When The Laundry Keeps Piling Up: Finding Hope (and Motivation) in Small Places

Major depressive disorder (MDD) forced me to reshape the way I think about the world in so many different ways.

If I'm too tired to make food? Then I have to order some. Trapped by ennui and unable to leave my apartment? Let's open the blinds and lay in the sunbeams shining down. Am I able to apply for jobs without breaking down? If not, try to do that with a nice little treat, usually coffee.

Motivation and major depressive disorder

This phenomenon is actually quite common even among mentally well people. Humans improvise and adapt every day to overcome their surroundings and personal flaws. That's why we've survived so long in the face of countless struggles.

These struggles dig a little deeper for people living with MDD. Depression forces us to sacrifice certain parts of our lives in the hopes that things will get easier one day.

No energy for chores

Lately, I've sacrificed chores in a desperate attempt to keep myself afloat. My poor apartment is a bit of a disaster zone. Orion, my cat, hates the clutter stopping him from zooming back and forth through my living room and bedroom.

While I try to stabilize the earthquake shaking in my heart, I've left laundry, taking the trash out, cleaning the bathroom, doing dishes, even vacuuming and sweeping at the wayside. Even when I have a good day, I hold onto this sense of dread at the thought of chores. Realistically, I know I need to work on getting chores caught up.

The mountain of laundry piles up

Whenever I open my closet door, though, I immediately shut it. There's nothing quite like opening your closet door to do laundry only to feel hopeless at the sight of piles and piles of clothes. I couldn't get past the door.

At least, not until I realized that I could improvise and adapt to a new process. I could do laundry in ways that would fix the current issue and prevent laundry from building up.

Focusing on smaller, shorter-term goals with MDD

I had a new plan. Do a single load of laundry every day until I catch up. No more, no less. Then, once I was caught up, I would channel my inner 1800s homesteader and pick one day every week that would become laundry day and only laundry day.

My only constraint was that I could only do the laundry that fit into one of my tote bags. That way I wouldn't overwhelm myself and could show progress to my loved ones. Is it the best system for the long-term health of my clothes? Likely not.

But sometimes I have to sacrifice the long term to ensure the survival of my short term.

Trying to overcome overwhelming tasks and chores

My first few days of the experiment proved to be successful. I did the laundry in the laundry room across the parking lot, set a timer on my phone, and went back to my apartment to either disassociate or read until my timer went off.

However, MDD-related fatigue raised it's ugly head on day 4. That day, I became unable and unwilling to do anything. As a result, I took a day of rest – something that I need more and more as I grow to learn more about myself.

Sudden tears as my energy depleted

The next day, as I was moving my wash into one of the many dryers, tears welled up in my eyes unexpectedly. Not sad tears, but happy tears. Nothing bad happened for several days prior, and there was no obvious cause, at least to my knowledge. So I retraced my thoughts. I tried to follow the pattern that brought me to tears.

Doing laundry was always a painful chore because of the time and energy commitment. I had to maintain a certain energy level over an extended period of time, or else I wouldn't finish that same day. The siren call of my bed beckoned, encouraging me to rest after I started laundry.

Looming sense of dread with depression

I always finished, though, leaving myself too exhausted to do anything else. The mountain of clothes built up over the last 2 months gifted me an overwhelming sense of dread. I knew I would knock myself out for several days after cleaning them if I did it all at once. Better to not do anything than to use all of my energy at once.

That's when it hit me. Sure, it was good that I was doing my laundry after a very long time, and sure, it was nice to have clean clothes to wear. That wasn't really the cause of my tears, though.

But I think I'm getting through it?

In that moment, I realized that I could see the end of my depressive episode, at least with regards to chores. The laundry strategy was one that could be applied to almost every other chore I was struggling to do. I didn't have to clean all the floors at once, and I didn’t have to clean the entire bathroom in one day.

I found a sliver of hope in the laundry. That sounds remarkably silly, but it's also the truth. I cried because I could see hope again. MDD snatches hope away for many f us, forcing us to live every day in the sadness. That day, though, I took something back.

Finding glimmers of hope (even in the laundry room)

My bad days still outnumber my good days. The world is often overwhelming and I often have to lay down and breathe in the sadness. Now though, small glimmers of hope shine for the future. I can see the light from the TV screen from the other room, and it is beautiful.