What does your home say about you?
Is your multiplicity evident in the way you keep your home?
Your home is your own personal space and it is important that you are ok and comfortable in that space. Your home may also be reflective of who you are or how your life is at the moment, including the way things work in your internal system.
When you look around the rooms in your house, what evidence is there of your DID/MPD? Could someone wonder if you had dissociative identity disorder just by the items you have in your room?
If so, that is not necessarily a problem or concern, but it could be very interesting to have a look around and see what your system is saying by the way your house / room looks. Take that exterior picture and see how it applies to your internal system.
Look for the evidence in your home of the following three areas related to multiplicity:
A. Child Parts
Think about the way your child parts impact your life and your system. When you look around your home, what kinds of things do you have that show you have kid parts, alive and well, active and interested in child-related items? Do you have 10 – 20 – 30+ visible items that belong to child parts? Do the rooms look more adult, or do the child items outnumber or overpower the amount of adult items in your rooms? How is that reflective of your internal system? Meaning, do your child parts tend to outnumber or override the adults in your system just like the child items are visually predominant in your house?
If your child parts are more visibly dominant in your home, how are they emotionally dominant in your life? Do you make more decisions based on the preferences of your child parts than with your adult parts? Do you respond or react more with your child parts vs. your adult parts? Do your kids have the final say more than you realize?
B. Parts of the Opposite Gender
When you look around your home, what items do you have that show you have male alters (or for guys, having female alters)? Like Buck from United States of Tara, do you have items that are clearly and distinctly very masculine in presentation? Does your home look like a guy’s room or a girl’s room?
Look around your home again — is your living space decorated more with more feminine tastes or with more masculine tastes? How does that match your internal system? Is your system predominantly male-dominated or female-dominated? How have your powerful male alters affected how your home looks?
There are women who can have predominantly male-based systems. There are also women who have systems whose main internal leaders are male. How do these male-lead preferences affect the way your home looks? Would your male-dominated system “allow” a flowery pink décor in your home?
C. Organization vs. Chaos
Is your house a picture of organization or a picture of chaos? How does that relate to the amount of organization and chaos that you have in your system? If you cannot organize your external house, does that parallel your difficulty in organizing your system, and vice versa?
Do you find yourself cleaning your house more when you feel dirty and gross on the inside? Or do you find that you cannot clean your house and that when you feel messy and dirty internally, your external living areas also look messy and dirty?
Who cleans your home? Do you have a designated homemaker like Alice in United States of Tara? Do your cleaning parts have a history of having to do cleaning jobs in connection to your abuse? Does this make it easier for you to clean, or more difficult for you to clean? How does cleaning your home relate to your childhood in any way?
What seems to be a normal, mundane task can actually have deep roots in your history, including your trauma.
Your external world may often be a picture of your multiplicity, your internal world, and your trauma history.
- How does your home reflect your multiplicity?
- How does your home look like your internal worlds?
- How does your home look like your emotional state of being?
- What is your home saying about you and your system?
Warmly,
Kathy
Copyright © 2008-2018 Kathy Broady MSW and Discussing Dissociation
Oh no!! Oh no!! It just hit me….I just checked….the books “I” threw away a while back included our favorite survival stories and the “torture” books….Oh no!!…There is panic and “someone” is crying…Rough spot….Rough spot…..We feel lost……
MissyMing
07/19/20
Nice to know there is someone else who is a “box hoarder”, Ivory54!…..Yeah – we have a part, too – that if she gets panicky she wants to run….our boxes will also sit in the same spot for weeks!…can’t figure out why we can’t make ourself move them……We stash stuff and hide stuff a lot….
We don’t allow the “littles” to come out – (except with T) – so there is nothing for them….we don’t feel “emotionally safe” in our own home (but HOW do you explain THAT to anyone?)….We work Outside and hubby is retired and here 24/7 – so it feels like this is HIS house rather than both of ours….I feel like an “intruder” when I come in from work…But when the littles are really missing our critters – we have a drawer where we hide tiny stuffed animals for them to hold onto…We must have some really young parts because sometimes we catch ourselves (even at work) walking around holding our thumbs….T said it was the way infants comfort themselves…..
