Are all AS people slobs?

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This thread reminded me that my wife asked yesterday if I could rotate the laundry today. I probably would have forgotten had I not noticed the title "Are all AS people slobs?". I'm not officialy AS but I'm definitely a slob. Cleaning and organizing stuff does not interest me in the least. A clean, organized house with washed clothes and dishes is a nice privilege. I like that but I also happen to have a much higher tolerance for messes than my NT wife. In order for there to be a balance of house work, she needs to list off all chores she requires of me. So long as I have my list (and I don't forget it), things run relatively smoothly.

Then what exactly is a personality trait? All I know is maybe rudeness isn't a personality trait nor is being a dick. Maybe being a clean freak isn't one either nor is having an interest in sports like most guys do. Maybe NTs have ED as well since they are also slobs. Maybe stubborness isn't a personality trait either.

Maybe personality traits don't even exist after all. But people sure act like things we have are personality traits like for example, mom tells me me having anxiety is part of who I am, and that me getting upset with last minute change in plans is also part of me or me getting over stimulated when there are lot of people so I withdraw.

I also hear that everyone has something wrong with them and everyone needs a label for things they do and doctors keep on creating labels for things.

What is the point of insisting that it must be a personality trait instead of the likelihood that it can be a personality trait? That it can be an impairment that may or may not conflict with one's personality? Is there something more emotionally satisfying by labeling a person as "lazy" or a "slob" or otherwise having a deficient personality that could be corrected with social approbation and condemnation?

Someone posted a quote here several months ago to the effect of that if someone appears to be lazy, they are probably diagnosable with something. This isn't because doctors want a label for everything because everyone has something wrong with them. It's because some people experience a degree of impairment and distress due to these behaviors.

To prevent further confusion I think we should be careful to distinguish the personality trait (someone who is comfortable in clutter and prefers not to clean) with the brain glitch (someone who can't clean even when they want to, or takes so much effort or time that it would take over their life if they did) or the OCD-like problem of hoarding (keeping things, being unable to throw them away, usually resulting in huge amounts of clutter and sometimes sanitation issues). They are different things. The personality style is much more common than any of the pathological variants. Some people even prefer to have most things sitting around instead of put away because they are highly visual people and they find it easier to find things when they can see them. There's nothing wrong with that.

In psychology, you can only call something a disorder if it is causing problems for you in your daily life, or hurting you or someone else. (And even then, you can't call it a disorder if pretty much everybody goes through it--so you can't pin a diagnosis on a hormonal teenager, a grieving spouse, or an immigrant in the grip of culture shock.) The sort of person who's just naturally messy, if their messiness doesn't cause too much trouble for them, can't be diagnosed with anything. Now, if they marry a neat freak and it causes arguments, then sure, they can go to couples counseling to get somebody to mediate between them and prevent further arguments about dirty socks and unwashed dishes. But that's a relationship problem, not a messiness problem.

It would be a good idea to take note of which version of messiness you're talking about when you refer to it, or else there'll just be confusion when you're talking about one type and your audience assumes you're talking about another.

Being a slob isn't having executive dysfunction.

Not being able plan and do normal everyday tasks is having executive dysfunction.

It doesn't matter how much someone wants to live in a clean house when they literally cannot mentally get through the task of cleaning. It doesn't matter how much someone wants to go through and do things when they haven't figured out at a way around it.

It doesn't matter how hungry I am, or how much I want to eat, or how much I know I should be eating, or how much I know that every item I need is in the kitchen, when I cannot go from that to something to eat, and eat it. When I am stuck there having physical reactions to hunger and still not being able to get something together.


And its not just executive dysfunction that can affect cleaning and organizing.

It doesn't matter how much I wanted to help with packing to move when every time I tried I ended up in a meltdown because of sensory overload because of looking at too many items at the same time while combined with the stress of moving was enough to cause meltdowns. The sensory aspect of looking at items at the same time and trying to sort out what different items were in order to organize is overloading and overwhelming to me - usually not to the point of a meltdown, but to the point of me not being able to organize things well at all.


Sure, laundry should be easy. And so should finding the box of pasta in the kitchen and making it instead of not being able to find the box of pasta and instead not eating despite being able to make pasta. And so should being able to make food from ingredients instead of not eating until you have a migraine. And so should not losing your cell phone charger going into a hurricane. And so should not walking straight into people that you can see.

But its not. And its not choosing not to be a slob. Cleaning isn't necessarily easy.


(To add to Callista's list of types of messiness, there's also anxiety based messiness where people don't actually want the stuff or to be in somewhere messy but are that uncomfortable in somewhere clean.)

I'm cleaning right now but taking a breather.

Haaa... meee tooo. Camera closet organized and labeled, his desk cleared and everything put in its place, bedroom 90% done and an hour before kids cone home. Productive day.

No. I actually tend towards the opposite pole, that is more of a clean freak. Very much into organized storage.

Clutter in particular bothers me. Its like visual noise.

But I have had no choice but to learn to be tolerant over the years with many NTs of varying habits.