Breaking the Shame Cycle: Cleaning for ADHDer's PC
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[00:00:00] Welcome to the Neuro Tribe, the podcast where authenticity meets empowerment. Your host, Teresa, is a certified business executive and life coach, navigating the intricate tapestry of neurodiversity. She's someone blessed with ADHD and dyslexia, and gifted a widow and a mother. To four incredible Neurodiverse children.
So each episode of the Neuro Tribe is an intimate exploration of life, love, business, and parenting through the lens of neurodiversity. Subscribe to the Neuro tribe on your favorite podcast platform or on YouTube and never miss a story. And if you really like this show, be sure to like, subscribe, rate, and of course share the podcast with anyone.
Join us on this unfiltered journey where no topic is too challenging, [00:01:00] no triumph too small. Let's unravel the layers of our community's experiences, embracing the struggles, celebrating the gifts, and finding empowerment and authenticity in every episode. And let's start right now.
Hey friends, welcome back. I am so grateful you are all here. It has been really interesting with working with myself and working with the urge to escape into my phone and social media land and doom scroll. And what I am finding is giving myself the times that I Design for me to go on to social media is been really helpful for me, because, I feel like I've been getting on there to connect with someone that I've been wanting to connect with or getting on to social media For purposes of work, [00:02:00] sending a message to a client or posting a blog, something like that.
And I also feel like it's been clearing up a lot of brain space for me. The other really notable thing is I am spending a lot more time. Doing other things that I have been wanting to do. For instance, I have been really looking forward to some books to read, or some books that I wanted to listen to on audio.
And when I am Feeling like picking up my phone and scrolling social media, what I will do instead is I will go on my audio app and listen to the book that I'm reading, or I will, get on in my schooling and my education and start learning. Work there. And when I genuinely [00:03:00] want to find time to decompress and let a load off of my brain, what I am finding very helpful is instead of picking up my phone, which is what I have been doing the last year, I have been picking up my journal instead.
And I. It has been shocking for me to really realize how much creativity is flowing through me right now, and it feels really good. So that's just a little heads up of, me and my journey with escapism. I also feel truly blessed and grateful. My best friend came into town to come visit and she lives.
far away from me. And so I feel like I had all of the love and juicy goodness from having a best friend that feels like a sister, into town. So [00:04:00] I am feeling like flying on a carpet right now. I feel like Aladdin and Jasmine flying on a carpet right now. So today what I want to talk about is
this is such a common thread with us, ADHD years. And so let's just talk about it and see what comes up for you. Now, I cannot tell you how much I myself has struggled with keeping things clean and organized. I cannot tell you since I was little, I had a hard time cleaning my room and, but yet I was very much in charge of cleaning the house when I was growing up, which is so interesting is so I really learned how to clean as in, you know, Scrub floors, scrub counters, you know, clean bathrooms, vacuum, dust, that sort of thing.
But I never really learned [00:05:00] to organize and that was always very challenging for me. And then what I noticed in my practice as I'm coaching, There, it's brought up so much, whether we're talking about something personal, or we are talking about business, being able to organize declutter and clean up is a topic that I think our community really Needs support with right.
I want to first talk about what comes up for you or me or us when we are talking about our house. Right. Say our house and having people over or wanting to have people over, or the idea of someone coming in our space or the idea of having people in our space. There are those that will just shut it down and say, you know what?
I just don't like [00:06:00] people in my space. And then there are other people who are like, well, I'd like to have people over. I'd like to have people in my space, but that embarrassment comes up and the shame comes up of, I want it. I want to be social. I want to have people over. I want to invite friends over, but I can't because I just cannot keep my space clean.
This is part of our community, right? This is part of a challenge that ADHD it is very real and it's very recognizable. And it's very much part of how our brain was wired and without the support systems that we can put in place, this is just an area that we need extra help with.
I'm going to go over some [00:07:00] things that you might be thinking and see if they ring true for you. Why can't I get my closet cleaned? Why can I just not get organized? Why can't I keep my house cleaned? And why can't I keep it cleaned consistently? Why? At my age, can I not figure out how to sort and organize my mail? No joke, every room in my house, there's piles of mail. Okay. So these are unhelpful questions. These are questions we're asking ourselves because we are not neurotypical and we're most likely comparing ourselves to neurotypicals. And we Are asking ourselves these things, and it's not something that we have really control over. Right. What I suggest is go back to the episode that's called unhelpful [00:08:00] questions and listen to that episode.
