I have been feeling pretty good about my progress for the last few days. Though I haven't been going to bed as early as I would like (more accurately, as early as Jesse would like), I have been more able to get to sleep when I do go to bed, and it is less of a struggle. Waking up is getting easier too, though again, I'm not waking as early as I should be.
I have been making some progress in other regards, especially yesterday. Between writing and reading, I managed to finish the dishes my mom had started, empty my trash, and even empty the overflowing diaper pail in the nursery. Like with sleep, the process of getting it done didn't just involve gritting my teeth, buckling down and doing it as a force of will. My writing for the day was done, I'd read quite a bit and felt free to do those chores throughout the day. I felt like there was energy there to do it, and I felt like I had untangled some of the complicated thoughts and feelings that came along with those tasks (or at least, if I had not, I was confident that I would and could.)
The dishes were, psychologically, the easiest. They had already been sorted and part of them were already clean. I even managed to get Jesse to put away the dishes my mom had cleaned so that I would have space to lay more out to dry. It wasn't just that they had helped me chip away at how overwhelming I found the whole task and getting it started, but that I didn't feel alone when doing it. It had become a team effort. I was doing it because I wanted to help my mom and make her life easier, but I felt like since everyone else chipped in to help get it started, that somehow they cared more about me. It wasn't just about doing the dishes, it seemed to run much deeper than that.
After doing the dishes, I had completed one major task and felt accomplished. I knew other chores needed to be done, but I told myself, One step at a time, and would have been okay with myself had I not finished the trash. When these tasks crept up on me, when I saw them from the corner of my eye, I reassured myself, You don't have to do them if you don't want to. You've done a good job today. I guess now that I didn't feel the psychological pressure to deal with the trash, it was somehow a lot easier to do. That is most of the stress involved in the task, my thought processes attached to it. When I get anxious or depressed, the problem seems to be that there is so much stress, I withdraw from it. What stress there was attached to the tasks when I did them yesterday wasn't psychological pressure that squeezed in on me, but pressure that projected outward.
The first thing I did was take out the trash that had been sitting just outside my door for days. It was trash from the can by my computer, and I had taken it out days ago, but left it outside my door. I had had to clean it up once already because raccoons had gotten into it, but I had still left it out there. The raccoons had gotten into it again, so I needed to clean it up again and actually take it out to the curb. But I was avoiding it. I finally felt compelled to get it done when my mom asked me to help her clean up a garbage bag by the other door that raccoons had also gotten into. Usually my grandfather takes the trash out, but since he wasn't there, one of the bags got left out and forgotten, until the animals made a mess of it. I helped her put the torn up bag in a new one and picked up some of the trash that had been strewn about. While she was standing there talking to a neighbor, I felt a compulsion to go over to my door and clean up my own raccoon-induced mess. I completed the task with ease, and didn't run into any mental roadblocks. The only thing I can figure is that cleaning up a different mess with my mom gave me momentum to clean up my own garbage. Or, because we had accomplished the task, maybe I now had a subconscious confidence to tackle my own mess. Or, maybe still, it was more like the dishes where, since someone else was participating, it felt more like a team effort and I was more comfortable with taking care of my own end. Either way, I felt compelled to clean up the mess and even take the trash to the curb, and suddenly it was easier to do.
The next thing that demanded my attention was the diaper pail overflowing in the nursery. It was pretty bad; I probably could have filled the pail twice with what was there. I wasn't sure if I was ready to tackle it, so I asked Jesse to take it out for me. It took a while for him to get around to it, but when he did, he complained that the trash can I told him to put it all in was already overflowing too. I told him to just take it out there, I'd deal with the rest. The next time I went into the nursery at bedtime, it was all still there. When I confronted Jesse about it, he said he told me the garbage can was full so he couldn't take it out. I told him that he should have put it in a garbage bag or something, whatever had to be done to get it out. I was irritated that he hadn't even touched the task, and frustrated that I couldn't get the help with it that I had wanted. But instead of getting mad at him, I started to think that, perhaps, though he hadn't said anything, he found the task overwhelming, too. Maybe he had tried to take it out, but couldn't find the box of garbage bags, since it was in my desk drawer and not under the sink. Maybe the smell and other sensory information was too much for his brain to deal with, so he had to withdraw from the task. With a more forgiving mind about it, I felt like at least he had tried to help. I was still a little annoyed, but I did start taking out the diapers, with relative ease. I was delighted when the baby started helping me put all the overflow into a garbage bag (he can actually be pretty helpful, from time to time).
While I was on a role, I took the garbage out from the can by my desk, even though it was only half full. Jesse had been using my computer earlier in the week, and dumped a half-eaten chili dog in it. Since that can doesn't fill up very fast, it sat there in the garbage for a very long time, attracting bugs. It was starting to get on my nerves, because there was a swarm of gnats flitting about in front of my computer screen every time I sat down to work. There was no use in blaming him for this, since he probably hadn't thought the consequences of his actions out all the way through. And, as evidenced by his work space, he is completely oblivious to filth to begin with. So I just sent him a message on Facebook about it:
I was still a little irritated about his lack of consideration when using my work space, so just making this comment to him set off a little cascade of peeves I had related to him making messes in my area.
