Why Can I Maintain My Mental Health but Can’t Maintain My Home?

The growing cracks in my walls and brain.

My partner and I bought a house in an urban area almost eight years ago now. The way I wrote that implies that my partner had a say; because my father is the person he is, she really didn’t, but that’s another story entirely.

The house we bought was over 100 years old when we bought it, and it had all the hallmarks of a century-old house: unfinished basement, stone foundation, and assorted cracks in the basement floor. As part of the inspection, we had the seller bring in a professional to assure us that the house wasn’t sinking; it wasn’t, so we bought it.

Well, after eight years there is all manner of cracks in the walls and I’m worried that the house will be unlivable soon. I’m also pretty sure that’s my brain blowing things out of proportion, but I haven’t had the energy to get someone to come out and tell me otherwise.

There are a lot of home maintenance chores that need doing but have been put off for a while now. Last year was very busy at work, and I spent a lot of my free time trying to de-stress. Now, the cracks in the walls are starting to show more and there are a bunch of random house tasks that need doing.

The back porch needs some boards replaced. I need to install a proper handrail on the front and back stairs. The basement needs proper cleaning and sorting. My partner wants to install some pegboard in her workroom.

And I can’t be arsed to do any of it.

It’s not that I don’t know that it needs to be done. I just hate doing home maintenance because I’m not really good at it. I am good with my hands when it comes to writing, but when it comes to doing physical tasks — painting, plastering, anything that requires some level of manual work — I just suck. My partner tells me that I will get better the more I do it, but I am the type who tends to get discouraged and put things down if I’m not immediately good at them.

I also literally don’t like getting my hands dirty — I need to compulsively clean any physical stuff off of them, and sometimes I just wash them if they simply feel gross. It’s not a compulsion that messes with my day normally, just when I do anything to dirty my hands.

Home maintenance makes me anxious since if I mess it up it could ruin some aspect of my house and become expensive. I would love to hire a professional, but I don’t have the money right now. I need to get a home equity line of credit to do some of this stuff, but I haven’t been able to work up the energy to call and get qualified.

It intrigues me that I put so much emphasis on taking care of my mental health, but I have such a hard time taking care of my physical surroundings. Getting me to make decorative decisions is like pulling teeth since I don’t really care much for what my space looks or feels like as long as it’s not a total wreck.

I have been known to live out of laundry baskets for weeks at a time. Even though I’m capable of doing my own laundry, I typically let my partner handle it, so when she’s having a bad time with her chronic pain, sometimes the laundry just doesn’t get done. Almost a year ago, I went through my documents to find some stuff and left a whirlwind of papers just lying around our room. It’s been consolidated into one area, but it still needs to be properly cleaned and organized.

The thing that boggles me is that I put a lot of effort into maintaining my mental health through self-care, therapy, and taking my meds, but I can’t or won’t do the same for my home. For whatever reason, I don’t value my surroundings and living space as much as I value my mind, even though one affects the other. Heck, I’ve actively considered just selling it and making it somebody else’s problem, but we have nowhere lined up to land if I did and it also causes a whole host of other problems.

All of this having been said, I am going to make an effort this year to do something about this stuff. Last year was difficult with work since I didn’t really have much time to catch my breath until December, but I’m hoping that this year will afford me more spare time and therefore more energy to dedicate to this.

Again, I acknowledge that my physical surroundings affect my mood, and a messy or broken house harms my mood and life. So, I think part of taking care of my mental health this year will be making an effort to do some work around the house. Whether that’s doing it myself, helping my partner, or just paying someone to do it for me, it needs to get done and I will do my best to make sure it does.

And, if it doesn’t, I know that I’ll pay for it one way or another.

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