ADD / ADHD and clutter
ADD and ADHD may be something that you have started to investigate for yourself. You may have suspicions that the ADD profile applies to you or you may have been diagnosed, so you have already started to think about how ADD is affecting your home environment. As people come to terms with the implications, they may start to realise that they could use some help and they call us. | ![]() |
Our ADD clients are very attracted by order and systems. This can result
in micro-managing one category of objects while the rest of the house
is severely scrambled. The precision of the one ordered category is
what they want for the whole house.
Visual clutter is very
distressing to ADD sufferers, so cupboards and closets are often crammed
to the bursting point with things that have been whisked away, out of
sight.
They frantically label, but still can't find things.
We often find that our ADD clients have:
- Continually moved their rooms and furniture around, desperately seeking the optimum arrangement.
- Have tried 4 or 5 filing systems with things filed in each of the systems, so there is always 4 or 5 different places that one bit of paper might be.
Some clients find it difficult to let go of the processes they have used
throughout their lives. Much of the time they want to achieve
perfection from the very beginning. It can be hard to take things in
stages.
One long-term ADD client said to me during our second session about our first:
'I
kept thinking, this isn't going to work. She isn't doing it right.
The standard isn't high enough. That isn't how I would do it'
Then I thought:
'But I have never been able to make things work. I have never had an ordered home. I should just try it her way for a change'
Things
have moved on for this client: She has been able to cut back on
cleaners hours because she understands her own house, she was able to
do her daughter's room by herself and she is cooking more than she has
in 10 years of marriage because of how we re-arranged her kitchen.
ADD
and ADHD sufferers are often most helped by just having the formal
diagnosis and realising that there is a reason why some things in life
have given them so much trouble.
There are people who may be
described as "Chronically Disorganised" , a familiar term in clutter
literature. People sometimes describe themselves that way. We often
find that these people have much in common with the ADD sufferer and can
be helped in the same way.
You might also be interested in:
- Can you help children and teenagers?
- How can my friends and family help me during a session?
- Our prices
- How it works
- Over 50 questions and answers about decluttering
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