Untangling the Turmoil
Decluttering and Organizing bring:
1. Peace in the midst of chaos: A sense of order in a life where your physical well-being has no order. A long period of unrelenting pain is overwhelming, and we are powerless to stop it. When Your body is out of control your brain might seek some small area, you CAN exert control over immediately in your tangible world. Organizing can serve as a "magic trick" for our emotional chaos. As you visually see order coming together while you organize even the smallest space, you might feel a sense of calming order.
2. Visual Quietness: Messy and disorganized areas create visual distractions that add to our stress and create "decision fatigue." As we are stuck abandoned to the same space for days, we are always thinking of all the things that need to be done. When I know it won't be long until I am back confined to the sofa, I want to organize or straighten the things in my area. It is like reducing the "background noise," a messy space creates. Clutter often represents stress and mess. My chronic pain so often dictates my plans and my emotions. I don't have a choice in what I will do today. Being stuck in bed or on the sofa for days, looking around the same area, can be very overstimulating. When pain eases up, organizing a small space brings sense of order. Then when pain confines me back to my small space, I have a little piece of joy looking at the area I bought order to.
3. A better mood and sense of accomplishment: did you know that completing a task, (even a small one) releases dopamine? This is an automatic mood booster. It helps in our battle with depression. After days of inability to accomplish much of anything, it is rewarding to see order come to a small area.
4. A form of meditation: Meditation is known to improve our pain and our mood. Repetitive tasks, such as sorting and organizing can have the same desired effect as sitting and meditating, a distraction that lowers our perception of pain.
5. All our senses into play: cleaning and organizing involve several of our senses. We are TOUCHING items repeatedly, SEEING the space come to order, SMELLING a scent of fresh products and that is very calming to our brain. It helps shift the focus away from pain. It even QUIETS the "background noise" where we feel as though we HEAR our pain screaming at us.
Why does organizing and cleaning up clutter often produce joy at the end of a TN flare up? Am I the only one that feels the desire to do this? When researching this idea, I learned that this is a common psychological response to overwhelming physical and emotional stress. When your body feels out of your control due to pain, your brain seeks to regulate that distress by exerting control over your immediate, EXTERNAL environment.
When I was young and suffering from the flu or a virus, my mother used to say that she could tell when I was feeling better because I would start cleaning. So, this is not something new for me. These days, debilitating pain can knock me down for days and even weeks. I feel powerless and unproductive, as the laundry piles up and dishes and clutter overwhelm me. I may try here and there to put things away while I battle discouragement that I am not coming out of this flare up fast enough. For those of you that battle chronic pain or illness you know that there is no clue as to when relief and strength will return. I don't know why I push myself when it will all get done eventually. No one else is judging me but me. Eventually, little by little by little my strength returns and with it comes the huge need to not only catch up the laundry and dishes, but to organize the pantry, or find a better storage solution. Why is that? I know that not everyone does this. My family will usually ask why I am wasting the strength of my good days. For me it is not wasted at all.
It isn't just cleaning or organizing the house. It is often reorganizing the budget as I attempt to pay past due bills. Sometimes I might feel the need to empty the contents of the refrigerator and discard and find ways to neatly organize the contents. There is just something about seeing everything neatly contained and more aesthetically pleasing. Other time I might want to dump out all the contents of my purse and find order in its contents. When I am in a flare up for days on end, and constantly forced to look at all my surroundings, I see everything that is out of place or doesn't make sense. I notice the picture frame that is tilted slightly or decor that for some reason seems out of place. Things may have seemed just fine to me until I am stuck staring at it for days on end. Of course, the first thing to do as I am slowly coming out of a flare up is to shower and make myself a little more pleasing to look at. Then I will already know of at least one thing that I need to bring order to.
This also can benefit another family member if I have been laid up at their house for several days. I find joy in bringing some order to their pantry or a grandchild's bedrooms, etc. They are each such busy parents with full time jobs and getting children to practice and lessons, so the last thing they have time for is reorganizing a space in their home. They are typically very grateful to recognize that I'm coming out of a flare up and helping to make a small area of their home, work more efficiently or just aesthetically pleasing to the eyes. It isn't so much that it Needed to be done. Everyone was usually just fine the way it was. It has just become part of the process for after being unable to do more than ride out the storm the previous days. When I am in a flare up, nothing seems to make sense to me. Most of the time I don't have any idea What brought on the TN attacks. It is hard to have to just be still and wait. I often feel guilty as family members are buzzing around me, doing the daily routines of many tasks required to make their household function effective. As the flare up begins to ease up I often have already thought of something I want to tackle. Shile I'm down, I might begin looking up ideas on Pinterest or looking up organizational products such as baskets or bins to fit a space. There is something about gaining some sense of order to a room, a cabinet, closet, etc. when I have zero sense of order in my life or my health.
I never knew that I had any "control" issues until God allowed me experience what it is to have no control over so many areas of my life. I cannot control whether or not a medication or procedure will stop this unrelenting pain. I cannot control what other Think of my condition or my ability to keep plans with them. I can do my best to conserve my strength, monitor my activities, take my medications on time, but that will never guarantee I will be able to show up when I am needed or expected. Feeling out of control is not a good feeling. I have learned that gaining a tiny piece of order to a small area of my home can be s fulfilling on the rollercoaster of a ride with unpredictable trigeminal neuralgia.
However, it is one small thing that brings me Joy and some little piece of order in a life that I no longer have control over.
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