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At least let me clean my room – Twenty One Pilots

I like to believe that my room is a direct reflection of my mood and mental health. If it’s tidy, spacious, and I’m able to see my floor, it’s safe to say that I’m doing relatively well for myself and not in a downward spiral. If it’s cluttered with clothes, shoes, and books all over the place, and some accidental safety hazards are lying across my floor, that’s probably an indicator that my mind is insanely cluttered as well. 

It’s easy for your room to transform into an infamous “depression room” when you have mental health struggles or are just going through a temporary rough patch. I know how difficult it can be to find any modicum of motivation to get my darn room up to code lest it look like a nesting refuge for a small family of raccoons. 

If you are currently living in a depression room, there are small steps you can take to make it your safe space again.  Trust me, if there’s anything that has made me feel less stressed or irate, it is having a neat room. 

Before you even start scrubbing away the sadness, be sure to have proper supplies with you. Grab trash bags, air fresheners, a broom or vacuum, and a laundry basket if you need to! 

Always start with your bed!

I consider my bed a sacred place for rest, relaxation, and reflecting on all of my life choices. But, I tend to place random items on my bed like books, my Switch, or makeup that make it less and less relaxing to lie in. 

When you finally find that motivation to clean your depression room, start with your bed! If your one resting haven can be free of clutter and neatly made, it will make cleaning the rest of your room less stressful. It may be an obvious small step, but it’s also a necessary one to let that room-cleaning motivation set in. 

Clear your floor.

Is your floor hard to walk on? This may be your next step in making your room more livable. I have a bad habit of leaving tote bags, handbags, and shoes on my floor – you have no idea how many times I’ve tripped over bag straps or stepped on the soles of pointy heels (ouch)! Take a look at what’s on your floor and see if you can separate them into piles. Once you organize your piles, start going through each one individually and putting items away little by little. 

Put away items that have a place or ones that need a place.

If you’re like me, you may have miscellaneous items on your desk, nightstand, or TV stand that you keep forgetting to put away. You know where they need to go, but sometimes, you’re in a hurry or come home exhausted and don’t have the motivation to put them in their proper place. I tend to leave small items like earrings or perfume bottles on my TV stand, and surprise, surprise, I lose them. Take about 10 minutes just putting those smaller items where they belong. And, if you have items that need a place, it may be worth going through them to see if you still need them; sometimes, it’s worth donating items that you aren’t using or that are just collecting dust.

You don’t need to do everything in one day!

This is the biggest thing that I can stress when it comes to getting into the nitty-gritty of room cleaning. You don’t need to clean every crevice, dust every shelf, or vacuum every last crumb in a single day. It’s okay if your cleaning job takes a few days or even the whole week! What’s important is that you’re making an effort to clear your space and, in turn, clear your mind as well. 

If you’re too tired to do the heftier tasks, try something small-scale! Whenever I’m way too tired to vacuum or put every single article of clothing in its proper place, I resort to doing small-scale cleaning like reorganizing my earring collection or rearranging one of the shelves on my bookshelf. Remember that you are in control of how you want it to look, and you can manifest that with the effort you put it. Don’t pressure yourself; you’ll get your room to be spacious again soon enough! Stay tidy! Fill out my Google form if you have any suggestions for future article ideas.