You might have some aha moments there, now, these unhelpful questions are unhelpful because this is a classic executive functioning ADHD challenge. The thing that is interesting is we ask ourselves, these questions, and then we use this to beat ourselves up. So let's stop that.
So if you were to sum up all of the unhelpful questions and all of the thoughts about maybe not wanting people in your space or wanting people in your space, but. Not wanting them to see your space, or all the unhelpful questions of why can't I do this? Why can't I do that? Why can't I do this? If you boil it down and really get to the bottom of it, or the root of it.
The underlining belief system, is that something is wrong [00:09:00] with you, right? So something is wrong with me. I can't organize. Something is wrong with me. I can't. Clean. Some, what is wrong with me? Fill in the blank, so if you boil it down, what you will find is that there's some underlining belief system, maybe even in your subconscious, that is what is wrong with me? Why can't I fill in the blank?
Let's look at the larger picture and ask ourself if we have these thoughts in our subconscious, where maybe did they come from? And maybe it is that you want to set an appointment with me and we can talk about that in a session, or maybe you want to set up an appointment with your therapist and really get to the bottom of why.
You have these subconscious thoughts, but let's kind of try and work through some of the typical responses now and [00:10:00] see if anything rings true for you. Maybe when you were growing up, you had a messy room and you wanted to have friends over. But you were embarrassed to have them see your room. So you just didn't invite people over.
Or maybe you wanted to have your friends over, but you didn't allow them in your room and you hung out in common spaces. Or maybe you did have friends come over and they made comments about your dirty room or the garbage or the clothes all over the place. And it embarrassed you so much. You decided, okay, I just don't want people in my space anymore. Maybe you had a really hard time keeping your room or your space clean, but your parents really shamed you about not having your room clean, or they had very strict rules around keeping your room clean and your bed made. Maybe you were punished [00:11:00] or shamed by your parents for not having your room be clean and tidy.
Maybe you would go over to a friend's house and you compare, you would compare yourself to your friend. How did your friend have their room so clean? How did, how were people's houses so clean, so immaculate? How did they not have any clutter anywhere? Maybe you grew up in a house where your parent or parents were also ADHD and you just grew up around clutter and didn't know any different.
But then when you went to other people's houses, you thought, what in the world, why is there no clutter around? How is it so clean? Right. And you kind of internalize that is, Oh, something's wrong with me. Something's wrong with my family. Something's wrong with my house. Maybe you want to have people over, but even the idea of [00:12:00] having people over is overwhelming because the idea of decluttering or cleaning up your house is overwhelming.
It almost sets you into an anxiety attack. It's just too much, right? Maybe you work out of your home and you want to have a client over, but you can't have a client over because you do not want them to see your house because you feel that that would be unprofessional. Maybe you have had your in laws over and your in laws Made sour faces and made comments about your housekeeping. There are so many messages in relating to our house, our room, the tidiness, how clean our house is, and somehow. In society that is tied to our worth as a person or that is tied to how successful you can be, or that is tied to, I cannot tell [00:13:00] you how many life coaches I have heard that have said that if your house is tidy, that means that your mind is tidy.
And I wanted to throw a shoe at all of those life coaches. I'm not going to lie.
What comes up? When I talk to my clients so often is this really deep shame when it comes to how their house looks and if it's untidy or if it has clutter or if it's just around downright dirty, like it could be that it's been a long time you've been in burnout and it's gotten real at your house and that deep level of shame around.
And then other times it's embarrassment or guilt, guilt of, Oh my gosh, I should have, I should, do you hear that word? That word should, I should [00:14:00] have cleaned the house. I should have vacuumed before I should have cleaned my son's room. What insert the words that shame embarrassment and guilt come up when it comes to.
Cleaning our homes or even our cars. Oh my gosh. I cannot tell you how many times I have coached on the embarrassment of not knowing that you were going to have a guest in your car and someone you're somewhere and someone asks, Oh, Hey, can I get a ride with you to the next place or whatever it is, and your car has a layer of dust on it and it hasn't been vacuumed in a while and maybe the kids.
were in the back and they were eating, their lunch or snacks and there's some stuff in the back and all of that embarrassment and feeling like you need to explain to the person that's getting into your car. Oh, [00:15:00] by the way, I haven't had time to clean the car in a couple of months.
There are two parts that I like to try and help clients with. And first, I really want to address the way that you feel because we don't want to pretend that we don't feel that way. We don't want to not acknowledge that we're feeling that way. I think the way through anything is being able to acknowledge and process how you do feel.
