DISC Personalities & How I'm Getting Smarter with Age

By Julie Morrill

Julie (C) & Pete (D)

You know you’re a “C” Beaver personality when your clean gene is so strong, you empty the dishwasher, put all the utensils in a bowl on the counter… planning to use them for cooking. Then five minutes later, you go to grab a knife—and the bowl is empty. Because you already put them all away. My clean gene has an autopilot mode, y’all.

Now, my husband hates this. He’ll get out dishes to prep a meal, and my clean gene just swoops in, and I don’t even know what’s happening. Suddenly, he can’t find a single spatula. He’s frustrated. I’m frustrated. But it’s not OCD. It’s a clean gene. Like the X-Men. Except my superpower is making my husband mad.

I didn’t start out this way. As a kid, I was messy. As a teenager? Disaster zone. Then I went to college… and my roommate was even messier than I was. That flipped the switch. My brain just couldn’t function in all that clutter. So, I started cleaning. And you know what? I discovered the cleaner everything was, the smarter I got.

Which brings me to my “D” Eagle husband. He is not a neat freak, y’all. Our house is kind of like two countries: I’m Switzerland—neutral, clean, peaceful. His office? WWII Europe after bombs and a natural disaster. We share a border, and it can get tense.

My husband swears his brain works better in the mess. Says he can find everything under all those piles. When I walk into his office, my brain shorts out. My IQ drops at least 30 points every time. It’s not Mensa in there, folks. It’s dangerous for me to walk into his office, because my clean gene might kick in on autopilot again. I think his brain would work better if things were clean and tidy but God forbid I move anything, because his brain short-circuits and goes into this sort of insanity mode—which, honestly, is a worse than stupid mode. I’m just sayin’.

Now add five kids to the mix. Yes, I said five. My brain was shorting out on a daily basis, and I didn’t realize it. I thought it was just “mom brain.” But, as the kids moved out, one by one, I kept getting smarter and smarter. That’s a fact. The cleaner our house got, the higher my IQ. By the time the last one moved out, I was basically Einstein with a Swiffer. But our baby moved back in and is living with us again, so I regret to say that I’ve gotten a little stupider lately. At least I have an excuse for it now.