Probably not my gentlest reprimand, but I figured it was better to say it than leave it unsaid. Not that I expected him to listen to me. These complaints aren't new. I've tried telling him these things multiple times, but I get ignored, for whatever reason. I know I am probably even less pleasant to deal with when I'm irritated and making a complaint like this verbally, in person. Hopefully he's more receptive to this information in the written format, though through this whole thing he made no reply whatsoever. My irritation isn't unreasonable, to a normal person. But he just doesn't seem to get it. He doesn't seem to understand or respect that having that kind of mess pile up really bothers me, and distracts me in a huge way. And when I have a hard time even cleaning up my own messes, it's really frustrating to have even more messes piled on top of that due to someone else's inconsiderate behavior.
His messy work area gets so bad sometimes, it drives me to clean it top to bottom. He leaves dirty dishes everywhere, food containers just lying about, attracting pests, and so much clutter that stuff easily gets lost. And if I just had to collect his dirty dishes and throw away his trash every once in a while, I might be okay with that. However, when I do clean his area, I get an earful myself. He complains that I misplace things, or that I touched or moved something I don't even remember running across. One time I did clean his entire work space, getting all the dishes to the sink and garbage to the trash and putting away everything on his desk so that I could wipe the desk down and vacuum underneath, and when he got home and saw what I'd done, all he said was, "God damn it, Heidi." I was unphased by this comment, as it was the sort of response I expected, but at the time, a friend of ours was visiting. "What the hell is wrong with you?" he told Jesse. Jesse began his rebuttal, but our friend cut him off. "No, no. If my mom had done something like that and cleaned up my whole desk, I would be all like, 'Wow, thanks mom!' I would be so grateful."
Jesse made no further reply. At least it was clear to someone besides me that he was being unreasonable, and our friend was clearly disgusted with his attitude.
He seems to think that, if he corrects the behavior, he is just rewarding my negative behavior of being emotional about the issue, expressing myself with irritation and anger. But I've tried asking nicely too. It doesn't seem to make a difference. And if I tell him I tried asking nicely, he doesn't remember it, or tells me to cite when I did. Of course I don't remember any specific dates. I just know that I have tried. And the lack of response to me asking nicely is an irritation in and of itself.
I respect that it is his work space. But he needs to respect that his work space affects other people in the house. Leaving dirty dishes laying about makes those dishes inaccessible to other people, so that when my mom needs a spoon or a certain number of bowls or cups, and doesn't find them, it creates added frustration. And the trash and food containers attract bugs that not only now live everywhere in our bedroom (so that every time I have to go to sleep, I have to mentally block out his filth), but also travel throughout the house, such as when perhaps a bag or a pair of shoes bugs may be hiding in move from one part of the house to the other. Even without that, it's not a long trek for them to crawl around to the nursery or my workshop or the bathroom. It makes everyone else less comfortable, it makes me feel like I'm living in a complete shithole, no matter how hard I might try to keep things tidy. And these feelings erode at my self-worth. That may even sound silly, when I put it like that, but the irritation with bugs crawling everywhere goes deeper than just sanitation. We feel worse about where we're living when things are this messy. We don't feel proud of where we live, don't feel comfortable enough to invite in guests, or even have them in our houses for the shortest amount of time. And even when we do have guests, when they see a lot of bugs and a big mess... I know it's not important to him, what other people think of the environment he lives in, but it matters to me. I know it matters to my mom too. I don't want people to think of me as a poor slob. Because I know that's not who I am. And I also want to feel comfortable inviting people into my home. Because I'm a social creature... even if he isn't.
He deters me from cleaning his desk area by telling me I must respect his space. The problem is, his space doesn't exist in a vacuum. My work space certainly gets cluttered, yes, but it gets cluttered with piles of mail and half-completed commissions, paint spills and toys. Garbage and dirty dishes don't sit around for very long, because of said reasons.
What's worse, is that he loses things all the time. Whenever he loses stuff, I suggest that he cleans up. I always find a bunch of things when I clean up (indeed, last time I cleaned up his desk, I found easily a half dozen things he or I had lost that we had basically given up on looking for). But he dismisses me entirely. He loses his car keys all the time. His solution, instead of cleaning or finding them somehow, is to instead "borrow" my keys. But, inevitably, because he has not confronted the likely cause of the problem, he usually loses my keys, too. Which, in turn, forces him to look for them, or his own keys. And if he finds his keys, he does not continue to search for mine. For probably the third or fourth time, my keys are missing as a result of this ridiculous cycle.
As proudly analytical as he insists on being, you would think he would have a very good answer as to why he does these things. But I have never gotten a clear response. And I can't think of one for him. I think my rationale is completely sound. Even now, looking it over in writing, I am baffled by his behavior, from a rational standpoint. Of course, I could perhaps think of some deeper psychological reasons for his behavior, but he has never taken well to my psychoanalysis, so such an effort would not have much utility, other than perhaps to cause me to resign to his ludicrous and unacceptably inconsiderate behavior. If I act out in anger or irritation, it is only because I am at a complete loss as to how to even deal with him anymore.
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