{"id":7812,"date":"2018-05-18T13:01:02","date_gmt":"2018-05-18T19:01:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.mops.org\/?p=7812"},"modified":"2018-05-18T13:01:02","modified_gmt":"2018-05-18T19:01:02","slug":"clean-breath","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/clean-breath\/","title":{"rendered":"Clean Breath"},"content":{"rendered":"

May 14-20 is Mental Health Awareness week<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve never been considered a neat person. I\u2019ve struggled with depression since I was a child, and my way of dealing with life was simply just not dealing.\u00a0 Cleaning so easily overwhelmed me, that my bedroom as an 11-year-old would have rivaled a house on one of those hoarding shows. I had clothes ankle deep wall-to-wall and trash in my dresser drawer.\u00a0I was told at age 8 that I was responsible for my own laundry, so I went to school most days in dirty clothes that I found on the floor.\u00a0It was disgusting. We moved more than most, for one reason or another, so it just seemed pointless. I\u2019d have a new bedroom in a few years anyway.<\/p>\n

Eventually, I moved in with my father who was really no better than me. People in the community started blaming his mess on me, because I was a woman. \u201cJoy, you\u2019re the woman of the house, you need to get in there and throw some stuff away. It\u2019s gross.\u201d I was 16 and my dad would snap if I tried to throw away two-year-old Christmas cookies. As I got older, I started realizing the sanitary issues of living like a slob, so I did my best but still slept with a pile of unfolded laundry at the foot of my bed into adulthood.\u00a0My college roommates can attest to that, as can my husband.<\/p>\n

After I got married, I tried so hard not to let my depression get the better of me. I was entering a new phase in my life.\u00a0I went off of my medications because we wanted to have children.\u00a0My friends would come over and just sort of look at me.\u00a0In my mess.\u00a0They\u2019d say things like, \u201cJoy, what do you do with your time?\u201d or \u201cZach spent so much money on this beautiful house for you, how could you let it go like this?\u201d And when I did clean, the shock on their faces almost hurt more.\u00a0My sister, someone I consider a total neat freak, once said, \u201cI work out my anxiety and depression through cleaning.\u201d\u00a0 What? Where do you start?\u00a0Everything around you is so huge and time consuming that it\u2019s better just to ignore it.\u00a0I\u2019ll probably just move again anyway.\u00a0 Except I won\u2019t.\u00a0He says this is our forever home.\u00a0What does that even mean?\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Now, two beautiful girls later, I have to\u00a0deal with things like dirty baseboards, endless laundry and crumbs.\u00a0CRUMBS!\u00a0I\u2019ve never seen so many crumbs before in my life! My feet have sought sanctuary in my slippers, for they dare not\u00a0touch the kitchen floor.\u00a0My sister\u2019s words have been resounding in my head for years. Working out anxiety and depression through cleaning.\u00a0I\u2019d rather be escaping into my kids, the TV, a book or just going to sleep. After years of tripping over stuff, snide remarks from\u00a0judemental members of the community, and just general agitation of waking up every morning trying to find some space on my counters to make breakfast, I\u2019ve had enough. My MOPS Mentor spoke during one of our meetings about needing to look at at least one clean space in our home to reduce stress.\u00a0She said, \u201cJust start with one room, or even just a counter.\u00a0Keep it clean, and when you are feeling overwhelmed just go there and look at it and feel calm.\u201d Things started adding up. Clear spaces, clear mind. Less stuff, less anger.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m terribly claustrophobic, and\u00a0even having\u00a0a 2500 square foot house can feel like a shoebox. We\u2019ve been in our house for\u00a0over seven years, which is the longest time I\u2019ve lived in one place.\u00a0It\u2019s starting to sink in that I can\u2019t just live like a parasite, exhausting the potential of a home or a room and then move on. I need to take care of this place.\u00a0My children need me to take care of this place. Maybe I should stop yelling at them because I\u2019m constantly tripping over their toys.\u00a0 Maybe, despite the solid cleaning advise that I give my four-year-old, I should start living as an example of a homemaker and fully functioning adult.\u00a0Finding solace in cleaning.\u00a0I\u2019ll try it. I am trying it.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m going to get up and take my worries and frustration out on my dishes, and my dining room table. Then when I get up in the morning I\u2019m not bogged down and dragged down into this muck filled pit of darkness because looking around at my own home disgusts me.\u00a0I can just breathe. And take\u00a0five minutes to put dishes away while my kids eat breakfast,\u00a0and a whopping 30 seconds to wipe down the table once they are finished eating.\u00a0Then my four-year-old can put the breakfast dishes in the dishwasher and we\u2019re ready for the day.\u00a0 I can take five minutes to sweep the floor while they color or 10 minutes to vacuum while they eat lunch. It\u2019s not that big of a deal.<\/p>\n

I want to have a home where I freely invite people in and I\u2019m not embarrassed when someone stops by unannounced. I\u2019m learning. Slowly over the course of several weeks, I have cleaned, and kept clean, more and more surfaces in my home. I\u2019m less irritable, and I yell less.\u00a0Cleaning is making me a better mom.\u00a0And that\u2019s the goal.\u00a0To be the best mom that I can possibly be, and\u00a0a better wife.\u00a0My husband has never complained and has given me more patience than I feel that I deserve. I guess I just want other moms out there, who struggle as I have, to know that there is hope. Family, MOPS<\/a>, God, and dare I say even those judgemental people, all have given me strength in one form or another to push\u00a0beyond my past and head into the future.\u00a0So take heart, your “aha” moment with come.\u00a0Be ready with your rubber gloves.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Fierce Love Collective: What to do With the Big Emotions of Motherhood<\/em> <\/a>is for any woman who has experienced emotions, thoughts or moods that feel too big for her heart to handle. If you’ve experienced anything from baby blues to postpartum depression, anxiety, scary thoughts, bipolar or panic disorder, and everything in between,\u00a0this small-but-mighty workbook is for you.<\/span>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

\"\"Joy Kahler is a stay-at-home mother of two and self-published children\u2019s author.\u00a0They live in rural Pennsylvania in a small farming community. She has her B.S. in economics. She feels fortunate enough that\u00a0she could\u00a0stay home until\u00a0her children are older.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

May 14-20 is Mental Health Awareness week I\u2019ve never been considered a neat person. I\u2019ve struggled with depression since I was a child, and my way of dealing with life was simply just not dealing.\u00a0 Cleaning so easily overwhelmed me, that my bedroom as an 11-year-old would have rivaled a house on one of those […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":318,"featured_media":7820,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_seopress_news_disabled":"","_seopress_video_disabled":"","_seopress_video":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas_manual":[],"_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable_all":"","_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas":[],"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[117],"tags":[519,354,184,403,1578,639,78,404,44,1579],"class_list":["post-7812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wellness","tag-anxiety","tag-breathe","tag-cleaning","tag-depression","tag-fierce-love-collective","tag-god","tag-home","tag-mental-health","tag-mops","tag-mops-mentor"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/318"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7812\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}