We also hid a bag of “notes” that we had written out for years before we started other directions ….We don’t know where we hid it and are too scared to look because hubby will want to know what we are looking for….he is ALWAYS at home – so we don’t ever get a chance to look…..When we are at work we get scared he will go snooping around….We are open with T – but very secretive at home…We fight panic if hubby opens a drawer or a closet to help us find something…..We have all kinds of hiding spots – we just can’t remember where they all are….
We have some (probably by now “vintage”) clothes we have kept – even though we can’t fit into them anymore – some dresses and high heels…we kept them because we can’t figure out how we ever made ourselves wear them….We NEVER wear stuff like that now….everything Inside cringes with deep panic at the idea….In our teens we wore only jeans and T shirts…then had to shift to dresses for Outside work for a while…now we are back to ONLY jeans and T-shirts….
House decor? There is none….whatever with whatever….color? None – just bland – neutral….Whatever came with the trailer 23 years ago….haven’t even moved anything around since we moved in…even the curtains are the same that came with it (!!!)….We don’t care about none of that…Every day has felt like some form of “emotional survival” and decorating has NEVER made it to our list…..
Disorganized? Chaos? Yup – that is us…..Our tendencies are definitely “male”….no lace, no frills, no knick-knacks,…anything “female” like even simple jewelry is kept hidden away simply as a reminder that we somehow once went in that direction because we had to – but we can’t bear to even touch it now….we are mostly “It” – but more “male” if we HAD to pick a direction……
Books are our biggie….fascinated with “healing” books – herbs, reflexology, essential oils, first aid, etc. ….And ESPECIALLY with “survival” stories from the Holocaust, war and prison camps, shipwrecks, mountain climbing and camping, Arctic and Antarctic exploration, etc…We even got a couple of “torture” books because we needed to see if what we “dreamed” one night really did exist…For some reason survival feels VERY important to us……We don’t like having a “girl” body – (but we can’t change that)….so nothing in our house reflects “girl”…Hubby put a “shiny” lamp he had on our dresser – but we are too scared to tell him we don’t like it…. We hate even doing anything in the kitchen because that is “girl” territory….
I think we are in a “rough spot”…..
MissyMing
07/19/20
Our home reflects the idea of trying to keep the parts hidden. The home also reflects organizing skills. Our little people are happiest when we have small children involved in our life. This way we have lots of toy age-appropriate toys . For Jessie and Baby. ( when the birth children grew and the age-appropriate toys went away. We hid toys for them) we doing Nonnie daycare . So we have lots of toys ranging from 2-8.
I believe our external world is opposite from our internal world. The external world can be controlled and maintained to an exceptional and appropriate behavior level. The internal world is full of chaos and mixed up emotions that feel like they’re out of control.
One day last week my husband was gone all day. He came home to find Grover, Olaf, and several baby dolls propped up on the couch. The kids told him they were keeping them company and wanted to watch tv.🙄
I don’t have my own home. I live with my parents. I have my own room, at least. But a lot of my parents stuff is stored in here, so I’m not really able to “express” my DID-ness. I do have coloring books, stuffed animals and art supplies. That might give a tiny clue, but trust me, my parts would like to have more freedom! How can one be DID and be free in that and not live in their own home? Especially in a home of sort of abusers?
Our home is a complete disaster. Mostly shame accompanies this.
We keep the DID hidden do to the same reasons.
Our grown children don’t even know or recognize this.. even to an adult LCSW daughter.
Why keep it from everyone? Well… Honestly, Kathy. If you could even to begin to understand the stigma and ridicule accompanied with DID. I know you understand that not everyone believes that DID exists. Even more people are terrified of mental health issues to begin with.
We once were very open about the diagnosis but it brought more and more pain and shame than it did when we were quiet about it. Especially where social media is concerned, people are not supportive or understanding.
