How to Keep House While Drowning

by K.C. Davis

Days rolled into each other in a sleepless strand

the gulf between what we know in our minds and what we feel in our hearts is often an insurmountable distance.

Being labeled as lazy cements the belief that struggling to complete these simple tasks is, at its core, a moral failure.

When I was sent to rehab for a year and a half at the age of sixteen, I was able to crawl out of the addiction but found myself just anxious to be thought of as the poster child of a “good client” as a substitute for genuine self-worth.

There is a big difference between being on a journey of worthiness and being on a journey of care.

It is impossible for the kindness or affirmation of others to penetrate your heart when you are thinking, “If you only knew…”

Next time you are trying to talk yourself into doing a care task, what would it be like to replace the voice that says, “Ugh, I should really go clean my house right now because it’s a disaster,” with “It would be such a kindness to future me if I were to get up right now and do _______.

Sometimes you may not get up even with the change in self-talk. But you know what? You weren’t getting up when you were being mean to yourself either, so at least you can be nice to yourself. No one ever shamed themselves into better mental health.

Any task or habit requiring extreme force of will depletes your ability to exert that type of energy over time. The truth is that human beings can only exert high effort for short periods. As someone in the addiction recovery world, I often think of a phrase we use when someone is attempting to maintain sobriety through sheer force of will. We call it white-knuckling sobriety because it brings to mind a person whose only solution for restraining themselves from drinking is to grip the edge of their chair so tightly their knuckles turn white. And those of us who have been around awhile know no one stays sober long that way.

In addiction recovery, as in most of life, success depends not on having strong willpower, but in developing mental and emotional tools to help you experience the world differently.

Although it looks like a lot, there are actually only five things in any room: (1) trash, (2) dishes, (3) laundry, (4) things that have a place and are not in their place, and (5) things that do not have a place.

Our brains need to see progress or they get discouraged.

You can set up the best systems in the world and they won’t change your life if you still hate yourself on days when you can’t keep up. So much of our distress comes not from the unfolded laundry but from the messages we give ourselves.

sometimes the “right” way of doing something creates barriers for certain executive functioning skills.

In the end, the approach that you are motivated to do and enjoy doing is the most “efficient,” because you are actually doing it and not avoiding it.

One reason why we have a hard time setting up systems that work for us is that we confuse an organized space with an aesthetically pleasing space.

Just because Susie with six kids and depression can keep an immaculate house does not mean you are morally inferior if you cannot. If Susie worked hard for that house and it made her happy she gets to be proud of it. And if you worked hard to eat a meal today, you get to feel proud of that too without any guilt about the state of your home. If you cannot do it like Susie, your only two options are to try to be like Susie and be miserable and burnt-out or to try to do things within your capacity and be whole and happy.

Instead of concluding the problem was that I just needed to try harder the next day, I said out loud, “I didn’t get on the bike yesterday for five minutes even though I do want to get on the bike. This tells me that five minutes was too big of a goal. I wonder if I could get on for three minutes?”

Maybe I’ll get back into a rhythm of doing it more often and maybe it will keep being inconsistent. One thing I know is that if I keep the shame removed I can keep the on-ramp open.

If your laundry system produces clean clothes, then it’s working. If you’d like to make it more efficient, then get creative! But remember that upgrading your laundry system can only increase your functioning, not your worth.

Shame is a horrible long-term motivator. It is more likely to contribute to dysfunction and continued cycles of unsustainable practices.

No person can do all the good things all the time and expecting yourself to just sets up an oppressive perfectionism to which no one can live up. Imperfection is required for a good life.

Shame is the enemy of functioning.

Just start making room for the possibility you are wrong when you say you aren’t worthy.

Doing things with excellence doesn’t mean doing everything perfectly.

You have full permission to do a little, do it with shortcuts, and do the bare minimum. Perfectionism is debilitating. I want you to embrace adaptive imperfection. We aren’t settling for less; we are engaging in adaptive routines that help us live and function and thrive. Good enough is perfect.

You do not have to earn the right to rest, connect, or recreate.

Rest is hard for a lot of people because they have conflated “doing nothing” or being unproductive with being lazy. Developing a compassionate inner voice that can challenge these messages is key. Recognize that being nonproductive is a necessary diversion. Rest is necessary for energy, and rest is necessary for work.

Absolutely no one is going to be lying on their deathbed with regrets about not cleaning their bathroom enough.

I believe the moral gut check here isn’t “Am I contributing enough?” but “Am I taking advantage of someone else?” You are not required to contribute to be worthy of love and care and belonging.

We all have seasons of life when we are capable of contributing more or less than the people around us.

When someone demands the benefits of being a part of a family but refuses responsibilities to that family of which they are capable, it’s a form of entitlement that exploits the other members of that family. However, having a limited capacity is not the same as being entitled and accepting help is not the same as exploiting others.

My favorite phrase for well-meaning family is, “I know you want to see me in a functioning environment and I want you to know that I want that for myself also. I am on my own journey to find what works for me and what I need most from you is nonjudgmental support. One thing that could really help me right now is ________.”

you can use my favorite boundary phrase, which is “thank you for your concern, but I am not taking any feedback on this issue right now.”

One problem was I was usually in the middle of doing something when I was noticing some care tasks that were “ready” to be addressed, which left me the options of saying either, “Oh, I’ll do that later,” and forgetting, or, “I better do that now so I don’t forget” and then forgetting the thing I was already in the middle of doing. I felt like I was constantly being pulled in a bunch of different directions and never actually having a home that functioned.

When you want to introduce some new habits or systems into your home to make things a bit more functional, don’t shoot for the moon. Go for the closest to what you’re already doing with a little bit of increased function.

a simple plan to keep a space livable is better than an overwhelming plan to keep a space perfect.

3. I do not have to complete the whole task. I have more than one bathroom in my house. I don’t ever clean all of them in a day. I simply pick the one I think needs cleaning, or the most convenient one, or even the one I did last week because I don’t want to spend very much time on it. I’ll get to them all eventually and even if they are dirty some of the time if I’m always doing something it will always look better than it was. Most days that read “clean kitchen” I just pick a few things to clean in the kitchen. Perhaps I wipe down the counters and clean the microwave one week; the next week I’ll do the stove. This approach means I always feel good that I am caring for my space and avoid the anxiety that makes me feel as though I am a servant to the list.

Sometimes we think, “When I’m done and it’s all in order, then I’ll be able to breathe and I won’t feel this way,” but the reality is there is no finish line. And that’s a good thing. You don’t have to do better to start feeling better.

It’s a true win-win situation: right now me gets to rest and future me gets to function.

This isn’t about doing what you are supposed to; it’s about being kind to yourself.

I so often look back on these seasons of limping through and say to myself with tenderness, “Wow, I was really doing the best I could with what I had.” And that’s the funny thing about doing your best; it never feels like your best at the time. In fact, it almost always feels like failing when you’re in it.

Whether it’s hiring a cleaning service, meal delivery, curbside groceries, or using a wash and fold, as long as you treat people with respect and pay them what they are worth, it’s all morally neutral.

Remember, feeling ashamed to pay for help is often directly related to the idea that care tasks are moral obligations central to your worthiness as a human.

If you are motivated to an activity by body shame, experience the activity as a chorus of unpleasant sensory experiences (pain, boredom, and sweat are my three least favorite things in the world), and then end with no immediate results, why on earth would you like that activity or want to do it ever again?