Whether or not, you know, the source of what it's coming from or the subconscious reason that it's there. The other part is so a lot of these feelings are come coming up from a learned experience. Right. So whether or not, you know, or remember what the learned experience was, part of the reason you're feeling this way is this learned experience [00:16:00] from society, whether it's at home or outside of the home. The other part is this almost resistance to accept who you are and how your brain works in this world, and understand that part of.
Having ADHD is the difficulty with executive functioning and with organization and with keeping things clean and tidy. And so really just honoring how your brain works in this world and accepting that this is part of who you are. And that doesn't mean that. That anything is wrong with you. You are not flawed as a person and you, who there's nothing there that nothing has gone amiss here.
You are who you are and you're beautiful for who you are. Even with your executive functioning challenges, even with the fact that your [00:17:00] house is not clean, there is nothing tied to your worth. And how clean your home is. But we can give you tools and set up systems to be able to help you. Being able to really hold space for yourself and try and love and accept yourself for who you are and how your brain works. You may go in and out of keeping your house clean and tidy, and maybe it gets messy for a while, and then you tidy it back up, or you go through spurts where every couple of months you go through and tidy your house, or maybe you've been having burnout, and you are managing the best that you possibly can, but Tidying your house is just not on in your cards right now and loving yourself through that and being okay with things getting messy right now because you [00:18:00] don't have enough spoons.
So I'm just curious. What comes up for you when I say cleaning the house or decluttering? Do you maybe feel overwhelmed or do you feel a distrust that you'll be able to do it? Or maybe you just feel completely lost and you don't know where to start the, even the idea of starting is overwhelming.
Some practical tools. Number one, Asking for help is okay. There are so many ADHD cleaning and organizing businesses out there. Some of them are big businesses and others are little mom and pop, or maybe it's a mom that's doing, you know, some organizing and cleaning on the side where their kids are at school.
Whatever it is, there are a lot of ADHD friendly cleaning and organizing companies out there. So it is [00:19:00] okay to ask for help. If you don't have that kind of budget, that's okay. Asking a family member or a friend to come over and help you clean and organize or declutter, or just hang out with you while you do it.
I used to say, Oh my gosh, I had a friend that would come over and I would say. I hope you don't mind, but while we're talking, I'm going to clean. It doesn't mean I'm not listening to you. It just makes it easier for me to clean and talk to you because it makes it more enjoyable for me. This was way before I knew that I had ADHD, but that's okay. Another place that you can ask for help that's free and isn't a family member. If family members are kind of a hot button for you. You can go on your neighborhood by nothing and post, I'm looking for someone to come and help me declutter my kids room and help me [00:20:00] post some of these things and gift some of these items. That is also another really beautiful tool that you can utilize,
Okay. So let's get to the skinny of it. Let's say your issue is that you really want to clean the closet or a closet. And you don't even know where to start. I always say it's really good to have either moving boxes or those big, sturdy kitchen bags, even if you need to, and then you can write on the bags or place the bags
piles, right? So I always say have a keep pile. You're going to keep this. You love it. You like it. You use it. It's staying. And then you have a pile that is for garbage. And you have a pile that is for donations. Now, if you're looking at the [00:21:00] closet and the whole closet is just too much for you to wrap your mind around that closet, pick with one section, maybe start with the floor and you get everything off of the floor of the closet and you go through that.
And what I say. is do not have a maybe pile. Try to decide right then and there. I'm going to keep this. I'm going to donate this. This goes to the garbage and give yourself a two minute rule. If you cannot decide in two minutes, then it's probably not something that you're going to use or keep. What some people will say is they will say, take everything out of the floor of the, the closet and move from there. What I have noticed in our community is that can be very overwhelming. What I prefer is take one thing from the closet at a time.
So if you've [00:22:00] decided you're going to do the closet floor, Then only take one item off the floor at a time and decide, keep garbage, donate, and put it in the appropriate bag. Then as you go, as you finish the floor, you can be done. If you've decided that you're going to tackle the closet, it doesn't mean that you have to do the closet all in one day.
It is okay to take the closet and break it up into small little pieces and do it over days or weeks. For instance, you could have one day be do the closet floor and then another day be do the bottom rack and then work your way up till you get to the top of the closet. Other people, they want to do the whole thing.
