Keyn

I hate my home. It's disastrously messy, but I don't see the mess unless someone comes in. I hate it when people come to the house (which happens VERY rarely). My home is my refuge and is an utter escape. But I hate it. I can't wait to get home, but home doesn't make me happy. Yet it's where I find the three most important people in my life: my wife, and my two daughters.

When my home is messy, I'm comfortable but embarrassed. When I clean, I feel something nagging at me that I don't understand, it makes me anxious. At home I am a failure and irresponsible. I rot inside the house. I was a student, then a depressed waste, then a depressed father kept going by a new baby, and then a depressed father all over again. 10 years I spent inside the house. No friends, no life outside the babies and my wife. On antidepressants, yet still angry, frustrated, and anxious. It was a decade long trek toward divorce and losing my children. I still feared being in the real world as miserable as I was.

My youngest went off to school. So did I, online. That was a mistake. I cannot succeed at home. I quit school again. My wife insisted I start working, so I beat the street. Five months later, I'd had only one interview. As it turns out, employers don't like a ten year employment break. I walked in to a temp agency and before I had finished signing in, they had a job for me at $9/hr. I broke my finger on the job and wasn't able to finish the assignment. A month later I was surprised by a call from HR at the place I had broken my finger. They wanted me permanently. That was a year ago, and now I run an entire section myself, have been promoted and gotten three raises. Now I make more than $16/hr. My supervisors are grooming me for a supervisory position opening up in the next few months.

I am FLOURISHING outside of the house. But I come home filthy and exhausted to the horrible cocoon of messy escapism our home has become. Not become, it's ALWAYS been that way. Then I revert back to being foolish, low esteem, no sense of responsibility, socially anxious...I hate it. Why am I two totally different people!? The 'me' at work is not an act. I do all that I do for myself and my team sincerely. I love my people and I'm proud of my uniform. How do I bring this into the home? How do I crack that stupid chrysalis open and let the light in? I don't want to poison my family with this nonsense, or myself.

In the house I'm a pessimist, critic, and a cynic. At work I'm upbeat, open, and devoted. Do any of you know what I'm going on about? Does anyone have any clues about how to start to fix this? How do I overcome the stasis?

Willybluedog

Keyn,

Do you have any hobbies, spring is coming, how about a garden, you and the kids could work on it together, I don't care how bad a mood I am in, seeing something I have grown makes me feel really good, personally I love the smell of fresh turned soil.

Is there anything you used to love that you have abandoned, that you have always wanted to do, something you could learn at community college or the adult education center. I have taken several single Saturday classes on home repair, cooking, etc. I like to tie flies, tool leather, putter in my garage, these are all things I can go do when I am starting to get on everyones nerves.

Also maybe the house holds negative energy for you, maybe it needs to be scrubbed spiritually by a priest or a shaman.

Have you ever watched hoarders, that nervousness and anxiety may be related to OCD.

I don't know for sure about any of this stuff, just throwing things out there that might connect for you.

Hope you can work through it, home should be your happy place.

Big hugs,

Bill

Plath

Actually, I used to be exactly the same way. My apartments looked almost as bad as my schizophrenic clients' did. I took more care for my clients to have a nice space to live and healthy food to eat than I did for myself!

My apartment was seriously disgusting. I never cooked or did dishes, so *if* I got desperate enough to cook, the dishes would sit for weeks in the sink. I smoked inside, and everything was coated with yellow film. My clothes were always all over the place.
Like you, I rarely ever had anyone over, but I was very responsible at work, was promoted to a fairly serious level of responsibility, and was proud of what I did there.

What I realized long ago was that my mom was viciously OCD about cleaning when I was a kid, and I was always being berated for being a slob, being lazy, etc.. So I simply boycotted the entire idea, and refused to do anything unless it was absolutely necessary, as far as keeping a comfortable and clean living space was concerned. The same thing with my self-care. On my days off, I would never get around to leaving the house unless I had money and wanted to go shopping. I would spend the entire day in my pajamas drinking coffee.
I still do that, but now I have a son, so my inner critic is always scrutinizing how clean my house is, and berating me if I don't keep it very clean.

I'm not OCD about it like my mom was, but I'm very "on top of it" now.
My self-care, however, is still miserable. I rarely eat unless I'm starving, I never cook for myself (admittedly, I do hate to cook, but I don't even heat up the soup I buy from the Safeway deli before I eat it).

Anyway, I chalk it all up to the relentlessness of my mother, the belittling, and my way of rebelling, still even as an adult.
Similarly, I'm always late for appointments and the like, because of how neurotic and abusive she was when we weren't running just right on schedule throughout my childhood.

I'm not sure whether this is self-care related, and has to do with your feelings of self-worth, or if it's some sort of backlash from heavy expectations in childhood, or both, like it is for me...
Or, something completely different...?

That's my personal experience with what you're describing, I hope it's helpful in some way.