The Book That Finally Removed the Shame From My Messy House
Table of Contents
Let me paint you a picture.
It is a Tuesday evening. I have taught 7 classes, replied to too many messages (the constant flow of information is real nowadays), sorted out a school conflict that took away my lunch break, and somewhere in between I fed three children who are all in different moods. The kitchen looks like a tornado passed through with specific interest in dishes. There is a basket of laundry on the sofa that has been there for three days. Not unwashed – clean, folded – just sitting there, being a mountain I cannot seem to move.
And I am standing in the middle of it, not cleaning. Just feeling terrible about not cleaning.
That is the shame spiral, right there. And I have been living in it, on and off, for years.
I care deeply about my home. Not in a performative way – in a genuine, quiet, bone-deep way. I dream about a house by the sea with a garden full of flowers, a beautiful kitchen designed by myself, a bedroom that feels like rest. I want my home to be a sanctuary. I have three children, two jobs, a blog I am building from scratch, a husband who is also working a lot (too much in my opinion) – and sometimes the sanctuary looks like a disaster zone. The gap between what I want and what I can manage on the hard days has been a source of real, persistent frustration and on some days shame.
Then I found KC Davis.
Who Is KC Davis?
KC Davis is a licensed professional counsellor (therapist) who went viral on TikTok – her account is @domesticblisters – for her gentle, no-shame approach to keeping a home. She has ADHD herself. She knows from the inside what it is like to have a brain that makes “simple” tasks feel impossibly heavy.
KC Davis wrote this book for everyone whose brain works that way – whether it is ADHD, depression, anxiety, chronic illness, grief, or just the weight of being completely overwhelmed by modern life. It is not a cleaning system in the traditional sense. It is something more useful than that.
It is permission.
The Sentence That Changed Everything
I want to tell you the single most important idea in this book, because it is so simple and so radical that I had to sit with it for a while before it actually landed.
Care tasks are morally neutral.
That is it. That is the sentence.
Cleaning, tidying, cooking, laundry – these tasks carry no moral weight. A clean house does not make you a good person. A messy house does not make you a bad one. It just means the tasks haven’t been done yet.
Well then!
I have spent years – I mean genuinely, years – attaching enormous moral meaning to the state of my kitchen. Clean = I am on top of things, I am a good mother, I am managing. Messy = I am failing. I am lazy. I should be doing better. The mess was never just a mess. It was evidence of a character flaw.
KC Davis dismantles this completely. The mess is not a reflection of who you are. It is just undone tasks. Full stop.
I know it sounds simple. It is simple. And it took me to 46 years old and a book written by an American therapist to actually hear it.
The Shame Spiral (And Why It Keeps You Stuck)
Here is how the spiral works – and if you recognise this, know that you are far from alone. Far from it, trust me.
The mess builds. You feel ashamed of the mess. The shame is so heavy that it actually makes it harder to start. So the mess gets worse. Which makes the shame worse. Which makes it harder still to start. And somewhere in there you are frozen on the sofa feeling wretched about being frozen on the sofa.
This is not a character flaw. This is neuroscience.
For neurodivergent brains – ADHD brains especially – initiating tasks, sequencing them, and completing them requires executive function. And executive function is exactly what depression and ADHD directly impair. The task is not actually simple. It just looks simple from the outside.
I have two children with ADHD. I watch them struggle to start tasks that seem obvious, and I have learned to meet them with patience instead of frustration. It took KC Davis for me to understand this about my children and to sometimes extend it to myself on those overwhelming days.
The “why can I/he/she/they not just do this simple thing?” feeling is not new to me. And naming it as executive dysfunction rather than laziness or failure – that changed something.
The Good Enough Tidy
KC Davis has a five-step tidying method. I am sharing it here because it is genuinely useful and takes about fifteen to twenty minutes when a space has become overwhelming.
- Trash – go through the space and gather all the rubbish first.
- Dishes – gather all dishes to the sink. Not necessarily washed. Just gathered.
- Laundry – all clothes off the floor. Not necessarily washed. Just gathered.
