Hello @cakie181 , @Judi9877 , @Shaz51
and others visiting this thread.
I have noticed, over the past six months, that many people have reflected on their difficulty bathing, showering and maintaining their personal hygiene. Similar reports relate to your question @cakie181 , on the 2 November '21.
"Does anyone else have difficulties in showering often?"
This is a situation, or difficulty, that I have also experienced, though it has taken me quite some time to openly state the existence of that issue for me. This problem has often been ascribed, by others as, or attributed to being a consequence of physical difficulties, motivational problems and other issues, most often related to, or connected with other mental health issues and particularly depression.
It is often, only the need to prepare for a social encounter, shopping, visitors, appointment with a medical or psychological adviser, an event for which presentation is important, that sufficient motivation can be generated to address the issue at any given time. These events can be relatively infrequent and made even more so by avoidance and the delay or postponement of such activities, until they become absolutely necessary.
We can seem, when we do need to give care to preparing ourselves, to be able to draw from a residual of pride and self respect, in such circumstances, that allows us to be able to press ourselves - myself - to make the effort to present ourselves, at least or even on infrequent occasions, in a manner and condition that we may previously have considered as 'normal', in better times.
From my own perspective, my difficulties seem, in part, to arise from no longer being able to project myself into a psychological position of seeing myself existing in a better place. The word dispair comes to mind. This also connects with other issues, such as accumulation of items and hoarding, which may either be seen from defensive, protective barrier and possibly, an extreme or exaggerated form of contingency preparedness perspective.
However, labels, such as "hoarding" and "hoarder" and other such descriptive terms, can often project me into negative perception territory, whereby, even the application of such a label can elicit the feeling of a personal situation being seen, or perceived as unrecoverable, irredeemable, lost. These feelings and perceptions can be either a product of circumstances, or be precursors of other issues and perceptions. In this way, they can, at various times, be either the effects of preceding events, or the cause of subsequent events and outcomes.
What appears evident to me, is that most of these issues are, in some way or ways, connected with each other. They are not individual events, but a conglomeration of, or sequence of related events and outcomes. Because of this, I believe that it is the whole structure that needs to be addressed; while addressing the individual components, or symptoms when they become particularly intrusive or have impacts that are disproportionately large in relation to other factors in the larger combination or structure.
I would be interested in the thoughts of other members.
With Best Wishes
@HenryX
