Messy

My son has just recently been diagnosed as bipolar so this is all new. Is being messy part of bp? He walks on clothes, books, mail, etc. in his apt. If messiness is part of it; would it actually help him to be less depressed if the mess was cleaned up and organized?

It may be a part of his symptoms. The symptoms tend to be different for everyone. I have BP1 and I keep my house really clean.

It may be that he is too depressed to have the motivation to clean or maybe it doesn't bother him. How old is he? I have walked into a lot of 20-something guys apartments that are about exactly how you describe, and most of them don't have any kind of mental health problem. In fact I was at a good friends house last night and he has about 20 pizza boxes stacked on the floor (leaning tower of pizza). It disgusted me, but he seemed quite proud of it.

Maybe ask your son if he would like some help cleaning up. It may be that it just doesn't bother him.

being bipolarII , i understand not feeling like cleaning up. when i have a big low period, it's all i can do to feed my pets. i used to have a place for everything and everything in it's place. as my disease progressed, i didn't have the motivation to do that. plus, i live alone now..and i'm really, really good at isolating.

as for making him less depressed, if you cleaned...i doubt it. it's his apartment and he's grown. good luck, pat

I'd have to agree w/GeminMD... I think that's just symptomatic of being male.

He might be less depressed if somebody helped him clean provided it didn't interfere with his System and make it impossible to find anything...

I keep my clean socks to the right of the pizza boxes, dirty to the left. Stacks of paper on the coffee table act as a giant coaster and saves me time looking for one. If I didn't leave the cobwebs hanging down the mosquitoes would get me. Dust, when disturbed, looks pretty in the slanting sunlight and cheers me up. If you leave your dishes in the sink long enough the bacteria will die of starvation.