As you know our adult LCSW daughter still to this day dismisses the diagnosis. It hurts and we don’t enjoy the response we get when we full out present with the DID.
It’s easier to hide it for us… we have kept it hidden from the early on.
It’s the place we feel safe… may not be the best but……..
Very interesting post. I would say my home accurately reflects a lot about my DID these days. Thinking about my house, I realized that there is barely any evidence that I even live here. I used to have toys and books and other interests, but that is all gone now. I have two young children, so their stuff takes over the house. I have a spouse who deals with her stress by cleaning and organizing, so I let her keep the house the way she wants mostly.
I would say my house is kind of gender neutral, but leans toward the masculine, which would be about right for my system. I am female, but have male alters who are strong personalities.
The only place in my house where I have stuff is my desk, and I have a treadmill and my clothes. My home work desk is always utter chaos, which drives my spouse crazy. We have had enough fights about it that she finally leaves that one area of the house to me. The rest of the house she keeps organized and I just go along with it.
In my life these days, I keep my DID very hidden except in therapy, so I guess my house reflects this. One of my biggest complaints about my DID is I don’t know who I am these days, and I think this is reflected by me not having much of an influence or presence in the house. I am lost or anonymous or something along those lines and my house reflects that missing person. Sounds kind of sad, but it is what it is.
Are house be nice and clean
But there do be lots of kid stuff all over
Lots of time jadie and mae bring there baby dolls out to sit on the cowtch to watch tv.
Jadie gots her kitchin set and her babys
We got colring books
We got lots and lots of crayons and markers
We got toys
what a fun blog post!
How does your home reflect your multiplicity?
I have a lot of stuff. I have worked hard to create organizational systems for it. I guess I feel like I am always on the edge of chaos, and I have to compensate for that. As I am looking around my yellow and green office (it was like that when we moved in) I realize that my kiddos really like the colors. I also have an odd mixture of very feminine and very business oriented things on display.
I’ve done a lot of decluttering, but its hard for me to let go of stuff. I have a LOT of clothes. I would love to dye my hair blue and let my teens dress me, but I settle for bright colors. The shoes alone would make a good photo-essay, ranging from punk to fashionista. I keep buying heels that I am really too old to wear.
There is definitely evidence of the kids in terms of stuffies and craft supplies and books. The tweens have their fairy decorations. However I think I need to give my inner cowboy a little more space.
How does your home look like your internal worlds?
We haven’t defined any built spaces yet. Just woodlands. My house is on a large wooded lot, which feels good to everybody. We need our space.
How does your home look like your emotional state of being?
I can’t clean house unless I feel happy/motivated, but a messy/dirty house makes me feel sad which makes it hard to clean it. Right now I am on an emotional roller coaster, so the house is pretty messy and dirty. My kids and teens aren’t good about picking up after themselves, which drives my DH crazy.
What is your home saying about you and your system?
The first thing I noticed is that there is no evidence that I have male child or teen parts. I don’t know if I haven’t met them yet or they aren’t there. And the girl/women parts are pretty femme-y. My cowboy generally retires to the guest room, which is gender-neutral.
Until the market crashed we had been thinking about selling the house and downsizing, but I am secretly relieved we can’t now so that we don’t have to squish into a smaller space.
How does your home reflect your multiplicity?
Toys and stuffies on every surface. Clothes strewn about. Definately no pinks or flowers (never really thougth about how it reflects decor before, but we do have a male controller of the system). Tend to have darker colors, patterns of stripes or checks. Really very little in the teen dept – some clothes that the controller will not let them wear, make-up hidden in places that they only play with at night (especially our goth teen). Also little in the adult dept. There are only 2 main adults, the others rarely come out unless there is a specific task.
How does your home look like your internal worlds?
messy, chaos, no defined lines or space. we try to set up specific places in the home, but it never works out. spaces cross all the time. and the space created for our main little never stays just hers.
How does your home look like your emotional state of being?
more mess more chaos – i can’t even see my emotional state of being for the chaos. T says I am always in crisis. I can’t tell. Course, I can’t see my space either, which T also says is chaotic.
