My mom found out she had HIV two months after I was born. I grew up a bit of a germiphobe. On top of conditioning me out of my entitlement and generally making me a better person, homelessness was one of the best things that ever happened to me because it cured me of a certain level of OCD as I learned that “dirty” is not nearly as “disgusting” as I once thought. I’m generally messy being schizoaffective, meaning there’s order to my chaos, but I still keep things clean, just not with the OCD of “if I don’t clean this plate I ate a sandwich on right now, I will get airborne syphilis,” or what-have-you.
I’m also very much organized chaos. My wife will “helpfully” put things “where they go”. She hasn’t yet (in nearly 20 years…) figured out that if it’s mine “where it goes” is “where I put it”. I’m generally consistent with where I put things, but there’s little reason to any particular place for things.
My mom found out she had HIV two months after I was born. I grew up a bit of a germiphobe. On top of conditioning me out of my entitlement and generally making me a better person, homelessness was one of the best things that ever happened to me because it cured me of a certain level of OCD as I learned that “dirty” is not nearly as “disgusting” as I once thought. I’m generally messy being schizoaffective, meaning there’s order to my chaos, but I still keep things clean, just not with the OCD of “if I don’t clean this plate I ate a sandwich on right now, I will get airborne syphilis,” or what-have-you.
I’m also very much organized chaos. My wife will “helpfully” put things “where they go”. She hasn’t yet (in nearly 20 years…) figured out that if it’s mine “where it goes” is “where I put it”. I’m generally consistent with where I put things, but there’s little reason to any particular place for things.