They want to do the whole closet in one day. That's totally fine, right? As long as you're doing it within your body [00:23:00] needs. Maybe when we start, we're really, really excited about it and we have a lot of energy towards it. And so we'll get into it and then we'll get halfway through and realize that we're totally done and completely exhausted and we have no more spoons to finish it.
I really like to have pre thought agreements with ourselves and boundaries with ourselves that we're going to do one section at a time. And you can decide ahead of time what your section is. Maybe you do the floor of the closet. And then you go through pants and pants only, and then you go through shirts and shirts only, or you go through dresses and dresses only, or you do the floor of the closet and then you may, you have more energy.
So you decide you're going to do the bottom shelf, but when you do the bottom shelf, you've decided, okay, I'm done for the day. My body is feeling it. I'm out of spoons. I'm done. And being totally okay with being done when your [00:24:00] body is feeling it. Having a stopping point that you agree with yourself or setting a timer.
Okay. I finished the floor of the closet, but, and I have a little bit more energy, so I'm gonna set a 20 minute timer and after 20 minutes I can decide whether I, I'm gonna stop now or I'm gonna go another 20 minutes and keep going from there. But don't just go full forward to the whole closet. If you are the type of ADHD or that has a tendency to not finish because you're too tired or you've lost your gumption to do it right.
There are other ADHD years that we're just driving full force and we want to get the whole closet done. And once we start, we don't want to stop and we want to finish. I'm kind of that type where if I start a project, I don't want to stop it. Partly because I'm [00:25:00] afraid I won't come back to it. And the other part is because I think my brain nags at me to finish the thing.
I don't know. That might be the odd ADHD. I'm not sure, but it's hard for me to stop a task once I've started. And I'm also the type of ADHD where I will keep going, even though I'm physically in pain. It's something that I work on to go ahead and allow myself to stop when I'm feeling pain or, when I'm feeling that I don't have any more spoons left. I think that being late diagnosed, I got so used to powering through. That I am now having to retrain my brain to not power through and to be able to have this pre arranged agreement, which I'm teaching you.
So please understand that. Not only am [00:26:00] I. Teaching you and I'm teaching my clients. It's also stuff I work on myself and it's these tools that I have taught myself that I'm also now teaching my clients. So there we go. So say, for instance, you are wanting to clean your kitchen. And let's say it's been a minute since you've cleaned your kitchen and everywhere you look there's piles and piles and piles of stuff. There's stuff you need to throw out. There's Stuff that's gone bad. There's dishes, there's garbage, the cupboards are completely full.
You don't even know what's in the cupboards anymore. Let's not even talk about the pantry and the refrigerator needs a good scrubbing and it's full of stuff in there so much. You don't even know what is in there anymore. And something smells. Right. So again, this is one of those instances [00:27:00] where you start with one thing at a time.
Decide, okay, maybe the kitchen is a health hazard because something in there smells. Let's say you decide that you're going to break up the kitchen into small little bite sized pieces. I love small little bite sized pieces.
It is how we get through life. So let's say you get in the, into the kitchen and you decide, okay, out of everything that needs to be done, I think the health hazard is the refrigerator because something smells in there. So then you take everything off of one shelf at a time. You spray the shelf down, you clean the shelf.
When you put stuff back on the shelf, it's only stuff that you're going to eat. That is not expired and doesn't have any mold on it. Everything else goes in the garbage. If you have it in your fridge, but you have noticed that you bought it because it was an impulse buy because he wanted [00:28:00] to try the thing, but then every time you go in, you're not eating the thing.
It is okay to give it away on buy nothing. Even if you bought, spent money on buying the food. It's okay. If you are not going to eat it, it's better that you give it to somebody else that will eat it than letting it sit there until it goes bad. So you tackle the refrigerator that way. You tackle it one shelf at a time, one drawer at a time, scrubbing at it one at a time, and until you can get it clean.
And then when you're done with the refrigerator, maybe you're done for the day. And this is another thing that I want to really stress to you. If you decide that you want to clean the kitchen, that does not mean you have to clean the whole thing in one day. It means that you agree with yourself, what you're going to do and be totally clear with that.
You do one little bit at a time, bite size pieces. And when you're done with what you've agreed with yourself, you [00:29:00] can be done, go and read your book, take a bath, go on a walk, hang out with the kids. Go roller skating, whatever it is that you want to do. Once you're done with that, you're done, or you can decide you have enough spoons left to tackle another thing on your list.
Or if you're like me, you do the whole thing in one day. Just , decide ahead of time, right? How much time you want to spend. There are some people that they only want, they only have a two hour window. So pick one thing within that two hour window. And if you finish that thing before the two hour window is up, you can be done.