What is your home saying about you and your system?
secretive, protective barriers up trying to protect the core, no energy to sort out house or interior map.
Also can’t seem to manage to stick with anything long enough to finish. Has taken us over 45 min. i guess to even write this much with the destractions. Thanks for doing this forum!
kiyacat
My house DEFINITELY screams that someone with DID lives here. We have an entire room just for the kids. There are stuffed animals on the bed. At least the living room looks “adult” (except for the stuffed unicorn sitting next to the computer)… and the flowered backpack by the door…oops….oh and occassionally the coloring book and crayons on the coffee table. On our bookshelves in the office, there are books of every age range and interest.
We want Extreme Home Makeover to come do a new house for us. Every week when we watch that show, we dream about what kind of house they could make for us. The kids want a Butterfly and Caterpillar room, a Frog and Bug room, a Fairy Room, a Cars room, an entire room filled with adaptive therapy stuff for autistic kids, a really pretty room with blue & white lacy stuff for a grown up girl, a blue & yellow & white kitchen for Caroline, an indoor pool, a gym, a gigantic library (one classical and quiet for Missy, one children’s library for the kids with lots of colors)…. it would be so pretty to have our dream house. Of course, it’d have to be about 500,000 square feet to accomodate all of our tastes.
Funny to read this AFTER recovery! I didn’t realize that my house got way more orgainized after I became one person. I never thought about the confusion in the house and how I could NEVER pick one theme in any one room, prior to this article. I didn’t think about the house cleaning binges either. I didn’t realize how much my DID had to do with all that stuff, but I certainly enjoyed thinking about it as I read this article.
This was great to read!
Darlene
hi darlene,
lol… oh, its never too late to put those pieces together, right?!!
I’m glad to see that this article was enlightening. Sounds like you figured out some good stuff.
AND, it’s good to see that organizing gets easier as you go thru’ the healing process.
THAT’s inspirational!!! 🙂
Thanks for your comment – it’s always good to hear from you!
Kathy
I only recently discovered your blog Kathy. I have been taking time to familiarize myself with all that you offer and reading over past articles. I am most encouraged by the depth of therapeutically sound and accurate information about DID/MPD and the professional yet personal way in which you share. I have been on this journey for many years personally as well as professionally and look forward to following your work.
Hi CreativeHealingSoul –
Thank you for your very kind words, and they mean a lot to me since you’ve taken the time to read so much of my writings. And it sounds like you are very familiar with the kinds of things that are important for healing from trauma disorders, on a few different levels.
Thanks again, and I hope you keep coming back. It’s nice to meet you.
Kathy
i been freakin out about our house forever. it is messy and i can’t seem to clean it. my toys are in a spare bedroom because i have to hide my littles from my spouse. we were not taught how to do anything growing up and mom hated housework. part of me loves it when stuff is clean and tidy, but our house does reflect our internal chaos. no order in here. i just can’t do it and i do hate to touch nasty stuff like dirty dishes and i even hate those dumb rubber gloves that make me not have to touch nasty stuff. we are very mad at us for letting it all get so junky. we hate this house; we lived her over 21 years and we hate it cos it gots so many bad memories in it. we live with a workaholic perfectionist who doesn’t like us and if somebody is on strike to get back at him they aren’t letting me know.
so mostly i just feel bad about myself. sometimes it feels impossible to even take care of myself – much less my house. we had ice cream and peanuts yesterday for food and that was it. how dysfunctional is that????grrr!
I thought that I would add to my comment.
Cleaning was very much a part of what when on when I was growing up. By the age of 5 or 6, we could clean, cook and do any household chore. We were responsible for keeping a HUGE home clean and PERFECT. I do mean PERFECT. Even your reflection in a bathroom sink…try that one! I have noticed that the minute someone gets upset or yells at me, I start cleaning, trying to make things perfect. Hind sight.
