The Clutter-Free Home is an Anxious Aesthetic
Exploring the relationship between mess and anxiety
When I was pregnant with my second, my husband went to visit his family with our toddler and I had the house to myself for a few nights. Our house cleaner came while I was taking them to the airport, and when I returned after dropping them off, the house looked the most spotless it had in weeks, and I felt instantly calm.
In the past, tidiness like this was short-lived, lasting the duration of my daughter’s nap or my husband’s time at jiujitsu open mat. This time, the tidiness lasted three whole days, and it was glorious: the countertops stayed sparkling, the sink uncluttered, the nursery like an Instagram post without clothes on the floor and with toys put away.
I wished it could stay like this forever, yet I also recognized that it was completely impossible for it to be that way with my slightly disorganized husband and my young daughter and I all living in it together—this was our home, not a museum.
The relationship between clutter and anxiety can be messy
On the one hand, clutter’s visual overload can cause anxiety and even exacerbate depressed mood1, and minimizing clutter can, like I experienced, lower anxiety.
But a need to be clutter-free can also stem from anxiety; a type of obsessiveness to maintain control over one’s environment and to avoid the stress of disorder. Perfectionism—the drive to look perfect, be perfect, and have the house be perfect—is highly correlated with anxiety2.
Anxiety around tidiness can look like parents trailing their children around with napkins and hand sanitizer, restlessly following little feet with a vacuum cleaner, or an aversion to the natural mess that stems from play.
One big adjustment in parenting for me was reevaluating my relationship with clutter
It’s been an ongoing challenge; it’s probably the single biggest source of frustration between me and my husband.
Clutter bothers me more; I need a certain level of tidiness in my environment to not have it feel so chaotic. Much of it is due to the fact that clutter is visually overstimulating for me. When I see stuff and boxes and bags and things covering the entire length of a surface, my brain interprets that as chaos, and that triggers anxiety in me. I can already see that it bothers my daughter more–she wants to put her clothes and books away before leaving her room, and if she doesn’t, a gentle prompt from me is all it takes.
The threshold at which my husband experiences the same overload effect is much higher—he felt what I feel routinely when we were in the middle of a move, and he couldn’t find anything where it ordinarily was. I chalk it up to his brain’s wiring being different, and it seems that at least one study (the same one I cited earlier) supports the same: the increase in the stress hormone cortisol in response to clutter appears to be worse in women than men.
Compromising on clutter
The compromise we (try to) strike is one that is feasible for him to maintain and doesn’t send me into an anxious tailspin. An acceptable middle has been:
Things not covering an entire surface of the kitchen island, but neater corners on either end (even though my preference might be nothing visible at all).
His side of the bed is away from the door, so I don’t even have to look at it.
My office is my space: no one is allowed in there, and I can leave it as tidy as I want (and truthfully, it’s not that tidy–it turns out there’s another element to this, which is that we seem to take less notice of our own messes than that of others—it’s more familiar to us, and the brain simply stops noticing it).
Easy systems for our kids to keep up with, like a toy basket on the fireplace hearth that everything goes into before bed, and a toy rotation system so everything isn’t out at once.
A cleaner every three weeks to press the reset button on the house
It’s walking a tightrope wanting the house up to my standards–should I have to give up more of myself?--with the practicalities of having multiple people with different needs living in it and my time and energies having its limits as a mother of young kids.
I could chase an image of clutter-free living, but it would be at the expense of running myself ragged, and in some ways heightening my anxiety. Doing less has meant dropping my standards some; I have chosen to make a little more peace with my husband’s countertop clutter and my daughter’s Magnatiles strewn over the couch–recognizing that they have needs and desires for our shared living space, too.
These days, if I’m not stepping on Lego Duplos and things are kinda-sorta put away, I can find a cozy tidy spot for myself, even with a little bit of clutter lingering in the corners.3
Until it creeps too close to the threshold at which I get mad, and we start the whole discussion all over again
Start a discussion below: What have you noticed about clutter and anxiety in your home?
I'm so glad I found this post. It speaks to me at so many levels: from the chaos in the world to the crumbs on my countertops.
I recently started taking ketamine treatments for chronic depression and anxiety. I've been at it for about three months and I'm noticing significant shifts in my comfort level with disorder. I'm tolerating things these days that I would never have accepted before.
I have a whole series of posts on my sub stack about that experience, which is still ongoing. Feel free to drop by.
Literally sending this to every woman I know who has to fight for her clutter-free space in the house 😭 thank you for seeing us!!