Or you can take smaller items and if something is less than two minutes, if something takes less than two minutes to clean up or declutter or put away, that can be fill in the [00:30:00] rest of that two hours. Or. If you have a lot of time left, you can pick another section. Maybe instead of doing a whole cupboard you just do one shelf at a time in the cupboard, right?
So you open the cupboard up. It has five shelves. You have, you finish the fridge, so you have time for one shelf in the cupboard. And then maybe, the next day after work or before work, you do another shelf in the cupboard. And then you just keep doing one shelf at a time until you have finished the kitchen.
Or you do, you section off the counters and you do certain parts of the counters, one section at a time. until you're done. What I'm trying to say is we need to take away the rules of what we think it is to declutter or clean and we need to make our own rules for what works for us and what works for our body and what works for our brain type.[00:31:00]
Okay, you have the permission to do that. I really like to take household tasks and make it fun for me. I love, love, love, love, love having a clean house. I love it. I absolutely adore it. I want to marry it and have babies with a clean house. However, it is so hard for me to have a clean house. And so for me, I had to come up with strategies to make it fun, to turn it into a game.
I can't tell you how many times I spent beating myself up or feeling overwhelmed. And I just decided I don't want to feel that way anymore. So I turned it into. Something fun. So what I will do is I will call a good friend, or I will call my best friend, and I will talk on the phone for an hour, two hours while I'm doing a [00:32:00] task that I pre designed for myself.
I will decide, do I want to spend the morning? Do I want to spend the afternoon? Or do I want to spend the whole day on said tasks, and I will just get to it. Maybe I'll talk to my best friend for a while. Maybe I'll listen to an audio book or I will decide a podcast that I'm super interested in and I will, get the bathroom cleaned while I'm listening to my audio book.
And before I know it, I have a clean bathroom and it feels like not very much time has gone by. Knowing we have time blindness, right? The other thing is as we're doing our fun things while we're doing our tasks, checking in with our body to figure out, do I need water? Do I need food? Do I need a break right now?
How is my body feeling? So if you've gotten into the hyper fixation of, I am going to clean declutter all the things [00:33:00] that is fine, go with it, roll with it, stop and pause and check in. Do I need water? Do I need food? Do I need to restroom? How are my spoons? How is my body feeling? Those are all very important things for you to be thinking about as you are doing your cleaning spree slash decluttering spree. Okay. Now. What happens if you've decided ahead, I am going to do X, Y, Z in the morning on Saturday and you wake up in the morning on Saturday and you feel like your body got hit by a bus, you just, you're so tired, maybe you're in pain or you will. Are not feeling well, you woke up with a cold, right?
It is okay to put a pause or put a pin in the cleaning, even though you decided it is Saturday morning and you're [00:34:00] supposed to clean. If you get to Saturday morning and you don't have enough spoons to be able to do the thing that you decided to clean, it is okay. Take the morning off. Just give yourself permission.
Part of being neurodivergent sometimes comes up with health issues or body issues. , right? Sometimes you have pain. Sometimes we get colds more often. There's all kinds of reasons why our body might not be feeling up to the challenge of getting the job done, and rather than beating yourself up, it is okay to give yourself the grace and love and rest.
You can always get back to it another day, whether it's. Maybe you take Saturday morning off to rest and you clean Saturday afternoon, or you take all of Saturday off to just cuddle and watch movies with the kids. And Sunday you decide to [00:35:00] do the thing that you were supposed to do on Saturday. Either way, I am saying it's more important to pay attention to your body and where your spoons are at then to try and power through. On the other side, you may get to the point where you wake up on Saturday morning and you feel great. You feel really good. And so you do the project that you set yourself aside to do, and you find that you still have so much more energy. To be able to keep going. And I say, roll with it. If you're into it and you're enjoying yourself and you have a body double or you're listening to some music and you are really enjoying cleaning and getting through all of the things, then do it, roll with it, go with it.
If you get stuck, that is okay. Pause, take a deep breath. Love on yourself, , maybe take a break and [00:36:00] then come back to it and ask yourself, how can I break this up into a smaller piece? How can I take this task and make it smaller? How can I break it down? And that's it. Work my way up to it.
You guys, thank you so much. I am so grateful to have all of you here. If you enjoyed this video, please like, subscribe, share, maybe share it with a friend or a family member and I will see you next time. Bye.
