Independent Living - My house eats my energy, time to change!

Morning.

When I got this ill (sofabound/ bedbound depending on whether I'm upstairs or downstairs) I suddenly realised how very very hard it can be to do simple things around the house - the distances between bed and toilet, reaching into the fridge for food, all the stuff that 'healthy' or 'relatively healthy' people take for granted.  Still more difficult is moving around and using your stuff if your house isn't, erm, how do I put this politely, tidy? Or, in my case, I'd probably be snapped up as a contestant for a TV 'this is how hoarding starts' show....

My basic problem is

• I have too much stuff for the space available (about 45 square metres ish. Can't quite remember, could be 48, anyway, tiny 2 bed house and a small shed), 
• I can no longer work and rely on state benefits so I'm anxious about getting rid of something I might need later but won't be able to afford to replace, and, anyway, this stuff reminds me of who I used to be which feels important now I can't be that 'doing' person. I feel invisible to myself sometimes never mind other people, and,
• No actual spare energy to do anything about it. My daily life of existing takes up my energy, so if I do something extra, something has to give, like getting dressed or washed or cleaning my teeth etc.

Sound familiar? Yeah. It's not much fun. And just knowing that has put me into a flat spin for a while. The sheer size of the mountain to climb on top of everything else about being 'ill', everything you lose about yourself, dealing with the symptoms and the bureaucracy involved in getting help to survive.  But in the end, the difficulty of getting to basic stuff I want to use has pushed me into doing something about it.

Not very effectively either - I have piles of 'stuff' for ebay. Those piles are 5 years old, and I've only been this ill for 3 years! I have paper plans made of graph paper with paper furniture that I move around but can't decide if I really want the family here doing the actual furniture shifting to make it easier to use the house. I have Notes blu-taked to the wall about things to think about to help with the anxiety of getting rid of stuff. I have odd items scattered around that I have promised to send to people but haven't, despite having loads of packaging available and family willing to go to the post office for me.  And my sofabed is half covered with papers that have come through my letterbox that I'm not sure if I even want to look at (catalogues, junk mail etc) as well as papers I need to deal with and papers I have dealt with but haven't got around to putting away. 

At this point I should say I have family nearby who are more than willing to turn up for as short or as long a time as I need for whatever I need to help me tackle it, at my pace.  And yet, I've still been sticking my head in the sand, tackling only odd little bits every so often then not doing anything for ages.

So that's the 'issue'. My house is NOT easy to live in. But I'd like it to be.

I suspect I'm not the only person who feels like this. So I thought I'd share how I'm going about dealing with it and hopefully it'll help someone else, if only to think 'nope, I'm not doing it like that' and do it differently.

What's changed for me? That makes me want to make changes?

Partly I think I'm mentally and emotionally more stable now my symptoms have stabilised a bit.  Also, I'm pig sick of living like this.  And finally, I was surfing the net and found the Appartment Therapy website the other week. They have a 'January Cure' which I'm sort of following a bit because it's well thought out - http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/collection/january-cure-2016-895