Living accommodation

Hi guys.

I'm needing your input. Please be honest with me. I won't be offended.

I live alone and have done so for 11 years now. To begin with it was great I had my own space. I could do what I want when I wanted. My friend and family would visit and it was fab. Then boom 2017 my Mum suffered a stroke and that set me off I wasn't living at mines I stayed at my parents house until 2018.

My flat went from being clean and liveable to a mess and a complete pig sty. I couldn't keep up with the chores and I became so anxious and paranoid re the whole flat. I stopped letting people in.

I currently spend 3 nights at my flat and the rest at my Sister's. My Sister spoke to me tonight and said she is concerned for my welfare. My Aunt has said I could get into supportive accommodation but am I that bad? Plus is that not a step backwards?

I have lived with a flat mate when I worked and I was always cleaning. Now I have no intent to clean

Worse I'm a hoarder... I hoard everything paperwork, books, dvds, cds, empty shoe boxes... I don't know why.

Even worse I have mould in my flat quite badly but I'm worried they will shout at me re this I live in a housing association flat so it's not my flat it's rented.

Anyone help me ease my conscious, nerves and paranoia?

Should I bite the bullet and gey a cleaner once I have kicked myself up the butt and cleaned the flat?

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I live with my husband and daughter. We're all disabled. I can't be alone or my anxiety and paranoia kick up. I'm getting a service dog to help with that. I'm also in the process of hiring a cleaner. My husband doesn't want one but we need to be able to pass inspection anytime they want to inspect. I also have an all in one air fryer with a bake button so I'm only making small meals and less dishes. I only have a limited amount of dishes.I get groceries home delivered through instacart. I only cook premade food which isn't healthy but it's what I can do if I was single I'd get healthy meals delivered to me. Until we get a washer/dryer I may do a laundry service. When we get a washer/dryer my dog will load it.

All these things make me sound lazy but I need the help if I want to keep my independence. Do what you need to do to keep as much independence as you can.

If I'm being honest, I'm struggling to do basic cleaning like hoovering and dusting. I have tried writing a cleaning schedule but I get overwhelmed. My back ache which is chronic doesn't help. I'm overwhelmed just being in my flat. It causes great anxiety and even when I think I'm doing good work it's a waste of time. I'm worried I'm going to be homeless when my housing association sees my flat. My sister says I've buried my head under the sand. Which I have probably done so.

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Hire a professional cleaner to tackle the mold and get your place up to standards. I think they can also help with the hoarding situation. Then once it’s clean maybe your sister can help you clean once a week?

I would hire a cleaning crew and then a weekly service on trash day.

Thanks guys, I've cried so much tonight as I feel I've disappointed people in my life. I've let everyone down. I'm so anxious tonight cause of this conversation. I'm finding everything overwhelming

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Please put in steps to help you on your hardest day. You can always do more on days you feel better.

Yeah i use to just start on one room ie kitchen but I get easily bored, easily distracted and easily deflated so I'm in a catch 22. I use to be able to keep on top of things but in the last 7 years I've declined drastically. I hate going hone cause I know it's a mess and that irks me but it looks like sheer laziness on my part when my family sees the way my flat is. I haven't let family/friends cone visit fir 7.5 years. My depression doesn't help nor does my paranoia and delusions.

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**If you can, I'd take advantage of the ability to get a cleaner, at least to get everything up to snuff and help with the hard stuff.

Here are something that have helped me with the mental aspect of tidying up:

I'm pretty disorganized and have trouble sticking to one thing for long, but I find tentatively planning on coming over will motivate me to clean up to make it look okay. I'd say something like "hey, I might have a bit of time on Saturday, and if you don't have plans, nothing comes up for you, and nothing comes up for me, maybe you could come by?" I try to get in the mindset someone's coming over and use any negative feelings (shame, sadness, helplessness, anger, whatever) to motivate me to improve things such as the state of my living environment that I can control. I have to have music for certain things too, not even just cleaning. Dishes? Have to have music. Showers? Music necessary. Laundry? Same deal.

I don't go into cleaning thinking "I'm going to clean the house today." I don't even say "I'm going to clean the kitchen." It's "I need to wash the dishes, so I'm going to do that right now." "The five balls of lettuce my dad bought went bad (surprise surprise), and I'm going to throw those out along with anything else bad in the fridge." The idea being split things up into as small tasks as possible, and just trying to do as many as you can and resting when you need to. It's more doable, and if you don't get to doing the whole flat or a whole room, you can still say you did some things and hopefully have a feeling of accomplishment.

A lot of people say you can reward yourself for completing certain tasks. I personally don't like doing this because at one point where I was living was super clean but I was also super drunk the whole time.

If none of that is relevant, I'd just go by **Getting as much help as you can, take control of what you can control and only that, and be aware and listen to your body and mind when they say you need a break. It might be a good idea to get some sort of work on the hoarding too--both improving the manifestations and the mindset behind it.

I've made yet another planner says the days and dates I will clean the flat 1 room per day. I just want ut blitzed so I can live in it. I didn't realise I hoard and hoard a lot. I feel like I've let everyone down with the state of my flat and the lack of motivation to do it.

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