So...this summer. I had a job in the office of a summer camp; shortly prior to camp beginning we were still short teachers. My mom is (was, she hasn't been able to keep a job in years) a teacher. With a lot of thought and many misgivings, I recommended her for a position. She was rushed through the interview process, and got the job. There were things I knew she would struggle with - getting resupply orders in to me, keeping her room organized, getting along with a younger staff, etc - but I thought, with me there as a buffer, I could make it work. It was only seven weeks...how wrong could it go? She got fired at week three. That's right, my mother got fired from the position I helped her get, while I was still at the workplace (and killing it, in my position, I might add).
What went wrong? She didn't like the curriculum. I'll give her that the curriculum was complicated, supply heavy, and maybe even - as she said ad nauseam - not age appropriate. Many of the other instructors were very stressed out the first week too, so my mother's particular degree of obnoxiousness wasn't immediately apparent. But then all the other instructors started to adapt - tweak materials, shorten intros, etc...as they were told they were allowed to do. After a few long days of unpaid overtime (they really didn't get enough time to set up) they had their classrooms in order and were able to keep on top of supplies and set-up, for the most part. My mom...just kept hollering. She bitched about the curriculum, the lack of help from the team leaders, the pay, the quality of supplies...anything else she could think of. On weekends I would go over the week's lesson plans with her and brainstorm ways to make them more manageable. She would drag her heels and complain the whole way through, and then still tell the director she just wasn't going to do certain projects. She swore that all the other instructors still felt as strongly as she did, they just didn't have the guts to keep saying it. Well, I explained to her, you can't start a revolution with nobody behind you. If all fourteen other instructors are willing to put their jobs on the line and rally behind you...go for it, make yourself heard. But in actuality nobody is willing to stand behind you, so you're just a complainer and a thorn in everyone's side.
I begged her not to make me look bad. I reminded her that it was just for seven weeks - just put your head down, do the work, get paid, and don't come back next year. How hard is that? She climbed the ladder up to her high horse and stated that "it wasn't fair that their curriculum developers were getting overpaid to hand down not age appropriate curriculum that tormented the underpaid teachers who were tasked with implementing it." She was not going to shut her mouth until the CEO said "Oh my goodness, you are so right! Stop everything - put camp on hold - please, please, how much do I have to pay you to redesign this terrible curriculum?"...or, until she got fired.
I was not pre-informed of her termination. It made for a) a very awkward conversation between the director and myself in which she had to inform me that she had just fired my mom (which I took "surprisingly well and so professionally" because I am all too aware of how crazy my mom really is) and b) an ugly evening at home. We started out talking about the job, and then, of course, moved on to the larger issue of the mess that her life is - literally and figuratively. She told me in no uncertain terms that she did not want my help on any front, and that she did not feel she had done anything wrong. As in, ever - this summer's employment debacle, all the past jobs she's been fired from, the state of someone else's house that she lives in for free, the state of the last house that she abandoned...she's made no bad choices, and done nothing inappropriate or irresponsible, or just plain cruel.
She went back to sitting in her armchair all day, watching TV. When she finished watching all the prime time TV that she had not had time to watch during her three weeks of work (another thing she complained about), she started watching reruns of Little House on the Prairie, The Waltons, and Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman. All. Day. Long.
So, I guess I give up. With the camp season over, my boyfriend and I are looking for an apartment closer to his job, and the job I will begin in September. He asked the other night if I was going to try to say anything more to her before we left. What do you say about change to a person who believes they have done nothing wrong? If admitting you have a problem is half the battle, she's sitting in her armchair, blissfully unaware that a battle rages around her. I feel like I've failed Jack, who's house and life she clutters daily, but I don't know what else I can do.
Monday, August 4, 2014
Monday, June 9, 2014
Catch Up
My summer job begins tomorrow, and my boyfriend arrived last week (and is already working...he is awesome!) After several fights, my mom decided that I was the reason the progress on the bedroom she promised to clean before my boyfriend's arrival was going so slow. I don't know how this could have been possible, since she didn't let me help, or even touch anything. It was pretty much a HUGE waste of my time and money to come out early (by my calculations, I could say that my mother owes me a little over $3,000 - what I would have made by not coming out a month early to help, seeing as I was not allowed to help, minus what I would have paid for the extra month of rent). She explicitly asked me to be in the house as little as possible; my presence upset her and she did not want to see my face. So, I made arrangements to do just that. I started volunteering at a theater two hours away that kindly offered me housing for the three to four day stretches I was there working for them. I did projects for friends and crashed at their houses.
The week before my boyfriend was due to arrive, my mom started reciting a list of things she would need my help with that week. "Um, mom, I'm out of town all week. You asked me to be out of the house, and I've done quite well at it." Immediate hysterics: "I obviously didn't mean the last week! You're doing this to spite me! How specific do I have to be with you! Of course I need your help in the last week! How am I supposed to do this on my own!"