We do someone inside that cleans and organizes. She has been mostly inside lately. She puts Alice to shame…..lol What makes it more difficult, is that she is inside but we still can see what needs to be done, yet have so much trouble doing the basic stuff, let alone anything well. So it is a source of huge frustration. Cleaning and cleaning products, perfection, projecting the proper image, is all so confusing and hard. Especially because the ones that are good at it, are inside now….
i watched it with my mother, and she looked at me side ways and said….”maybe i’ll sleep tonight with my bedroom door locked” and i knew she was just joking but still it stung just a little…and thats what frightens me the most. And that is why i get so terribly afraid of emotions and feelings..sometimes i do feel as though i may explode and do something “bad” i have never done it, but what if…why can’t there be good examples of people with DID, i’d have more hope that i won’t end up spending the rest of my life either in prison, or a psych ward…SIGH!
made me so upset. yet another poor portrayal to set us all back. I was watching it with my family, and when they did the big reveal that that’s why he did it, it felt like a giant arrow with the words freak and murderer appeared above my head.
anyone see the episode of criminal minds tonight? the main suspect had DID…just wondering anyone else opinions..
I didn’t see the episode of Criminal Minds whose main suspect had DID. I’ll look it up to see if I can find it.
Kathy
Here in my old childhood room again it would be hard to say really just because it hasn’t really changed much since I left so still kind of looks like a kids room I guess. I don’t really remember how my apartments and dorm looked. I think for the most part I try to keep everything ‘bottled’ up and when I move out again it will probably be that way again. I can imagine I’d have kids stuff up in a closet somewhere, I’m just not comfortable (yet? ever?) letting it all hang out.
I think if it does show it shows in my organization. Like other people have said, for me it’s clean one minute the next it looks like a tornado hit. Just earlier in the week this room was spotless now there’s a maze of stuff on the floor and my bed is piled with stuff. A lot of that I do attribute to a feeling of “safety”, it feels like an ‘intruder trap/alarm”. It drives me nuts though!
I think bad cleaning habits were passed on to me. My mom’s mom threw out lots of her things as a kid without asking, my mom promised she’d never do that to me, she did though and it stuck with me. I have this dual problem of wanting to hold onto things (one because I feel like I might need them, two because of memories I’m afraid to lose) and wanting to just throw things away on impulse because I can’t stand the mess (usually I end up hurting some part of myself that felt those things were very important). Sometimes it’s just really hard for me to find the middle ground or be able to weight the important against the unimportant things.
Nightowl,
Do you think maybe the fact that your home doesn’t reflect your system means something? Meaning, maybe the fact that you don’t show your inside parts and keep things hidden, etc is maybe a reflection of how you deal with inside? Keeping them hidden and not visible?
Just a thought
Nightowl —
I think Gobbies has had some good insight — the idea that you like to keep your DID hidden, and your internal worlds hidden, and for your system to stay “hidden inside”, I think it is only right that your home would parallel that idea — keeping the DID hidden from external view.
Are there reasons for your wanting to keep DID hidden?
What are your feelings about DID? about being DID? about having DID?
Kathy
what does my home say about me?
controlled chaos, lots and lots and lots of books,
My home does not reflect my internal worlds in any way. I think it is important for my “littles” to remain internal, I do not like the idea of them “comeing out to play” it would be too disruptive.
my home does not reflect my emotional state of being. except maybe books on DID are kept hidden, as well as other stuff kept hidden
On the housework side of things, we have one person who is our organizer and one who is our housewife (she aspires to be like Alice *shudder*). We have trouble with cleaning “yucky” things, and I know we do have some chore related trauma, though I know very little about it.
I related to the comment about having doubles of things. That is less now that our co-consciousness is increasing but it still happens.
I don’t think my house reflects my multiplicity in any way, except perhaps in that it is slightly gender-neutral. I’m organized, clean, tidy, and unremarkable in any sense — though I am often complimented on how paradoxically elegant and comfortable my home is. I’d certainly like to take that as a reflection on my internal organization, but I’m far too honest for that particular delusion.