- Things with a home – put them away.
- Things without a home – put them in a basket or box temporarily.
That is it. That is the whole method.
Not deep-cleaned. Not Instagram-ready. Functional – which means you can move through the space, find what you need, and breathe. Good enough IS the goal. Perfection is not the baseline. It is the exception, and it is exhausting to pursue.
I have used this method on bad days. Days when the overwhelm was real. It works.
Rest Is Not a Reward
This might be the section that hits hardest of all.
Rest is not something you earn by finishing all the tasks first. Rest is not a reward at the end of the to-do list. Rest is a need – as fundamental as food, as non-negotiable as sleep.
I grew up with “work first, rest later.” Many of us did. And there is nothing wrong with discipline. But when “rest later” turns into “never, because the list is never done” – that is not virtue. That is depletion.
KC Davis says this clearly: you are allowed to rest even when the house is a mess. You are allowed to sit down. You are allowed to stop. The undone tasks are not a reason to deny yourself what your body and mind need.
I am still working on this one. Genuinely. We all know a person that cannot sit down… But even naming it – just recognising the pattern – means I catch myself sometimes. And sometimes I sit down anyway.
What I Actually Changed
I want to be honest here: reading KC Davis’ book did not transform my home. It is still sometimes chaotic. Three children, two with ADHD, in a house in the south of France where summer heat alone makes everything feel like wading through warm treacle – I am not living in a minimalist sanctuary.
But here is what shifted.
I stopped treating a messy room as evidence of a moral failing. On the hard days – and I have had hard days; I have had three rounds of postnatal depression, and during those periods keeping the house was not difficult, it was genuinely impossible – I no longer add shame on top of already being at capacity. The mess is just tasks not yet done. I will do them when I can.
I started using the five-step tidy on the overwhelming days instead of expecting myself to do a full deep clean or nothing at all. Good enough is the standard now, and good enough is survivable.
I lowered the barrier for putting things away. Open storage where I can actually see things. Baskets that catch the chaos. Systems designed for real life, not ideal life.
And I stopped waiting to rest until the house earned it.
Practical Takeaways
- Say it to yourself when the shame starts: “This is morally neutral. It is just undone tasks.” Repeat it until it starts to feel true.
- Use the five-step method on overwhelmed days. Trash, dishes, laundry, homes, basket. That is enough.
- Lower the barrier to putting things away – open storage, visible baskets, less perfection in the system.
- Rest before you feel you have earned it. Practice it as a tiny act of rebellion against the spiral.
- If someone in your life (or your own brain) is struggling to start tasks that seem “simple” – consider executive dysfunction before you consider character. This is especially true if ADHD or depression is in the picture.
Why This Belongs in Roots
In my Tree of Life, Roots is where I keep the foundations – home, admin, finances, the basics of a functioning life. These are the things that hold everything else up.
My first Roots post was about the Bullet Journal – the system that helps me plan, track, and organise the practical architecture of my days. The BuJo gives me structure when things are going reasonably well.
KC Davis gives me something different. She gives me grace for when they are not.
Together, they cover the whole picture. A planning system for the good days, and permission to lower the bar on the hard ones. I needed both. Maybe you do too.
The house is still sometimes a mess. That is the truth. I am not going to pretend otherwise.
But the shame is quieter now. And that – more than any cleaning method, more than any system – is what makes the difference.
Perfection does not exist. Learning, not perfection. Still figuring it out.
Et toi? Is there a care task you have been attaching way too much meaning to? I would love to know in the comments. No judgement here – that is rather the whole point.
Notes from Soph | Learning, not perfection.
If this resonated with you, share it with someone who needs to hear that their messy house does not define them. And if you want to go deeper, KC Davis also has a wonderful TikTok community at @domesticblisters – warm, funny, and deeply human.
Book Details:
How to Keep House While Drowning – KC Davis
Published 2022 | Gallery Books
📚 Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1398508179/?tag=websitenote0f-21
🎧 Audible https://www.audible.co.uk/search?keywords=how+to+keep+house+while+drowning+kc+davis
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