task overwhelms you, then break it down into its component parts.

Thanks Hopefull. That's good advice. I try to break it down into parts, but I feel like I don't know how. I'm always thinking about all the other parts and wondering if I'm starting in the right place. If I manage to focus on one thing -- like the bedroom -- I end up shifting everything to another room. I feel like Sisyphus. I never get anything accomplished. It just feels endless and overwhelming. I feel like a part of my brain has shut down. I can access that part of my brain at work, but not at home. I talked to my psychiatrist about it while I was on Celexa and she said I needed to RELEARN this skill. I don't understand how that skill was taken away from me, though. It doesn't make sense and I don't know how to RELEARN it. This wave of laziness and feeling overwhelmed washes over me when I come home and I'm just useless. Sometimes, I feel like I need to throw everything away and start over in a new place with minimal possessions.

I feel like it's going to take me SO LONG to get it all cleaned, and I feel like I never have the time to get it done. During the Christmas holidays, I decided not to go anywhere because I was going to use those weeks off to finally get this mess cleaned up. I ended up getting nothing done, though, and just felt like a failure when it was time to go back to work.

My mother suggested that I hire a cleaning service. I would never inflict this disaster on a cleaning person, though. It would be unfair. I would also be mortified by someone else seeing this mess.

You might find this book helpful:

How to Cheat at Cleaning by Jeff Bredenberg

You might also consider getting a book on organizing, because you can get some great tips from them. I would love to go in one of those stores that are strictly for organization, with all kinds of plastic boxes to help you, and have enough money to buy whatever I want!

Oh, yeah, and you can do one room a day, to make it easier. You don't have to do everything at once.

Yes! We seem to be walking in the same shoes... though I am not well put together so my purse doesn't match.

Just this morning I was thinking about getting rid of everything and starting over! I actually did that about 4 years ago and it doesn't work.

I go through phases sometimes, or have reasons to get the apartment in shape like you did. Sometimes I think the tidy times are the abnormal times. Like an attempt to control things as I feel more in control, more positive, more capable, etc when everything around me is orderly.

I think maybe so much of my energy goes into maintaining that public image and when I get home I have little or nothing left; no energy or interest in me or my surroindings.

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ECHOES said:
I think maybe so much of my energy goes into maintaining that public image and when I get home I have little or nothing left; no energy or interest in me or my surroindings.

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Thanks so much for the responses. I think you hit the nail on the head with that last sentence, Echoes. I feel exhausted when I get home. I'm a different person when I'm at work -- so organized and professional and competent. It's not as easy for me as it was before I got sick and it does require a lot of energy.

Have you always had this problem with messiness or is it something new? I was capable of being neat and tidy for 34 years and then it just went POOF. I know that part of my brain still works. At the office, all my files are neatly organized, I'm implementing a new archiving system for the entire office, and everything is in its place. I never procrastinate at work. I'm always on schedule, always on top of everything. I come home and just flop into my armchair, though, and do not much of anything. I feel like crying when I look at the mess. I have come a long way in my recovery. Less than 3 years ago I was too agoraphobic to leave my flat. Now I have a good job, a social life, rarely have panic attacks, etc. I feel ALMOST like the person I was before. I feel like I won't have fully recovered -- won't really be ME again -- until I can get control of my messy flat, though. I want to be organized at home. I want to be able to invite friends over. I want to cook again. I want to do all those things I used to do at home, but something is stopping me... my mind is stopping me.

Another part of my weirdness at home -- I'm phobic about opening mail. I let it pile up and feel anxious about opening it. Sometimes weeks go by before I open any of it. I do the same thing with the phone. I get e-mails from friends telling me that my voicemail is full. I go weeks without checking my home voicemail. When I come home I don't want to do anything or let in anything from the outside until I'm ready for it. Does anyone else do this?

P.S. My mother dropped off an early birthday present for me today and I haven't opened it yet because I know that once I open it, I will have to find a place to put whatever is inside. I still have a basket of Christmas presents -- partially wrapped -- sitting next to my tv. I haven't taken anything out of it. It has been there since Christmas morning. I need to find a way to stop being this way.