What is your pwBPD’s trait - clean/organized or messy/disorganized?

[Outdorenthusiast]

Was pondering a pet peeve of mine that is a characteristic of my pwBPD and wondering if this is a random occurrence, or a common obscure trait.   I thought I would throw it out to the group so we could share our experiences and see the results!

[PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES]

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[Cat Familiar]

Chaos, disorder, constantly buying more books when he has no place to put them. His *man cave* is so disorganized and random. He asked me a couple of years ago to organize things (because I the mess was driving him crazy and he didn’t know what to do about it) and I put shelves and boxes in his closets and brought some semblance of order to that. But apart from that, it’s impossible to clean in there due to all the framed pictures on the floor, the Buddhist iconography everywhere, the statues and tapestries, all the prayer objects on the floor.

I’m a minimalist and some of this stuff has infiltrated the house and it drives me crazy.

[SaltyDawg]

#1:  Below average intelligence, moderate to severe uBPD/NPD = exceptionally messy and extremely disorganized.
#2:  Exceptionally smart intelligence, mild to moderate uBPD = somewhat clean/organized, some mess
#3:  Exceptionally smart intelligence, mild to moderate recovering dBPD = somewhat clean/organized, some mess

Since I can only cast one vote, I did +1 to clean with the three I have known, two of which were romantic in nature.  I noticed a correlation on intelligence vs. mess, and not BPD vs mess.  The two that are cleanish/neatish I suspect also have uOCPD, which is neat/minimalist or hoarder by trait.

#1 also had other comorbidities l suspect ADHD among other issues too.  BPD rarely stands alone as a PD.

[thankful person]

My dbpdw is extremely messy and unorganised and she rarely cleans or tidies anything. Her mother is (I know we shouldn’t throw this word around lightly but I’m going to say it) totally OCD obsessed about cleaning and it’s all she ever does. When my wife lived at home, her mother would clean and tidy her room, up until I came along when my wife was 21. Since then it’s clothes everywhere despite my wife’s favourite phrase, “I have nothing to wear!” I’m not allowed to touch her stuff which is fine, I have my own tidy areas of the house. I’m glad to say my wife makes more effort with the children’s clothes than her own.

[outhere]

I didn't consider this was related to BPD.  My uBPDw has piles of stuff all over the house and it drives me (and her) nuts.  She had a big meltdown around Christmas and destroyed an entire room (broken glass, furniture stabbed and flipped over, writing all over the walls) which is still in the same state.  Previously I would have done the work of tidying and cleaning for her, or sat with her while she went through a pile, but can't do it anymore, I'm too exhausted and it started to seem like I was enabling rather than helping.

[Pook075]

One of the first thing I did after our break-up was clean the entire house, which ended up being 35+ trash bags to the dump since my wife loved her disorganized clutter.  Her favorite was the sock basket...gosh I hated the sock basket...every time she did laundry, the socks went in the basket for 24 years.  The basket was overflowing and I got to the point maybe 10 years ago where I stopped washing my socks- I'd wear them multiple times and then throw them away.  It was quite liberating to claim the fate of my own socks, LOL.

Anyway, I super cleaned the house and my wife's first comment when she saw it- "The house looks nice."  But maybe a day or two later, she screamed at me because she said that she knew exactly where everything was before and she preferred things that way.

For the record on Salty's post, my wife was probably average intelligence or slightly below, and exceptionally messy/disorganized AT HOME.  But in her profession or when helping a friend/family member, she was ridiculously clean and organized.  It's just her own personal spaces that are filthy (cars, homes, purses, etc.).

[Pook075]

My dbpdw is extremely messy and unorganised and she rarely cleans or tidies anything. Her mother is (I know we shouldn’t throw this word around lightly but I’m going to say it) totally OCD obsessed about cleaning and it’s all she ever does. When my wife lived at home, her mother would clean and tidy her room, up until I came along when my wife was 21. Since then it’s clothes everywhere despite my wife’s favourite phrase, “I have nothing to wear!” I’m not allowed to touch her stuff which is fine, I have my own tidy areas of the house. I’m glad to say my wife makes more effort with the children’s clothes than her own.

Oh my gosh- this legit triggered me (and I don't even believe in that word, LOL).  My wife would say, "I have nothing to wear, so I need to go buy some jeans."  And I'd be like, "There's 11 pairs of jeans on the closet floor, three in this laundry basket, and four more pairs scattered around our bedroom.  That's just the ones I can see from here without moving..."

She'd reply that none of those pairs fit, so I'd be like, "Okay, can we put them in a bag and donate them to Goodwill then?"  But she'd say no because she had no idea if they fit or not, she hadn't even noticed that many pairs scattered everywhere.  So she'd feel guilty for a split second, then jab at me over little stuff the rest of the day for how mean I was to her.  I do not miss that drama AT ALL!

[Cat Familiar]

I’ve been doing some organizing in my husband’s studio while he recovers from his stroke. A few months ago he said all of his jeans were ripped and he’d thrown them out. So he bought four new pairs.

Recently I organized clothes in his closet. There were 18 pairs of jeans! All in good condition.

[Outdorenthusiast]

Ahhh…. So therapeutic!  

So…. When dating as youth = she had a messy car, but would say “this is my one place, I would never allow my house to get this way.”  Fast forward 25 years - every single place she touches is a huge mess!  (Total bait and switch upon reflection…)

A short list…..quite a lot of common themes it seems.  Laundry in tons of piles on the floor - or strewn everywhere with “nothing to wear” in our former bedroom, bed never made, bathroom never cleaned  (all now 100% hers because I moved upstairs into the guest bedroom because I can’t stand it and refuse to caretake anymore), A bonus room shoved full of impulse buy items which I converted into her “cave” where she can hang out out and mope (while keeping her mess all out of the common areas!).  Her car the kids can barely sit in because of mounds of junk (coffee cups/fast food/random clothes and work items she takes into the car and they never escape).  She lost her digital car key for 8 months and finally the lease was up and I said she had to find it - no more excuse.  It took her six hours dumping out random messy bags and purses to finally find it! When I make a comment on anything - there is either a weepy melt down of self hatred, or an angry explosion of “you don’t understand what I go through.“  In the past I used to get frustrated and wash clothes/put away/ tidy/dozens of bags to goodwill - but this also ended in dysregulation.

My W is High functioning, medium intelligence, introverted.  Surprisingly, she can be quite organized at work, or will even help clean/organize other people’s houses!… ugh.

I choose out of respect for myself and my kids to keep the common areas, kitchens, bathrooms, etc and my room clean, and I have the kids help pick up her stuff (like caring for another child - albeit more irresponsible) by consolidating and placing her stuff in her rooms.  Kids know they are not responsible for mom’s stuff/chaos.  

For the past year I no longer clean her chaos anymore.  She used to blame the kids for the mess.  However, it is her choice to live in filth - not ours!  .  With this newer boundary of mine - she has started to notice that she is really messy and all of “her” places are chaos - not ours.   Also, putting in a financial boundary by cutting up her maxed out credit cards and putting her on an allowance to curtail the impulse buying has helped reduce the influx of useless junk.  So - boundaries can be quite liberating!  

One could hope she can deal with her filth with her therapist, but for now these boundaries have helped me reduce stress.  I often pity her as I rationalize that likely her external world reflects her internal world… chaos.  Thanks for indulging the healthy venting!