recently i’ve (28F) been becoming closer with a fellow performance artist (32F) in my city that has kind of taken me under her wing as a mentee of sorts. i live in nyc so i’ve seen tons of messy apartments. but this is a new level. there’s no corner of this apartment that isn’t utterly disgusting and i hate to say it. i’m uncomfortable everywhere. it’s beyond unsanitary in the bathrooms and kitchen, the walls and surfaces are all brown and textured. and you can see multiple roaches at a time crawling around, even on the decor i’ve seen multiple roaches just chilling. her 14 year old child is there too in a room so filled with junk that there’s just enough space on the bed to sleep on. then her room is worse, literal bare mattress on the floor surrounded by trash and covered in brown stains (it’s where she expects us to hang most bc of the ac). she also is living with her (27M) partner who is not the child’s parent and moved in within the last year. i don’t think it’s my business to tell someone how to live and i’d rather stay out of it. but because we’re working together now she expects me to come hang and practice at her place sometimes. but even just a visit once a month is very difficult for me to be up for. i was raised in a very similar environment and it took literal years for me to find a rhythm with regular cleaning and i don’t even consider myself perfect by any means. but i am sensitive to extreme mess. its like they say, your space is a reflection of your mind. but being in any space also influences your mind- being in her home is just so unsettling i feel like i am having an out of body experience. and i feel bad bc i don’t think my hyper vigilance goes unnoticed. i know that this isn’t a moral failure on her part nor do i want even in the slightest to give her the impression i think that way. i know very intimately the struggles that can affect keeping things clean. and she’s very vocal about her struggles with depression, chronic illness and neurodivergence, as is her partner. but the thing is me too- it’s just that our our adaptation to these experiences and responses to stimuli are different. so i don’t want to discount their experience, but i also can’t discount my own. and the only point where it really matters is me coming over right? well, i also heard her casually speaking the other day about how her daughter didn’t wash her face before bed, and woke up with roaches on her, and my friend said “well that’s what she gets for not washing her face like i told her to”… this kind of left me with a bad impression. i just don’t if bringing it up will do more to create drama and problems than anything. but simply saying “i prefer to hang at my own place” to someone with depression and chronic pain feels like a super impassive way to confront the matter and outside of my usual character. she wants me to come over today, and i will go. but if i were to explain why i cannot enjoy time with her in her home… would i be the asshole?