Its funny because before I knew I was a multiple, I couldnt figure out why I changed the decor in my house so much and why I had such a wide variety of clothes. I just thought that it was kind of cool to have so many different types of books and interests. Nobody ever questioned it either. They would joke around and sometimes ask, why I liked so many different things.
If someone wanted something off the wall, they would see me first.
I have kids at home, so nobody thinks anything about the toys and stuff around. I do worry about a few years from now, when there is no excuse for me to buy certain things.
I have always thought chaos in the house, chaos in the mind.
2 or 3 years ago, everything was perfect in my house, all the labels, the clothes, everything. organization and cleanliness to unbelievable limits!!! That is also what we presented to the world. I can see that now.
Now my house is chaotic and so is my mind.
What I do is I keep a fairly modern decor and change around the none main things. My room is frilly and flowery and comforting..
I think most people would walk in my house and think that there was a wide variety of interests. If someone who knew what DID was and was looking for it, then they would see.
What it says about our system……That there are toooo many people in here!
hmmm, been checking this out. that my room is very chaotic, though i consider myself a very neat and organized person. I have alot of video games and chidlrens movies all over the place, and i bake cookies every night. i have butterflies all over my bedroom wall..but i also have a book shelf that is towering over with books. im an artist so i have supplies everywhere, our kitchen is always clean, and our living is clean. i live with my mom so our common spaces stay clean mostly cus we never go in them. its weird but as i look in my room it looks very chaotic and like there is more than one person or body living in it…never thought of it before..
K
Does it reflect multiplicity? Yes, but in a manner that you didn’t describe. I have multiples of so many products. I don’t remember buying extras, but I think one part buys and puts away and then I can’t find it, so I buy one, put it away…..
Internal state? Me and my system? Chaos. Plain and simple, chaos. I can get my house clean when I am doing particularly well. It returns to chaos within 24 hours.
Internal system? Dark and desolate. Not really reflected.
We have a large enough house that we have a room specifically just for the littles. It’s a safe place for them. We are actually working on that room right now. Pale green walls with pale yellow ceiling like green grass and yellow for the sun. That’s what they wanted. We are going to put a container in there that has sand in it like a sand tray. Also have things that are therapy oriented. It’s like a safe place for everyone inside too. It makes things more manageable in the rest of the house. Our house we try to keep clean, but usually have to do a deep clean every two weeks or so. Things tend to go up and down with our system as far as organization as does our house. We feel more in control when our house is more clean. As for male or female oriented house. Our house is generally neutral, but that fits with our system because the parts tend to try to pretend to be oompaa so that no one on the outside can tell who is out. Good questions. Hard for us to write as oompaa isn’t out for now. It’s a group of us.
Well, for a start this is a hard thing to look at as we are currently temporarily living with the mother and most of our stuff is in storage. But, thinking back to our house in India…
There is definitely evidence of our multiplicity in our home. There are a lot of toys, not an overwhelming amount, but alot. Some of this is from our child parts and some I think is because our adults still value play and sillyness.
There are signs of our parts who are different genders, ethnicity, time period, etc from our body. Someone who doesn’t know might say that our taste is eclectic and a bit eccentric.
Our bookshelf/media shelf and our closet are the places it shows most. Our books, music and movies show extremely varied taste. For example, we had 4 drawers of dvds in our entertainment center. One drawer was littles movies, one was “guy” movies, one was for the comedy and romantic comedy loving ones, and one was for the educational and period films. Our music collection represents every genre and many many artists. Our iTunes has a playlist for each insider. Our bookshelf is very eclectic too. Science fiction, historical fiction, romance, children’s, non-fiction, mystery…. if its a genre we have it.
Our closet is interesting. T-shirts for the guys, sexy outfits, childish outfits, prim proper dresses, comfy clothes, period garb and ethnic dress all have a place.
I think overall, my home shows that there are many of us. I think it also shows a decent balance between people. One group of insiders may be predominant in one area or another, but taken as a whole it is pretty balanced.
As for organization, it is extremely organized, and someone outside our system might not see the organization as it is fairly individual to us.
