KayM

I would greatly appreciate hearing from people who have struggled with the impact of being ACOA for decades, if possible.

I'm a 60F, both parents dead, so I'm dealing only with the after-effects of being ACOA and, really, there was more damage from the resulting dysfunction than from the drinking, which was closeted and not the main "feature" in our household.

I have avoided dealing with learning to be a stable adult since I first figured out how f***ed up I am, back in my 20's. I want to deal with it, but it feels like I have a bottomless pit of confusion and issues in my brain and psyche, so I give up and just keep on, keeping on. I also am of half a mind to believe that I need to stop blaming the clusterf*** that is my existence on how my childhood went down and just get on with it, dammit.

But I'm now retired and trying to finally live the way I've want to (while simultaneously trying to figure out what I want). One thing I'm noticing is that there are basic life skills that 1) my parents never taught me and 2) because I was embarrassed that I didn't have those skills, I was unable to ask to learn them and 3) I'm just lazy, by nature. I would like to know how "normal" people clean their houses. What tasks are involved in cleaning a house? How often do those tasks get done? How do you get over your distaste for those tasks and just do it? (I'm also suffering the effects of ADHD.)

I know there are sites and books out there about housecleaning, but they're not from a 60-year-old-who-never-learned perspective. I need to know how teenagers normally get taught this stuff, but I need it in adult language.

Any suggestions?