I'm Disorganised

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I really need help. I've recently realised that I have Asperger's - I had already 'decided' my older brother has, but it wasn't until looking up the information about it to try and help him that I realised the descriptors apply to me just as much. My doctor is looking into referring me for assessment and I'm waiting to find out if there is funding for adults in my area. If there is, I know there should be quite a bit of help available in my area, but without a diagnosis, there's nothing.


Anyway, I grew up in a chaotic house. My mother is batshit crazy, violent, abusive, unhygienic, manipulative and has a major hoarding problem. Which, since she hit me in the face with a garden rake for refusing to take an umbrella with me when it wasn't raining, and considering I am aged 40 and not a little kid she can get away with beating up anymore, is no longer my problem. The house was, and still is, filthy, crammed to overflowing with furniture and her stuffed toys and knives and scissors and pots and pans and anything QVC has featured as a solution to a problem she never knew she had.


She hated 3/5 kids, the ones who I think have ASD/Asperger's traits - she was only interested in the two who were attractive, successful, good at sports, not too smart and were 'friends with everybody' - not the clumsy ones who knew too much, would question authority, could spell better than her and didn't make many friends. Her idea of a home is one filled with crud and the television on, the radio on in the same room, another radio on in the next room on a different station, and her shouting over all the racket at you. Assuming you can even see her amongst all the Stuff. Even the wallpaper (bright orange, highly detailed patterns) with patterned carpet pieces (multicolour, not fitted, fraying at the edges and not vacuumed for 30 years) seems to shout at you. I'd post a picture of her house, but I'm pretty certain everyone here would freak out at how awful it is - the hoarders on TV are sometimes better than her.


So, as a result, I grew up not having a clue how to organise myself or my life, she never did and never taught me - or allowed me, as that would have meant I had some control over things. And anything that upset me was always fun for her - smashing up my room, throwing out my schoolbooks, stopping me from having contact with other kids because I was an embarrassment, that kind of thing - and I have never really felt like it was OK to be in control.


Anyhow, I'm now 40 (which she finds funny for some reason), and I have decided that, now I live alone as the children have left home - except for two cats and some fish - that I am in charge and I can do things how I want or need them to be. I'm throwing out possessions I never liked or are worn out, I'm painting the walls of my house the colours I like and find calming, and have realised that if I do have Asperger's (which I am pretty certain of), then it's OK for me to need more structure.

I need lists. I really, truly do. I need a schedule, I need to know what I should be doing, what time to get up, what tie to go to bed, everything. It's not wrong, it's not mental (ex and my mother both said that normal people don't need to decide these things, 'only mentals/nutters/ret*ds need to write down things' ) and I need to do it. Once I have a schedule, I can make exceptions to it, I know things aren't static, change is normal in the universe, but at the moment, the prospect of doing it completely overwhelms me.


Where do I start? With sleep times? With meals, what to eat, what to buy, when to eat it? With cleaning? With washing?


I have absolutely no structure to start from, other than knowing the cats and fish need feeding, and the litter tray and tank need keeping clean, which I can do. I'm completely free of any obligations, I've been out of work for 8 years since I had a total meltdown (my boss was another shouty, small woman like a clean version of my mother and the office was filthy and disorganised, so I spent more time trying to get it sorted than doing the day to day job), I can make the choices I want rather than those of other people, but I don't know where to start. What do others do?


Help!

get a daily planner book. write things in it as you feel you'd like to or have scheduled them. my mom had days of the week for different things, like monday was laundry day. at this point, scheduling as much or as little as is comfortable is your option. there are dozens of self-help books on getting organized.

I started a very similar thread the other day. You can find it on here if you like. Anyway, I have similar problems, and I'm in the same general age range. (I'm 36.) I was beginning to get tired of my lack of organization and ability to plan things getting in the way of my success.
Someone on the thread I started suggested a whiteboard. I immediately went out and bought one. Although I've only been using it for two days, it's already become one of the best purchases I've ever made. I put it in a really obvious place where I can't ignore it. I write down everything I can think of that I need to do, in as excruciating detail as it needs to be. I erase things as I do them, and write more things down as I think of them. So far, it's working beautifully.
I tried planners, but I would lose them or forget to use them. I tried computer and phone apps, but I would forget to use them or get distracted by the net or programs I considered more interesting. The whiteboard is big, it's impossible to ignore, and it's fast becoming part of my routine.

Thank you for your replies. I got a corkboard a couple of weeks ago, and that helps to see what I can do when I go outside the house, so the whiteboard sounds really useful.

I like writing big, with marker pens, I find it hard to write small and neat, it means I can think back to the board and remember what it looks like as well.

I realised how much this stuff helped when I downloaded a sleep app, because it shows when I sleep and doesn't frighten me when the alarm goes off because it monitors the amount of movement I make, and tries to time the gentle musical alarm for when I'm moving around, so sleeping more lightly. It's made waking up something that's ok, rather than a horrible thing that puts me in a bad frame of mind for the next four hours. (I also hate wasting time sleeping, so hate sleeping late)



I'll try to find your thread, too, as there could be more helpful advice on it that I could use.



Thanks!