Cleaning with Physical Health Problems (And Why It is Dragging Out the Process)

It has been over a month since I wrote a post about anything home repair and cleaning related. All throughout the month of October, I went back and forth if I should write about what is going on in my life. I decided not to because… well… things haven’t been going so well.

Aside from common worries everyone has right now, cleaning out my things has made me pretty upset. If you are like me, then you’ve watched TV shows in which someone is a hoarder and needs intervention about their problem. After years of allowing the clutter to pile up, I’ve become afraid I have become a hoarder. Yet, my fear has proven to be just me, getting inside my head and convincing myself I am something I really am not.

Cleaning out my things have been really easy. I split the stuff I want to keep, what I want to get rid of, and what I’m not sure about. Then, a few days later, I go through the stuff I’m not sure about and make final decisions about them. Progress has been really good and I’m very proud of the reductions of things in my house. I was even able to do this with the things I inherited from my relative. I thought I would have trouble decluttering their things, but it turned out to be really easy.

Even though I’ve been doing well in my great, big, huge clean out, there is one thing I didn’t expect I would run into while doing this: My body physically couldn’t keep cleaning.

I am a pretty strong person and can lift really heavy things. I also have stamina to do physical things for longer durations of time. During the years I struggled with a long term illness, I prioritized keeping my physical strength and stamina in as good of shape as possible. Was I perfect? No, but I did what I could. So, with all these years of keeping and maintaining my strength, I thought I would be find lifting heavy objects while decluttering.

Unfortunately, I overestimated what my body can currently handle.

I knew my hips and upper thighs would be one of the areas my body would take the longest to heal from my illness. I was also warned about this by my doctor many years ago and was told what to do when I start to have problems overworking and overextending these areas. This is the actual reason why it took me so long to clean out my home. My brain was willing to do it. I was motivated as well. My body, on the other hand, wasn’t ready to get to work. Although I could’ve asked for help, I was so wrapped up in the idea that I am a hoarder with problems I decided it would be best if I did most, if not all, the cleaning myself. That way I could boost my self esteem and help me see that I’m not the person I thought I am.

When I started cleaning, I thought my body was healthy enough to move around a lot. After a few weeks, my body began to have problems. Again, I’m strong physically, but there are the problems with my hips and thighs that cause me to be in overwhelming pain whenever I start to move a lot. The more I moved, the worse I felt. One day, the pain was too much. That is when I realized I hurt my muscles really badly. So, I did what my doctor told me to do when this problem comes up: Rest.

So, I’ve been resting on and off for weeks. I still try to clean things out, but for the most part I’m sitting in a desk chair, going through whatever it is I need to go through. There are days when I dedicate it to sitting as much as possible. It does help, but I still have the urge to get up and go through more things.

To be honest, I made myself a deadline to finish cleaning things out: The week before Thanksgiving. I want to get things as cleaned out as possible so I can put up a Christmas tree and enjoy Thanksgiving in a cleaner house. Sadly, nearly ever inch of my living room is dedicated to things I either need to go through or want to keep, but can’t lift because of my physical problems. Because of this, I don’t have the room to put up a Christmas tree.

Is there still a chance I could finish my deadline? Yes. Yet, I am worried my hips and thighs will get hurt again. So, right now I’m feeling pretty pessimistic about the deadline. I still plan on giving it my all, but I won’t be surprised if I can’t put up my full sized Christmas tree this year. Or be able to lift it and carry it into my living room!

 

That’s all for now! Thank you for reading!