and suddenly every roommate I have ever had does a collective, “Oh, now I get it…”

20Jun09

There is something about which every roommate I have ever had has been annoyed, irritated, perplexed or frustrated by at some point or another.  I don’t know if I will ever be able to properly articulate this without sounding like a pathetic immature idiot who can’t function in every day life, but I am making an attempt here.  FYI this is probably the hardest thing I have ever admitted to anyone (that is so embarrassing to say and you’ll understand why in a minute… and this is so public, but it must be done) because I know it is nearly impossible to not judge or assume that I am crazy, weak, or just an idiot.  It’s the only thing in my life I have never even tried to get over because I am honestly just that scared.  If you end up hearing where I am coming from at the end of this, you will find that you suddenly understand me miraculously more clearly.

When I was a kid there was nothing I dreaded more than “getting stuff done around the house.”  In all the years of life in my primary home, nothing has ever brought me so much anxiety, and pretty much every bad childhood memory is based in this obsessive need to “get things done!” because it’s fall, or winter is coming, or summer is coming, or someone is coming over…

Oftentimes my parents seemed to have a plan for what was going to be achieved that day, but this plan was never shared with me.  Nor was I allowed to know about the plan of how these things were going to get accomplished or by when.  If I did get any information, I learned not to trust it because the rules were always changing.  I was not really taught how to weed a garden mow the lawn or rake up leaves, but I did get a tool or a finger pointing in a certain direction and a command to, “Weed!”  ”Rake!”  ”Clean!”

Now that I am adult I realize my parents didn’t necessarily have a plan, either.  At least not one that they articulated to each other.

Most of the time I was genuinely confused about what I was supposed to do.  I would usually try my best but inevitably either my mom or dad would let me know that they were completely dissatisfied with either the results of my work or the technique I was using.  More often than not, I would get asked an angered question like, “Don’t you know how to  ^@$%  weed??!!!”

(And what kid knows enough much less has enough courage to say, “Well, I’ve never done this before, so I don’t know how,” or, “I thought you were my parents, where else was I supposed to have learned this?”)

Now that I am adult I understand that something about the process must have always caused my parents anxiety, too.  The tension was always palpable when we were “working.”  My parents almost never fought about anything (well, I imagine every couple fights occasionally…), but they fought unequivocally 100% of the time whenever we had to “get things done.”

My “laziness” or lack of technique, or some other inefficiency was always the subject of these fights.  ”Well, if I didn’t have to put up with her, this would be done by now, you know that!”

So, all in all, I have no pleasant memory of any of these interactions.  I find that when doing housework, especially yard work or any type of change or reorganization, preparing for company, whatever, it is the only time that I with all seriousness wish I were invisible or dead.  I know that inevitably I am going to criticized, that nothing that I do will be right, and that everyone around me will begin fighting because of something that I did.  I immediately begin to think that I am stupid or lazy or useless because “nothing ever gets done.”  Who wouldn’t want to hide?

Now I am an adult, and this is the one area of my life from which I have been unable to step back, look at and try to deal with.  No one is immune to carrying baggage from their young life into their adult life, and this might be the biggest load that I carry—not because it is so deeply seeded or severely damaging (well, maybe that, too), but in that it effects a huge part of my life still.  I will always have to “get stuff done” around the house.

I am closer to 30 than I am to 20 and I still get notably scared every time I clean something.  If I work while you are gone, when you get back, I am not thinking about anything other than what you are thinking about what I cleaned.  If you are with me or watching me work, I can hardly lift a finger because I am literally trembling with fear over what you might say or do.  I have never been angry with you or thought you were a tyrant.  Years and years of experience just taught me to expect the worst.  Nothing in the world brings me more anxiety than yard work, having to put things away, and general tidying.  The worst memories of my entire life are tied to these tasks and I just can’t seem to step away from the anxiety that I connected to the activities.

I honestly don’t think that I mean to be messy or disorganized, but I have this learned idea or learned behavior that whatever I do will never be good enough so I might as well be messy.  I might as well be lazy.  Someone is about to come up to me at any moment and attack the very way that I organize my life and tell me that I am stupid or lazy or worthless because I didn’t do it right.  This, I think, is why I have always been successful at work but never at home.  My parents were never with me at work.

I realize that my parents could have taken a different approach and done less micromanaging.  They could have taught me once or twice and expected me to do the job.  Their standards were always changing and it was the inconsistency that caused me to become so deeply anxious.  The only outdoor task I ever enjoyed was shoveling snow because you could easily tell where it was and where it wasn’t.  It was the only thing I never got in trouble for doing, on the contrary I was praised.

So I am sorry folks—I am messy, mostly disorganized, and I never, ever clean anything unless I am left completely alone to do it of my own accord.  I won’t mow the lawn and I don’t volunteer to do outside work.  I experience an inappropriate amount of anxiety when you ask me to do or help with something around the house.  I know in my head that I might not be lazy or stupid, but years of training have caused me to live as though I were.

I realize that this probably makes me sound like a crazy person, which is why I have never even tried to comprehensively explain it to anyone.  A person should be able to function normally when performing every day tasks.  Shouldn’t they?  I promise I was never trying to get out of working, or to make you do my chores, or to fight with you.  I am sorry to the roommates I ordered around all while trying to avoid someone else hovering over me.  If while we were living together I tended to be neater than you, I am sorry that I used it to try to control you.  I never meant to be malicious or to pretend that I just didn’t hear you ask me to do something, or to intentionally forget what you had asked me to do.  I was only trying protect myself by making you fear me, or, to make you think that I was stupid, lazy, worthless, or just a plain old jerk in hope that you would stop asking me to do work around the house so that I could in turn avoid the oxygen robbing anxiety I have been feeling my whole life.

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