Okay, this is my room and it is a tornado zone(although my bed is a mattress on the floor[by my own choice], so that's why the picture is from a low point of view). So why am I showing you this? To explain the mindset behind mental disabilities and the seeming inability to keep ANYTHING clean. Be it dishes, clothes, or the ever-growing abyss known as the bedroom, I hope to explain why we just don't clean it. Disclaimer: this does NOT apply to all children and adults with disabilities, so if it is not your child then ignore me. If it IS your child you might want to listen up. Anyway, why can't we keep anything clean? There are several reasons. First, a person with any or all of the disabilities I have, be it Aspergers, Bipolar, or ADHD, gets distracted very easily and doesn't have a lot of patience. Let me give an example. When I do laundry it usually takes me about 3 hours to finish the cycles. By the time it's finished, I am so bored and impatient that I don't really want to take the time to put the clothes away. This escalates when I come back to it and realize that there is something I would rather be doing than putting clothes away. Impatience and distraction become laziness and I end up living out of a hamper for a week until I do laundry again. Which leads me to the next point. Eventually the mess gets so profound that I look at it and think "I have no idea what to do to clean this up!" This thinking escalates into "Oh, I'll never get this done," and I end up believing that this mess will never get cleaned up and I go off and do something else. Impatience and distraction lead to me psyching myself out to the point where I feel like I am not capable of cleaning my room. This being said, usually the mess is organized chaos. If I know the general area where an item is I am trying to find, I know I can find it. If I use the word organized chaos you as the parent or guardian should believe that I know what I'm doing. Difficult I know, but it is true.
There is however a glaring exception to this. It is called THE ONE ITEM. For me it is my keys. My keys will get lost, and it doesn't matter where I think they are, they are NEVER THERE. I end up tearing apart my room(which can still be done even in organized chaos), and still not finding them, I fly into an uncontrollable rage because I cannot find my *insert swear word here* keys!! Anyone who knows or lives with someone with mental disabilities knows that these rages exist, and that I am not exaggerating. What needs to happen is that you as the parent or guardian, or even the child is he or she is capable, needs to pick a place where THE ONE ITEM will exist when it is not the child's posession. My keys exist in a basket pinned high on my wall so they do not ever touch the floor because when they touch the floor it will be at least 2 hours before they are found again, and that is WITH a search party.
One other thing, if your child needs to clean their room for a special occasion, organize it for them. Give them steps to follow that are specific and straightforward, and if you are the creative type, make it a game! Award prizes, and even get involved. Don't do it for them, but help out showing them where the item should go and making it fun however you see fit. That way they will eventually begin to see that cleaning their room doesn't have to send them into total freakout mode or be totally dull :)
I hope this helps, and may God bless your day.
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