In the last weekend, days before the boyfriend's arrival, it got done...enough. There is still a large trunk, two bookshelves, and a dresser in our bedroom (all full of my mom's stuff), but the bed is clear, there is one empty dresser for us, and just enough floor space for me to put up a standing clothes rack I bought, and for us to move around (if we both don't need to get around the bed at the same time). This was accomplished by moving all of the junk from her room into the dining room, and by an infuriating game of furniture tetris, which involved a rare show of spirit from Jack when he refused to let his dresser live in the living room ("just for the summer!"...yeah, right).
So, that's where we're at now. Tempers have been relatively low, as everyone is on their best behavior around the boy, as he is a new-comer. I'm sure it'll get interesting again, real soon.
The week before my boyfriend was due to arrive, my mom started reciting a list of things she would need my help with that week. "Um, mom, I'm out of town all week. You asked me to be out of the house, and I've done quite well at it." Immediate hysterics: "I obviously didn't mean the last week! You're doing this to spite me! How specific do I have to be with you! Of course I need your help in the last week! How am I supposed to do this on my own!"
In the last weekend, days before the boyfriend's arrival, it got done...enough. There is still a large trunk, two bookshelves, and a dresser in our bedroom (all full of my mom's stuff), but the bed is clear, there is one empty dresser for us, and just enough floor space for me to put up a standing clothes rack I bought, and for us to move around (if we both don't need to get around the bed at the same time). This was accomplished by moving all of the junk from her room into the dining room, and by an infuriating game of furniture tetris, which involved a rare show of spirit from Jack when he refused to let his dresser live in the living room ("just for the summer!"...yeah, right).
So, that's where we're at now. Tempers have been relatively low, as everyone is on their best behavior around the boy, as he is a new-comer. I'm sure it'll get interesting again, real soon.
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
If you don't want me to act like your mother, stop acting like a child
Last Tuesday my mom wrapped a gift. She found some tissue paper and curling ribbon, picked a flower from the yard, and got the tape and scissors out from the kitchen junk drawer and wrapped the gift on the kitchen table. I was out of town Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday - volunteering at a theater a few hours away. I came home for a whirlwind fifteen minutes on Friday before leaving again to spend Memorial Day Weekend with friends at their family cabin. When I returned home - six days later - the tissue paper, curling ribbon, and tape were all still spread across the kitchen table. The scissors had found their way back to the junk drawer. I'm sorry, but I can't write that off as a symptom of hoarding disorder; that's called being lazy.
Two friends came to pick me up for the cabin trip. I was still throwing a few things in my bag, so I told them to come in for a minute. Kate I've known since college and she knows about my mom, but Shana is a new friend so I quickly added, as they entered, "Please excuse the state of the house. My mother is a hoarder and I'm only staying with her temporarily; I would never live like this." At the cabin I was sweeping the kitchen after a large group lunch, as I had also done after breakfast. "Damn," Shana proclaimed, "you're always cleaning, you're making everyone else look bad." Kate and Anna (who's family owns the cabin, and who I've known forever) laughed; "That's her style - don't feel like you have to keep up with her. She doesn't expect you too, and neither does anyone else." And it's true. I completely understand that I "see" mess differently than other people and I feel much more at ease putting in a quick bit of work to clean a mess than I do trying to actively ignore it. So when I'm among friends, that's what I do. This makes new friends a little nervous, but my good friends understand that I'm not playing the martyr or secretly judging others for not picking up the broom before me.
"Can I ask a question?" Shana began. "If your mother is...the way she is...how did you get to be the way you are? I mean, how did you even learn to clean at all...let alone be as clean as you are?" I have always thought of cleanliness as common sense. The kitchen table, for example, is for eating. If you need to use the table as the surface for a project, you clean up your tools an supplies afterwards, and put them in one designated place so they are easy to find the next time you need them. This makes so much sense. I don't remember having to be taught this, but I guess I learned it at school. I've read blog posts by other COH though, who would not consider themselves hoarders as well, but who struggle to understand the line between clean and dirty and how to keep on the clean side. My excessive cleanliness is most certainly a direct reaction against the way I was raised, but is my capacity for cleanliness in general genetic or was it learned - can't say.
At any rate, however, cleanliness is a lesson my mother has never learned. I find this particularly *amusing* since it was a lesson she taught, as a kindergarten teacher. She would sing songs about cleaning up as her students picked up after free play, while her supply closet was so cluttered it was deemed a fire hazard year after year, and I would come in every spring break to clean it up. How do you teach children a skill you are "incapable" of yourself?
