What psychological causes can cause us to be disordered?

When we look at a messy house or a messy room, most of us only look at the superficial chaos. We can even, in a quick and unfair trial, come to think badly of the person for being so careless with her belongings. However, behind the disorder there are many reasons for its existence, some more serious than others.

Sometimes, disorder can be a consequence of the past, an unconscious tool to achieve, paradoxically, a certain mental balance.

Being messy can be normal

The disorder does not always have a psychological origin related to past experiences. There may be other reasons for the disorder as well (and not all of them are problematic).

The disorder in adolescence it’s normal and natural (it’s a time when teen rooms become chaotic territory). This evolves over time.A considerable number of gifted people are disorderly, but not because they have a problem, but because their priorities and their conception of order are different. For them, being like this is not something negative or reprehensible.

Psychological causes of the disorder

In consultation, I have come across people for whom it is an annoyance to be disorderly. If they try to change and make an effort to fix their house, they cannot avoid, after a few days, accumulating things again, even if this is harmful to them and makes it difficult for them to find something when they need it.

These people do not control the disorder, but it controls them.

For these people, clutter is the tip of the iceberg that hides a deeper problem. In these cases, it is necessary to understand its history to know how this disorder arose and what function it had in its origin. If we manage to discover this framework, it will be easier to change this pattern of disorder that bothers them so much.

This is the case of Pablo, who came to my office showing a very accentuated pattern of disorder. Pablo was the fourth child in a large family. His parents worked many hours a day and, furthermore, they were always involved in their own arguments as a couple. They took care of their children materially, but on an emotional level, neither Pablo nor his brothers ever felt cared for in their needs.

this was a highly unstructured family, where children counted for nothing and had to adapt to the arbitrary whims of their parents, grandparents and uncles. All the adults were so focused on their own problems and traumas that none of them seemed capable of caring for the little ones.

Besides, Mother of Paul was a person obsessed with cleanliness. Every weekend he forced the whole family to clean the house, both on Saturday and Sunday, and if they stained or broke something, he punished them very severely, even using physical violence.

Disorder as an expression of freedom

When you are young and live in a dysfunctional family that does not take you into account and in which you cannot have an opinion or decide, one of the few things you can control is the order (or disorder) of your own room. Pablo felt so lost and had so much emotional disorder around him, that he had to make up for it with the only thing he could control in his life, his own room.

Luckily for him, his older brothers had already left home and he had a room to himself. When he closed the door, sYour bedroom was your world, your private space where no one entered. In his room, he felt free, he could do whatever he wanted without scolding, punishing or reproaching.

The problem for Pablo was that the disorder ended up becoming a routine, in the only way to relate to their belongings. At first, his disorder helped him compensate for his family’s lack of control, but over time, he ended up dominating him and affecting his adult life.

How to stop being messy by looking inside yourself

In therapy, Pablo was able to understand the origin of his disorder. He understood that it was his desperate way of defending himself and maintaining some control within a completely dysfunctional family. Little by little, she was able to put words to her own feelings.

As a child he was incapable of verbalizing it, but the basic message towards his parents with that messy attitude was: “you guys get annoyed, this is my room and I do what I want here. You can’t control me here.” Disorder was the only way Pablo found to protect himself, to vindicate himself and to stay sane, in such a chaotic family.

In his present, Pablo had formed his own family and kept a safe distance from his family of origin. Throughout therapy he realized that he had more autonomy and control over his life, and that he no longer needed clutter at all. progressively, He was fixing areas of his house, creating his own order and feeling comfortable in it.