Living with executive dysfunction - how to tidy up!

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Hello, it has been a while since I posted last, I am hoping to get some tips for living.

I have a suggested diagnosis by various audiologists I consulted about auditory processing problems, and other healthcare professionals (but further confirmation of diagnosis not sought) of Aspergers, previous childhood (1970s) diagnosis of "hyperactive".

My husband has no official diagnosis of anything but IMO he fits the desctiption of ADHD but with some overlaps with AS perhaps. This is just a guess on my part but he is certainly not neurotypical. We were both born a decade or two too early to get childhood diagnosis for anything of that nature!

Our problem is one of a very practical nature - we live in a state of absolute chaos and mess. Neither of us could organise the proverbial p*ss up in a brewery, and having been married for just over 2 years and living together for 4, this lack of basic organisational skill is apparent from the horrendous mess in our living space.

Yes, I hate the mess, I desire some sort of order, and it depresses me. But I also can't deal with it to sort it out. He doesn't know where to start. Neither of us has the mental organisational tools to deal with it. Add to that, I have HMS and early-onset osteoarthritis so there is a limit to what I can do physically.

We are both hoarders, neither of us can bear to throw anything away. We live in a 2 bedroom flat where 1 bedroom and 1 large storage cupboard is filled with stuff so much so that we can't get into them, loads of bookcases in the sitting room, piles of stuff on the floor in every room, under the bed is filled with rubbish, it looks like a bomb has gone off basically! I look in the spare room (which I can't get into) and I know stuff has to be done to sort it out but I can't put all the steps in the correct order, I know it needs doing but I don't get where or how to start, it makes me feel rubbish that my 60 year old mum offers to help us clean every time she comes round

Please can someone direct me to somewhere that gives some sort of checklist or logical order to doing this sort of thing?

Oh...I thought that this thread was gonna offer advice.

Sorry...can't help you. I have the exact problem. It is horrible. I have struggled with it since childhood.

http://www.dailyhousecleaningschedule.com/

This one's got a customizable checklist: http://www.dailyhousecleaningschedule.com/

Posted the wrong link! This is it: http://www.chorebuster.net/

Last edited by mysterious_misfit on 27 Sep 2008, 6:50 am, edited 1 time in total.

nope.....not gonna happen...not gonna make houselceaning a fun family event.
My partner is too inattentive and dysfunctional to be bothered with any aspect of it. I muck around with the cleaning but the job is too big. I am too overwhealmed most of the time...and I live in a very big space...a giant warehouse with lots of rooms....rooms full of stuff.....lots of stuff....I have tried Flylady....grrrr.....um...I try to do little things when I can so that certain things do not reach a complete state of critical mass..one will never be able to get things absoulutely perfect, but even though it may seem like the little efforts don't count, they actually do....likesay....at the office....I work for a small internet company...the space can get really messy...and just sweeping makes a big difference...We do have a guy who works for us. I have to remeber to um...get him to help me clean. It is no effort for him...He can do in half an hour what might take me all day it seems sometime.

Mysterious_Misfit-

Thanks for the link - that site looks great!

Never heard of executive disfunction before - but that's a perfect phrase for what goes on in my head when I try to get my stuff organised. Thanks for posting

The whole issue of tidying up has always seemed to complicated for me - yet it's such a trivial sounding phrase. All those decisions I've tried to muck out the loft several times, but have always been defeated by that.

That's a good resource. The style feels a little zealous for my taste at times, but the content seems pretty well-informed. Like the motivation page - don't try to do it all in one go - obvious when you think about it, but I still have to make a conscious effort not to do that.

Is ED related to AS then?

When me and my spouse were together (we worked together, too) we'd have a day. It was a mandatory day-even just an hour of us both-balls out -

I forget what day it was-it was so long ago and now him past.

But--it was like the first hour of our weekend.

Scoop up the beer bottles; dust; prepare for company.

It was the ONLY thing that kept the place functional. (the kitchen usually sat for weeks though-piling)

I would suggest you and your husband set aside mandatory hours on mandatory day. How about friday?

Scoop up living room debri. Stack books corner. Reciepts in a container. Hit the trash first. (ect)
Slowly things come together.

"Just DoOoO ittttt.! !! !! !"-Tony Little, silly guy extrodinaire.

Don't make a mess in the first place. No mess, no need to tidy up.

This is how I learnt to adapt (I slept in my school clothes when I went to school for example, which helped immensely in the mornings).

Executive dysfunction is a part of [all] ASDs (I don't know about NLD however), and it can range in severity like all symptoms. Dementia, schizophrenia, and other "brain" disorders have it too.

And ADHD. Executive dysfunction is big in ADHD.

I wonder if there are professional cleaners who could help in a situation like this...

You will obviously have to throw away or donate most of your things.... could you maybe ask a doctor for one or two doses of an anti-anxiety medication for while you do that? It is not a pleasant thing to have to do if you are prone to hoarding things.

Know this is a tangent, but I dug up an executive dysfunction article (overview) I recall quite liking:
http://executivedysfunction.info/
Also, here's link to site with interesting stuff about hoarding:
http://understanding_ocd.tripod.com/hoarding1_why.html

Have great difficulty with some of these things, can't stand to clean (the dirt grosses me out & I can't force self to keep up with things well enough that they don't have chance to become unclean). Also, have too much stuff but can't bear to be parted with many of my items-is struggle I've yet to get better handle on.

I don't know much about ED, but once every six months or so, I do a good cleaning of my room...I start off by picking up easy things like garbage, and tossing that...then I take care of any dishes or clothes that I might've left laying around...then I get to all the serious stuff. Then I go through stuff I've been stockpiling, like receipts and boxes (in case I need to return anything) and tell myself I don't need them anymore, and toss those out.

Only part is, I usually end up sticking everything else on my bed while I vacuum, and then when I'm done vacuuming, I'm not quite sure where to put everything (and even if I find somewhere for them, I'll probably forget where, due to habit), so it all ends up back on the floor

I have always had this problem myself and my husband doesn't care. But I hate it and most of the time I just cannot bring myself to clean up the mess. I can't just get up and start cleaning up, I have to plan to clean and when I do I clean pretty well. But I am disorganized, and the meds I am on have helped me in some areas but not as far as this goes. I also have ADHD.

I have exactly the same problem. luckily I'm far from being a hoarder, actually I have an opposite problem- I toss or give away a lot of stuff and it often happens that I regret this later.

I think too, deep down that is what I am afraid of when it comes to cleaning... I am afraid of giving away something that I may need later on and it has happened.

Glad for some links, hope to get help in this area myself...

Have been a mess all of my life... And I HATE messes! Why o why...

Danielismyname, thanks for posting that definition. For me it's really not that I make messes, it's that a mess "forms" after days/weeks/months, and then is realized, and then becomes overwhelming. To be sure, a concerted effort to keep organized from the beginning IS the best solution, takes a concerted effort though.