PDA fae

Tag: tidying

  • Update

    Seems like it’s approaching time to try and step things up a gear.. I’m ranking much higher on the local housing register bidding system. I’d like staff to think I’m ready to move on when I get offered a place, so I need to start meeting all the criteria on the flat inspections each month.

    Which, is of course, a demand I’m placing on myself. It’s a necessary demand, with a good reason, which helps.

    I think I will need to offer myself patience as I try to make progress on this. I’ve gotten into a rhythm with tidying regularly, and usually hoovering as well. Now it’s mainly cleaning tasks left, and getting into a rhythm with those.

    I’ve been using https://finchcare.com/ to give me reminders for these care task. I’ve set them up so it’s broken down into individual elements, so there’s ‘bathroom sink’ cleaning day, and ‘toilet’ cleaning day. Never having to tackle too much really helps.

    I’m holding out hope that the Autism Support Worker referral turns into something useful – someone who can help me plan food that meets sensory and nutritional needs would be a big help.

    For today, I’ve cooked vegetables with my meal, hoovered and just given the bath a clean, so that is something.

  • Putting shoes on

    This is a tip I came across in Sensory: Life on the Spectrum (which I will do a review of in due time), that was corroborated by the experience of a PDAer I know online. The comic author, with a PDA profile, said she gets into ‘doing things’ mode by wearing shoes, my friend has to be wearing doing things clothing, like jeans rather than tracksuit bottoms.

    So I thought I’d give it a go, and put shoes on when I’m doing care tasks. It definitely helps to keep the momentum going, and seems to signal ‘this is not rest and relaxation time’. It’s definitely less tempting to curl up on the sofa with them on.

    Another simple trick in the toolbox of adulting with PDA!

  • Pomodoro stream

    Found another little thing that helped today, probably more so with ADHD avoidance and motivation issues than PDA. I think if my demand anxiety had been high, this wouldn’t have been so successful. I found a streamer on twitch doing pomodoros of 50 minutes followed by ten minute breaks. That’s longer than I can usually motivate myself to focus on something, but the body doubling effect of working alongside a streamer and her audience really helped.

    It definitely helps too to think of table tops and table legs (credit to Harry Thompson for that metaphor). When it comes to household care tasks, they’re the table leg towards the table top of eventually being considered independent enough to get a cat. I’ve come a long way on that goal, the main thing now is to learn to a. sustain the progress and b. keep on top of care tasks even during periods of blips. I’m no longer needing support sessions to achieve basic tidying care tasks, which I’m really proud of.

    Edited 8/3/23: I no longer recommend Harry Thompson as a resource.

  • Keeping house while drowning

    If you’re on tiktok, you might have come across K.C. Davis’s account, DomesticBlisters. You might even be aware of her book, ‘How to Keep House While Drowning’. Or this might be the first time you’re hearing of them.

    I’d known of them for a while, but wasn’t sure if they’d be helpful when it comes to PDA style issues with keeping house. I was persuaded to get the book when my therapist endorsed KC’s methods. KC has ADHD, and post-partum depression, and her advice feels to me as thought it’s very, very useful for those reasons to be struggling to keep house. It focuses on self-compassion and seeing care tasks (usually known as chores) as morally neutral, rather than something that defines you as good or bad. Great perspective when you’re struggling with low self-esteem, low motivation and low mood. She also has a lot of simple, clear explanations that help with poor executive functioning, e.g. her five things tidying method. This breaks a messy room into five categories: trash, laundry, dishes, things that have a place and things that do not have a place. She advises dealing with each category in turn in order to resolve a messy room. This is a brilliant antidote to the ADHD experience of looking at a messy room and seeing nowhere to begin, something I have frequently experienced.

    I do wish there was a book on keeping house for PDAers. Perhaps it would be the ‘small book of housekeeping demands’ and we’d all avoid even reading it? I feel I’d find it useful to have a resource which included strategies tailored to the PDA experience. It’s tempting to consider a goal of working towards creating that resource, as I find myself wanting to work in adult ND peer support and this would constitute a form of it.

    That sets me to thinking what would be included in such a book. I think Harry Thompson’s concept of table tops and table legs would have to be part of it. I’m not sure a PDAer would manage care tasks on a regular basis if they didn’t form a table leg towards a driving, autonomous PDA current. They are, after all, the very definition of a demand. Something you really should do, something you have to do in life. Something a PDAer is going to therefore avoid like the plague, because having to threatens our personal sense of control.

    I suppose something else I’d put a strong focus on would be outsourcing the care tasks. I would try and encourage people to be self-compassionate about needing to live in supported living, needing a carer or a house-keeper. PDAers need support in life (we all do), and perhaps drafting someone in better suited to meet those demands is the best solution. It might even be so for me, after I move out of supported living, though I’m not sure yet if I’d be allocated the funding for a carer after living here. Maybe over time that will have to be explored, because it would probably be deeply useful for me to have access to that support long term.

    Rest is something I would strongly emphasise. To be fair, KC already includes this in her book, which is good. Everyone needs and deserves rest. PDAers often have a strong need for downtime to recuperate after meeting demands, or to prepare for meeting demands. In particular, demand free time is useful. I would also talk about Tomlin Wilding’s concept of the demand cup, and the corresponding emotion cup. I would want to find some methods in which we can look after the state of both, in order to free up some demand capacity for keeping house.

    But alongside the goal of creating demand capacity for keeping house, I would echo KCs ethos that our space exists to serve us, not us our space. As a PDAer, we’re not going to want to focus all our demand capacity on housekeeping in order to keep up standards (unless, that’s where our PDA current lies, I suppose.) I would place my focus on how we can keep our space functional enough, and how we can accept ourselves and offer ourselves compassion when we just do not have the demand capacity to cope, That’s my favourite thing about KC’s approach: we’re worthy of love, support, and compassion where we are now. We don’t need to meet societal standards of tidy, hygienic, clean, perfect to be worthy. Care tasks are neutral.

  • A small success

    I’ve been struggling with maintaining my flat for a while now. I experience it as a big ‘ought to’ and I also find that I rebound with avoidance on this sort of task after complying with externally induced demands from other people.

    Telling myself that it’s ok, I don’t need to tidy doesn’t work. Clearly, I do need to tidy, so it feels like I’m lying to myself. I end up spiralling back into ‘I do need to tidy’ which becomes ‘I need to tidy everything’ which leads to ‘I can’t tidy’.

    What seems to work a little better is telling myself all I have to do is tidy one single item a day. Just one thing, put away or thrown away. Then I’m not lying to myself. I’m slowly addressing the problem in a way that I find manageable – I can handle the demand to tidy one thing that I have choice over.

    A couple of times now not having to tidy any more has lead to feeling able and willing to tidy just a little more. Not everything, but more than just one thing. I think this might have been a hack I was looking for.