So, today I had one of those manic clean ups. It started with Jimmy complaining about the house. It makes me feel as thought he's complaining that **I** don't do it for him. He says he's not, but, why else would he say something to me? I feel like he would just clean up if it bothered him and it had nothing to do with me. I have some huge resentment surrounding having to be the one to take care of everything.

So, today I decided to clean up a bit. It needed done anyway since my parents will come here for Christmas day and I always seem to do a bit when Jimmy gets upset about the house. He reminds me of this helpless little child who has austistic leanings and gets kind of off kilter when things are too messy. Where I get totally overwhelmed and slip into a depression.

I was going to go the box route...you know, just throw things into boxes so you could at least see the floor, lol. But, I didn't have enough boxes and the dollar store's were too expensive. I would have checked another store, but, it's the weekend before Christmas and I didn't want to deal with the crowds. I end up deciding bags are a fun idea and I buy these pink bags that are smelly. I thought, fix two problems with one solution, yay! Well, they turned out to be tiny bags, like for a small office garbage can. However, they were excellent for putting bundles of dirty clothes into them (bonus on the smell, too). So, the bathroom looks much prettier and I can take a bag or two to the basement to wash. I then had some garbage bags for the LR, but, didn't end up needing all that many. Luke helped by taking one corner of the room, which helped me tremendously. Also, as I was doing the kitchen garbage, Kira was helping me and I noticed I felt a little better with someone there helping.

Throughout the cleaning, I kept getting heartburn. I also kept wanting to stop. I resisted the urge over and over. I kept wanting to eat and I also kept feeling like finding something on TV or logging onto the computer. I even grabbed the laptop twice with the intent of sitting down and logging on. I resisted though, and I think that made all the difference. I would stop what I was doing when the feeling got too much to bear and I would sit with my emotions and tell myself that I know I feel crappy, my stomach hurts, I have heartburn and pretty bad anxiety. However, It's OK...I can get through it. I can DO this. I took some cleansing breaths and then I got up and continued what I was doing.

So, what I needed was: #1 Helpers #2 When feeling extreme anxiety and the urge to eat and watch TV/get on the laptop, it's OK to stop for a minute, give my body time to calm down, tell myself it's OK to feel crappy and that I'll feel better later and that I WILL get time to relax and do those comfort things later. The funny thing is, I'm on the laptop but, now, it wasn't the huge urge that it was earlier. I got some energy going in the right direction and I kept going a little longer than planned.