When I first started Unfuck Your Habitat, it was a housekeeping blog very squarely aimed at lazy people. Mostly because I am one. As the blog gained momentum, though, I started hearing from people who were using the fundamentals to help them battle through something more serious than laziness: mental illness. More specifically, depression.
Now, I’m no stranger to depression. I don’t make it a secret that I have issues with depression and anxiety, just like I don’t make it a secret that I have poor eyesight and a bum knee. Depression, however, has its own set of related life issues that my poor arthritic knee has never caused. And one of those is the self-perpetuating cycle of depression and a messy home.
When you’re in the midst of a depressive episode, cleaning your house comes in on the List of Things You Want to Do somewhere after taunting a hive of bees and tap dancing on live television. Things are awful. It’s a struggle to walk to the bathroom. Making dinner seems more impossible than advanced calculus. Anything that’s not your couch or your bed might as well be hot lava. And so the mess builds around you. I purposely use the passive voice there because when you’re depressed, it seems nearly impossible that you’re contributing to the chaos of your house, because that would require energy, and you sure as hell don’t have any of that to spare.
Then you look around your messy house. And you feel worse. You feel more depressed, because now you’re exhausted and hopeless and can’t pull yourself out of bed, and on top of that, your house is a shithole. Which makes you feel useless on top of everything you were already feeling, and then probably overwhelmed on top of that, and quite frankly, having that many feelings at once during a depressive episode is like being crushed by a ton of bricks. So your depression gets worse, and your mess gets worse, and the two keep feeding on each other and it seems like there’s no end in sight.
This is, by far (besides cat pee), the most frequent theme of my asks. The asker is the one who’s invested in the unfucking process, and the people who they share space with are not on board. It could be roommates/flatmates, spouses, children, parents, significant others, whoever. The point is that you’re cleaning up and they aren’t. I love bullet points, so I’m going to bullet point the important stuff in this situation.
You cannot change anyone’s behavior but your own. You can ask for help, you can beg for buy-in, you can threaten, cajole, plead, or yell, but in the end, you can really only control what you do.
This is your priority, not theirs. This one might sting a bit, but it’s true. You’re on board, you’re energized, you’re motivated. Something spoke to you to get you going with this. They are not there. They have different priorities, other things occupying their time.
With very few exceptions, they are not actively sabotaging your efforts. I’m just going to come out with it, because this can be a hard one to hear, but: chances are, they either don’t notice, or they don’t care. Before you make any progress with how you look at this situation, it’s really important to fully understand this. You’re seeing ill intent where there’s likely just apathy and/or laziness.
Sometimes it’s better to be happy than be right.This one’s going to ruffle some feathers. I’m not saying be a maid for the people who live with you. I’m not saying to clean up after them. I do advocate putting all their shit somewhere (after telling them you’re going to do it) so that it’s not in your way, but if all you’re getting is upset and annoyed, you have to weigh whether it’s more important for you to have buy-in or to have a clean space. Again, you don’t have to be their maid, but cleaning your half of the stuff is still a 50% improvement from total disaster.
Passive-aggressive behavior never works. It doesn’t. It backfires. Constantly. Post-it notes, snide comments, throwing stuff (well, that’s more aggressive-aggressive) does not accomplish anything besides allowing your resentment to breed and making the other person think you’re unreasonable and immature.
Use your words. Explain to the people you live with why you’re doing what you’re doing. ASK them to help you out. Ask for help with very specific things, with specific timeframes. Let them know you’re going to keep doing it, and you may need to move their stuff (hell, toss it in a big box, I don’t care) in order to do so. Have the conversation as often as you feel is necessary, but have it without resentment, anger, or sarcasm.
Give them time. Like I said, right now, you’re gung-ho about this. They aren’t. But the more your behavior is consistently being modeled for them, the more likely they are to adopt it.
Keep on keeping on. Don’t let someone else deter you from doing something you want or need to do. It sucks if you’re doing it alone, but this is about you, not them.
“But, but, this is how my specific situation doesn’t fit what you’ve said.” I will get approximately ten billion asks and reblogs with some variation on that statement. And I will likely call 99.9% of them excuses. Life isn’t fair, kiddos. It’s how you deal with that fact that makes you who you are.
“This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes, when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals—sounds that say listen to this, it is important.” – Gary Provost
Just to highlight my reinterpretation of a moment from YOI episode 2:
To set the stage, we have our four faves:
Yurio, Yuuri, Viktor, and Viktor Nikiforov’s butt.
Everything is fine. Everyone is chilling (except for Yurio, who does not know how to chill).
Viktor is, admittedly, a little confused because the love of his life apparently didn’t want to jump his bones immediately upon his arrival, and also because Yuuri has been distant. Then this happens:
*Careless Whisper begins to play*
And our boy Yuuri pulls out ALL THE STOPS WITH HIS SPARKLING BIG BROWN DOE EYES
HE DOESN’T EVEN LIKE YOU, Viktor’s shoulder devil whisper-screams, HE DOESN’T EVEN–
more vampires who don’t remember more vampires saying ‘i don’t fucking know man, google it’ more vampires not remembering important historical figures more vampires not recalling centuries worth of history more vampires saying ‘ that was at least 300 years ago, how the FUCK could i remember that detail?’ more vampires whose brains work like human brains
More vampires who 300 years later can’t remember what was the truth and what was the lie they told to get out of trouble.
More vampires who are like, “I don’t know, man, I spent most of that decade in an opium den.”
More vampires who weren’t paying attention because they didn’t think it would be important.
More vampires who don’t know because there was lot of conflicting gossip and they don’t want to point any fingers.
More vampires who are just bad at dates. “Back in 1620, or was it 1645, wait, what year is it now?”
More vampires who were on a totally different continent when it happened, so get off their back and stop asking them questions already.
YES to all of this but also consider: vampires who only remember the most trivial stuff.
“Oh yeah, the only thing I remember about the American Revolution was this nice candlemaker I met sometime, and she was wearing this really cute red shawl…”
“Uhhh I don’t remember much about the fall of Rome but there was this one fucking cobblestone right outside the coliseum…”
Also consider: vampires who realize three or four hundred years after the fact that they knew someone famous.
Just sits up in bed one night screaming “THAT WAS GEORGE GODDAMN WASHINGTON”
*vampire wakes up his girlfriend in the middle of the night*
“Stacy. Hey, hey Stacy.”
“Wh- Eric, what now?”
“I just realized that I missed the entire Islamic golden age.”
“Wh- what?”
“I missed it, Stacy. The whole thing. I was lost in a forest the whole time. I was so lost.”
“Eric, I’m trying to sleep.”
“Stacy they… listen here, Stacy. I missed the invention of the number zero. Stacy, Stacy I’m freaking out.”
