Nasty Clean...

Ok, that is a phrase from my Grandmother.  And my mom mentioned it last night at dinner and I thought, “ya, know, that is a really great phrase, and we should bring it back!”

So here we are.

First, the definition:

Nasty clean is the kind of clean someone does or insists upon that makes everyone else feel uncomfortable.  You can’t be yourself, live in constant fear of making a mess, doing something wrong or disrupting the perfect cleanliness and order.  Nasty clean implies, no, in fact, calls out the person for being pretty much an asshole about their need for things to be clean and tidy.  Very much the person’s need for order and impeccability trumps everything and everyone else.  Their need for clean vanquishes everyone else’s needs, desires and wishes.

The history:

My grandfather had three sisters.  And my great grandmother was, well, let’s see how I can put this, well, she was just not a nice person. I am sure she had a hard life and there was trauma there for sure, but she was just not warm, or nice, or tolerant.  And she was the originator of the term nasty clean.  It was her way or the highway.  And she indoctrinated all three of her daughters to be that way also.  And two of them, were also nasty clean.  There was an air of untouchableness to their person and their living quarters that just made you feel like you were dirty and unwelcome.  The third sister, Babe, was also super clean, but she wasn’t nasty about it.  She was a loving soul that somehow survived in a sea of mean spiritedness.

My great aunts were not particularly warm or nice people.  They were judgy and opinionated and extremely sanitary.  My grandfather was a farmer, and while he was also tidy, that was largely kept to his fields and animals.  He left the housework to his various wives.  I mean, he was a product of his time.

So in my family at least one thread of intergenerational trauma is nasty clean.  I mean, I have it at times.  My own need for cleanliness and order surpasses my ability to perceive and understand other people’s need to be messy and disordered.  I have lost my shit more than I can count because there were three things out of place on the kitchen counter.  (No, I am not exaggerating).  I have worked hard, done EMDR and really worked to not be this person.  And I will claim marginal success.  My daughter still gets very anxious when I come home, even though I have been free of tidy tirades for the better part of a year now.  (Yes, I know a year is barely progress, but I am not lying when I said I have been working on this for the better part of 30, so one whole year without being a complete nut job about the status of the house is decidedly progress).

I never wanted to be nasty clean.  But it happened anyway.   We used to make fun of my great aunts.  They would never come to our house because we had animals, INSIDE, the house.  So they would not come over.  And I can remember being a kid and all the adults making fun of this and I can remember standing in our kitchen in Unionville, Indiana and deciding that even though they were being made fun of for their neurotic need for order and cleanliness, that there was something enviable about the way they kept their person and homes.  I made a decision right there that I would always have animals but I would ensure that the house was spotless regardless. To do anything other felt like I was just giving up on life.

That has eased up a bit as I age.  But I am still neurotic as fuck about the status of my home's order and cleanliness.  I am sure it would never pass my great aunts’ inspection, but I do have a level of anxiety that causes me to vacuum every day and wipe shit down all the time.

I guess the progress for me is that I am really attempting to leave the nasty clean behind and find some place that feels less extreme and not a complete trauma response.  I, again, will claim marginal progress.  I know that I am one hard day away from ripping all the furniture out to the front yard and bringing in a leaf blower, pressure washer and spiraling for hours.  I know who I am.

For me cleaning always brought about a feeling of power and agency.  So cleaning for me was always a way to feel like I had some control when the world was spinning out of my control.  I bet, perhaps, my aunts had the same issues.  Growing up with the parents they had could not have been easy.  Their mother was a bitch on wheels and their father was an irascible scoundrel.  And great grandmother Vivian had four babies in five years.  That is enough to make anyone mean and lose their marbles.  And they were not wealthy people, so she did all the heavy lifting, solo.

For me, cleaning is a means of gaining control over my immediacy.  I can tidy up, vacuum, mop, dust, wipe down and while my emotional interiority may be completely fucked, at least my house looks nice.  And that makes me feel better.

I am sad to admit that I have brought a level of nasty clean, this air of superiority that my need for order and cleanliness makes me somehow a better person, to my family and life.  I don’t think I ever really thought about it too much, but I can see now that I was not very nice about my need for things to be orderly and sanitary.  Now I let the cats walk across the kitchen counter.  And I only use a Clorox wipe seven to ten times a day instead of never allowing them on the counter to begin with...I am sure there are a great many of you that do not feel like that is progress.

But I do.

Again, still...