My roommate and good friend moved in about 5 months ago, but she still hasn't really unpacked or organized her room; how can I help her?

Why not set a aside a saturday and both of you can put together her room? It could be a fun project. Plus you get to see all her stuff.

If it’s her room, why can’t it be that way? Maybe she’ll unpack when she’s ready. I’m not sure that you need to worry about her. Unless she has given you some other indicators that she’s unhappy, leave her alone. If you don’t want to look at her “undone” room, close the door.

I didn’t unpack stuff in my new apartment completely for about 6 months after I moved in. It had nothing to do with being “unhappy”. I just didn’t care enough. Nothing in those boxes did I need, and I had more enjoyable things to occupy my time.

If you’ve offered help and she’s declined, I suggest you drop it. Unless you’re sharing the room and/or her boxes are in the “common space” of the apartment, it’s really not your concern. If it bothers you, request, politely, that she keep her bedroom door closed so you don’t see the boxes when you walk by.

@MrItty – good point. I didn’t think about the roommates stuff being somewhere other than her room.

@tedibear39 @MrItty It truly has nothing to do with being “bothered”, I never said that. Other people’s messes don’t really affect me unless they are in the common space.

Yes, there have been other things that have pointed to her being unhappy, and yes, I do think your room can be a reflection of this (your head-space for sure)...she has told me herself she is depressed, she has been drinking a lot more lately, and after a few drinks at home she goes out for a walk at 10 or 11 (which is just random, and I worry because she’s been drinking mostly). I just don’t know how to go about trying to say something about any of it.

If she’s depressed, you need to treat the source of the depression, not the symptom. Your solution of trying to help her unpack is the equivalent of giving someone a kleenex because they’re sneezing while standing naked infront of an open Window in December.

@MrItty haha, I like your sense of humor! I definitely see what your saying there. It’s like, it could make her happier but it’s not gonna get rid of the problem.

Has anyone ever approached a friend they are worried about?

If you have offered and she has said no, you should leave it alone unless it is intruding into your space.

I would leave it alone. Its not your room, its not your problem. If someone was always and forever telling me that I needed to organize my room because they work better in an organized room, regardless of how I work best, I would get offended. Not just a little bit, but very, very offended. Exponentially every time the person harassed me about my room.

There are many symptoms of depression. Not decorating and unpacking is very unlikely to be one of them and bringing it up and making her feel guilty because she promised and hasn’t done it yet is probably not helping anything at all.

I had a couple of boxes in a place I lived in for two years that never got unpacked. The best way to “organize” these things was to leave them in the box instead of having them out. I also didn’t much care about having the other things that I didn’t use all the time out of their boxes so I unpacked things as I needed them or if I felt like it and not before. This is not uncommon and is most definitely not a sign of mental illness.

It sounds to me that perhaps she doesn’t want it tidied. Maybe she’s not as tidy as you imagined, maybe she’s lazy, or busy, or whatever. But interfering will cause more problems than it will solve. Unless she accepts your help willingly, doing it as a surprise for her would probably annoy her (I know it would annoy me). But offer your help, make a specific date and try to persuade her to do it as a friend, telling her she’ll feel better when it’s done.

@avvooooooo While I agree with you that this is not necessarily a sign of depression (as my other roommate has always been cluttered and messy), I feel it is important to take into account that we were friends for a while before she moved in, and her rooms before at two different places were very tidy and nice. Not doing things “normally” could well-be a sign of depression!

And let me tell you, having two boxes that you never opened is a lot different than having all of your boxes strewn everywhere so you can’t move in your room and your mirror on your bed and a table on top of them. I agree that it could be annoying if I said anything about it again, but I only offer concern as a friend.

@Jack79 fo sho’, She obviously just doesn’t want to do it…and since I already offered my help, I guess I can’t do so again without being obnoxious, but perhaps I could ask her about her depression that she talked about with me briefly and see how she is doing?

@ronski Yes, changes in lifestyle are a symptom of depression. However, since I’ve worked in mental health and am rather familiar with that particular problem, I think that categorizing not unpacking as a “lifestyle change” is stretching rather too far. If you could see my room now, you would no doubt call me very, very depressed compared to how I have it when I know people are coming over. I find ways to move and function in my room, as I’m sure your roommate does. If I have to go over or around something to get to what I need, so be it.

If she doesn’t have a problem with her room being that way, then leave it alone. Its her room to do what she wants to with. If she feels that she can function with her room that way, then that’s her.

She might have stayed packed up because she’s planning on moving again but hasn’t said anything about it. I know that if I was being bugged all the time about my room that I would consider leaving where I was living even if it was with my best friend in the world. If she’s feeling the need to promise to do it, you’re probably being more obnoxious about it than you realize.

If there are significant lifestyle changes, you might want to talk to her about depression. More likely, you might want to talk to her about her drinking by saying that you’ve noticed an increase (which can be due to many factors other than depression including change in relationship, location, income, etc.). But coming to a conclusion that she’s depressed without facts to support it other than a room that’s a mess is a big stretch, quite possibly overreaching and overestimating the postulated “problem.”

@avvooooooo Hi, thanks for the feedback. Yes, if you had read through this whole thread, you would know that she has personally told me that she is depressed…so this isn’t really an assumption at all, but perhaps (I see) that linking the two may be silly…not sure, since she doesn’t even clean up her room for guests. I have jokingly mentioned it once or twice and than once offered help. I don’t think that is too bad, but I will definitely not say anything again about it, since you are probably right, it might bother her or make her feel worse, which is not my intention.

So, perhaps I will reword the question later to be more about how I can approach her depression, so thank you for the advice.

well if she doesn’t want to really unpack than simply ask her if you could help reorganize or move the boxes around. If she doesnt really want to unpack then dont force it on her