Hi,<\/p>\n
I remember when I still lived at home\u2026 And it was time for Spring Cleaning. I would do everything I could to NOT be at home! Because being at home meant I would have to help my mom with all kinds of extra cleaning. Closets\u2026 The garage\u2026 The basement\u2026 The rooms\u2026<\/p>\n
Under everywhere\u2026 In everything\u2026 Places I never knew existed! And we\u2019d find things I thought were long gone, too! It was amazing, the things Mom would discover during Spring Cleaning. I think everybody Spring Cleans. I think it\u2019s a universal thing, if you ask me. But I don\u2019t think it\u2019s limited to Spring. I think many people do it during the Fall as well. It doesn\u2019t really matter when you do it. The point is\u2026 If you let things build up\u2026 You eventually have to clean them up, however you do it. And whenever you choose to do it.<\/p>\n
There are people who are called hoarders. There\u2019s even a show on TV about them now. Have you seen it? It\u2019s really kind of sad. It can be a type of mental illness, if it gets real bad. These people don\u2019t just clutter\u2026 They just can\u2019t throw anything away. So they keep EVERYTHING!<\/p>\n
And this stuff just keeps building\u2026 And building\u2026 And building\u2026 Until eventually it just overwhelms the room they have it in\u2026 And actually even overwhelms the person themselves! That\u2019s when it gets really bad. See, you can actually have too much STUFF. And it can lead to anxiety. There are other issues that can accompany bipolar disorder, and anxiety is one of them.<\/p>\n
Michele, who I\u2019ve talked about before, who has bipolar disorder, went through something like this at one point. She had a dining room table which was where she just started accumulating things \u2013 like the mail, different pieces of paper, newspapers, magazines, etc. \u2013 things she meant to get to, to clean up, but never seemed to get to. Eventually, her piles took up the entire dining room table. Every time she would tell herself she was going to clean up the mess, she would look over at the table and become so overwhelmed, she would have an anxiety attack! Well, something had to be done about it. So she talked to her therapist about it, and her therapist told her not to try to tackle it all at once, because that was what was overwhelming her. She told her to take just one corner, just one pile, and start on that. Michele did that, and it worked! And one corner, one pile at a time, she eventually cleaned off that whole dining room table. And she never had that problem again.<\/p>\n
Well, I have to go!<\/p>\n
Your Friend,<\/p>\n
Dave<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hi,<\/p>\n
I remember when I still lived at home\u2026 And it was time for Spring Cleaning. I would do everything I could to NOT be at home! Because being at home meant I would have to help my mom with all kinds of extra cleaning. Closets\u2026 The garage\u2026 The basement\u2026 The rooms\u2026<\/p>\n
Under everywhere\u2026 In everything\u2026 Places I never knew existed! And we\u2019d find things I thought were long gone, too!<\/p>\n