Clutter clearing some books recently in preparation for leaving Bali, I came across a passage I had marked in one written by an Australian news & current affairs journalist who happened to be on vacation in Bali in 2002 when the night club bomb blast happened. As he witnessed first-hand the aftermath of the bombing in Bali's hopelessly inadequate hospitals, he took some time out to write about the effect the carnage was having on him personally.

"I've noticed some changes in my behavior in the past week. I've become quite obsessive about tidiness. Back in Adelaide I'm normally pretty organized at work, due to the pressure of deadlines, but less so at home. I've noticed that for the past few nights, while flicking between the ABC Pacific news service, BBC World and CNN... I've got into tidying my room. I don't like food left on the room service dinner plate after I've eaten. I go and wash it. I can't bear for my clothes to be in a mess. I tidy up my notebooks and pens... I realize my newfound tidiness is probably a direct result of all the chaos I've seen" (from Tragedy in Bali by Alan Atkinson, published by The Works, Indonesia, 2003)

Something I have often observed is that what's inside a person is not always on the outside, but what's on the outside is always on the inside. Usually I relate this insight to the clutter a person has around themselves, to point out that the mess around them is indicative of something on the inside. It's not so often I come across examples the other way round, of a person deliberately creating order around themselves to still the chaos on the inside, but this is one of them and it certainly seems to have worked for him.

If you ever find your life in chaos, this is a very useful tip to remember.

Copyright © Karen Kingston, 2009

Comments

Julie A.

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I'm surprised you see the need to have order in such a totally positive light. I had a former mother-in-law who was obsessed with cleanliness and order to the point that her husband had to take a shower in the basement before he could enter the house. Now I have someone in my extended family whose life is devoted to keeping her large McMansion in perfect order, but she hates to have guests and will not allow anyone, even her own family members or grandchildren, to spend the night, because it would disrupt the order she has created.

Thursday 12 November 2009, 19:36

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Karen Kingston

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Hi Julie,

My blog is about a man in good mental health who found that creating order around himself helped him cope with the traumatic experience he was immersed in. What you seem to be describing is people who have developed chronic obsessive-compu lsive disorders in their everyday lives.

The difficulty is that people with OCDs rarely admit they have a problem, and if they do, they feel too ashamed to seek help. If they do decide to seek help, I've heard some good and some not-so-good reports about the effectiveness of Cognitive Behavior Therapy. I'm not sure if the no-so-good reports are because of the therapy itself or the skill of the individual therapist.

Thursday 12 November 2009, 21:37

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Winnie

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I have a sister-in-law who is the champion OCD. She's crazy. She's driven people away with her behavior and she would never admit to having a problem, not even at work where she tries to lord it over everyone, too. In her view, the whole rest of the world is wrong. I have known people with clutter compulsion to seek aid, but never the hyper neat.

Saturday 28 November 2009, 18:25

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