After multiple years of merely surviving, I am faced with the problem of how to start living again. I’m really struggling with the dimensionality of the problem, and I am wondering how y’all would approach this. My aim with this question is not just to receive advice relevant to my situation, but to discuss more generally different approaches to this problem.
I only realised how bad things had become when I moved home. I know that I have more stuff than I need, but because I feel like I’ve been living mostly on autopilot, regular decluttering heuristics haven’t been helpful; if I get rid of everything I haven’t used in X time, then I’d get rid of most things I own. Even before I moved, there was a feedback loop where when I needed to use an item, it was never where I expected it to be, so I never used it. Then the more that this happened, the more that stuff would be boxed away, out of sight out of mind. In the past, I’ve found it useful to put away items in the first place I looked for them, but that doesn’t work for items that I don’t know how to begin searching for them; I don’t have much in the way of categories, so I often end up rummaging in boxes of assorted objects.
Part of this problem is that I definitely need to buy some more storage furniture, like shelves or drawers, but it’s hard to do that if I don’t know how many different categories there are, or how large they are. Sometimes it’s possible to come at the organisation from the opposite direction and say “given the storage available to me, what items do I need and how should I arrange them?”, but I have so much of a blank slate that I don’t know where to start. It’s like trying to solve the equation “a + b + c = 20”: there are too many unknowns and I get swamped by all the possibilities. I’m good at solving problems when I’m given a set of constraints and a goal, but I’m overwhelmed by having to devise the constraints and goals from scratch. I tried to start with building a baseline and carving out spaces or categories for the things I currently use, but my current baseline is so low that I complete that task quite quickly, and it only emphasises that my life, as it is now, is not enough for me.
I know that I need to ground my approach in the life that I want to lead, so that I can start making progress towards it. However, if I build systems intended to be used by the ideal version of me, I will end up with something that is incompatible with the current, emotionally broken version of me. These two versions of me are in tension with each other, and the overarching challenge is finding a route from one to the other. I don’t know where to start though. I feel like I should be interrogating myself about what I actually want, but I feel ill-equipped to answer that question after many months of deprioritising my hopes or wants because of struggling to survive. I feel scared to want anything, because there are so many unknowns that I don’t have a sense of what’s possible. An added complexity is that I am autistic, and thus really struggle without a routine. With so much uncertainty, I am feeling unanchored, and the basics of survival are taking up so much of my executive function and burning me out. Structure begets structure for people like me, but it’s hard to crystallise some certainty if you don’t have anything to build around.
So please tell me if you have experienced this kind of unanchored-ness, and what helped you to move past it? If you’ve ever had to build your life and your space from scratch, how did you tackle the problem of carving out categories? I imagine that if you have faced this problem, that it may be something you grapple with on an ongoing basis rather than solving outright. If so, how did you manage to continue living a life that was in construction (I find that partly built systems can fall apart due to regular life demands pulling your attention and effort away before you’ve routinized the new thing). What advice have you found helpful in the past?
I do have a diagnosis of ADHD (I probably should have mentioned that in my post). I think that I struggle with knowing what the essentials are, especially given that I’m in this situation as a result of cutting my life down below even the essential essentials. A lot of the stuff that’s causing mess isn’t necessarily clutter that could be gotten rid of, but important stuff that needs to have a home
Whats the worst thing that could happen if you just said fuck it and tried this out? Please be very specific and exhaustive
I mean, whilst it might not be the worth thing that could happen from trying this, the thing that already has happened is bad enough: I threw away the majority of stuff that I owned, which did involve getting rid of a lot of clutter, but also involved getting rid of a bunch of important and/or necessary things. Some of those things were necessary enough that they got repurchased. However, because of difficulties in organising what I do have (even when that’s only the bare essentials), then I am living in chaotic inconsistency.
To give a concrete example, I have asthma and I’m meant to take a preventer inhaler twice a day. My asthma is practically non-existent if I keep on top of that, but I haven’t been able to be consistent with it. That led to me having to have paramedics come out a while back because after a flare up, I also wasn’t able to find my blue reliever inhaler. Fortunately I live in a country where that doesn’t cost me an arm and a leg, but that kind of situation is what I’m trying to avoid — the cumulative impact of not having the things that I need to be okay
If you gathered all the true essentials and set them aside so they could not be lost or disposed, hoe would you feel about being able to have at it then?