I cleaned my house as I pondered this. Really. For the most part, if you know I am DID, yes, it’s obvious. If you don’t know about me, then you might wonder why there are coloring books out, sticky notes every where, and sometimes there is candy setting on the counter that only a child wants to eat. However – if I know someone is coming over, the coloring books and sticky notes are put up.
Color defines emotion for me, and I need color (believe it or not) to sometimes regulate emotion, or help calm a little one. My house is my haven, my safe place – I don’t need much variation here, so my living room has rich golden colors, not much of any other color. My bedroom, tho, is chock full of color – and stuffed animals – Booker is special and goes every where I go where I may not feel so safe.
I also have boxes every where. Not in a cluttered way, in a very subtle way. My T and I recently discussed this because my basement is full of boxes. I don’t usually throw away any box. My daughter keeps suggesting I throw them away, but it’s not me who hoards them. My most troubled color, Smoke, needs to feel safe and at the smallest sign of danger, she wants to pack up and move. I recently ordered a snow thrower that came to my front door in a box the size of my clothes dryer. I was elated to see the box, tho I knew it was her feeling that. Still, the snow thrower stayed in the box for nearly a month – in my living room! After I removed the machine, the empty boxes (now there were 2 because the thrower was packaged in a fancy box and then placed in a shipping box) sat against the patio doors by the table for 2 months before I had the will power to cut them up and throw them away.
I have many other small boxes that after they are opened and the contents removed will sit in the same spot for months. When I finally decide I can throw it away, I sometimes find “stuff” in it. Recently, I found money in a pretty little decorative box. No one knows about that.
For the most part, people comment to me that my house is so clean. There are times, tho, that when I am expecting company, I look around and wonder how it got clean, or worse, what tornado hit it. I know that when I’m having trouble with being depressed or switching a lot, I don’t put things away, like mail. I’ll find piles of it every where.
Can’t wait to read what everyone else writes! This one is a thinker!
Ivory
OMG…I am both laughing – and shocked. Man, is this posting ever Dead ON.. Jeezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
“Your external world may often be a picture of your multiplicity, your internal world, and your trauma history.”
Man, I am so going to go over this with my husband when he gets up from napping – cause there just is a ton to reflect upon here.
* How does your home reflect your multiplicity?
There are toys – EVERYWHERE…. Train stuff and doll stuff and robot stuff and, art supplies, and Entire libraries on a plethora of interests its quite overwhelming actually…..
* How does your home look like your internal worlds?
Very good question, will be pondering this muchly………….
* How does your home look like your emotional state of being?
Thank Heavens I seem and am remarkably organized as to outside presentation – but here at home………………………..Oddly though, the actual train set scenes and doll houses and room boxes, and various framed or in box scene artworks are very organized and quite apart from the cascaading chaos of this house….
* What is your home saying about you and your system?
Apparently alot more than I had thought to realize or notice in this way.
One question you posed in the blog but not in the final questions regards the complexity of actually doing housework. This is actually a very complicated topic for me – and I am now going to offer it a little less frustrated and more attentive consideration.
My husband notes that when I do tackle an area – I get a remarkable amount done and am very good at organizing – but I can only do this in small very far between spurts.
I am nearly phobic about touching squeamy stuff like dishes or bathroom stuff, and there is some history regarding this….
Its also difficult because getting into pretty much any area just does bring up alot of things. I find old drawings I made, or writings, or bits of history that just do bring up alot for me.
BTW as to your blog question – this is interesting cause back when I used to drink my husband would get very nervous whenever I got on a cleaning binge around the house – he knew that a drunk was coming in the wake of this. I now really wonder about this apparent connection – I think the act of getting in a mode of cleaning the house had something to do with this to begin with, but I also know that what all I come across when I get into areas of the house just does bring up alot as well, so anyway….Jeez. Great topic.
I really really appreciate this posting – am going to print this one out for further consideration – Thank you for thinking to make this a topic. It really does help me to begin from somewhere not so just inherently frustrated and overwhelmed. It also may well help quite a bit in understanding more about what all is inside.
Thank you!