Often in our fights my mother will yell, "You are not my mother, so stop acting like you are!" I have no desire to be my mother's "mother," but it's hard to know how else to act towards someone who is behaving like a child. Asking someone to put away supplies from a project they completed six days ago is not an adult conversation; it's a conversation you have with a child, who is just learning the concept. If you don't want to be reminded to clean up after yourself / be treated like a child, then you act like an adult and do it without being asked.
Two friends came to pick me up for the cabin trip. I was still throwing a few things in my bag, so I told them to come in for a minute. Kate I've known since college and she knows about my mom, but Shana is a new friend so I quickly added, as they entered, "Please excuse the state of the house. My mother is a hoarder and I'm only staying with her temporarily; I would never live like this." At the cabin I was sweeping the kitchen after a large group lunch, as I had also done after breakfast. "Damn," Shana proclaimed, "you're always cleaning, you're making everyone else look bad." Kate and Anna (who's family owns the cabin, and who I've known forever) laughed; "That's her style - don't feel like you have to keep up with her. She doesn't expect you too, and neither does anyone else." And it's true. I completely understand that I "see" mess differently than other people and I feel much more at ease putting in a quick bit of work to clean a mess than I do trying to actively ignore it. So when I'm among friends, that's what I do. This makes new friends a little nervous, but my good friends understand that I'm not playing the martyr or secretly judging others for not picking up the broom before me.
"Can I ask a question?" Shana began. "If your mother is...the way she is...how did you get to be the way you are? I mean, how did you even learn to clean at all...let alone be as clean as you are?" I have always thought of cleanliness as common sense. The kitchen table, for example, is for eating. If you need to use the table as the surface for a project, you clean up your tools an supplies afterwards, and put them in one designated place so they are easy to find the next time you need them. This makes so much sense. I don't remember having to be taught this, but I guess I learned it at school. I've read blog posts by other COH though, who would not consider themselves hoarders as well, but who struggle to understand the line between clean and dirty and how to keep on the clean side. My excessive cleanliness is most certainly a direct reaction against the way I was raised, but is my capacity for cleanliness in general genetic or was it learned - can't say.
At any rate, however, cleanliness is a lesson my mother has never learned. I find this particularly *amusing* since it was a lesson she taught, as a kindergarten teacher. She would sing songs about cleaning up as her students picked up after free play, while her supply closet was so cluttered it was deemed a fire hazard year after year, and I would come in every spring break to clean it up. How do you teach children a skill you are "incapable" of yourself?
Often in our fights my mother will yell, "You are not my mother, so stop acting like you are!" I have no desire to be my mother's "mother," but it's hard to know how else to act towards someone who is behaving like a child. Asking someone to put away supplies from a project they completed six days ago is not an adult conversation; it's a conversation you have with a child, who is just learning the concept. If you don't want to be reminded to clean up after yourself / be treated like a child, then you act like an adult and do it without being asked.
Monday, May 26, 2014
Responsibility, What's That?
Anybody catch the song lyric? It's from an MxPx song, which was on the first CD I ever bought. Anyways, not the point. I've been thinking more about how being a COH has affected me, and how it might affect others.
Take a look at this pamphlet: http://www.childrenofhoarders.com/COHBrochure-081811.pdf (found via the Hoarder's Son blog - http://www.hoardersson.com/)
They list several key issues that COH may be dealing with, including:
Take a look at this pamphlet: http://www.childrenofhoarders.com/COHBrochure-081811.pdf (found via the Hoarder's Son blog - http://www.hoardersson.com/)
They list several key issues that COH may be dealing with, including:
- The fear they may be removed from the home and separated from their parent if the secret is discovered.
- Shame, and unhealthy guilt it’s their fault.
- Believing that objects or animals are more important than they are.
- A feeling of responsibility for their hoarding parent.
As a child I was very afraid to tell anyone about my mother's problem, "for fear of being removed from the home." It was a fear of the unknown really. I knew I wasn't happy where I was, but I also understood that I was, fundamentally, safe, and that I would eventually get out. My mother fed this fear. When I threatened to tell someone, she would say, "Go ahead, but you'll be put in foster care, where you'll probably be sexually abused and nobody will pay for your fancy education." Who knows what kind of foster family I might have ended up with, but I did have to agree with her about my education. My mom did sacrifice a lot for my education (although by sophomore year of high school I was on a full-ride scholarship, and I paid - rather, I'm still paying - for college and grad school all on my own), and I really enjoyed my private school. Still, I would fantasize about getting up the guts to tell an adult, and having them rescue me.
Shame - of course, or maybe mostly embarrassment. Are they the same thing? They're related at least. I don't think I ever really thought it was my fault that it happened, but I felt it was my responsibility to help hide it, if only just for the selfish reason of humiliation.
I never felt that objects or animals were more important than me. Thankfully, my mom doesn't hoard animals, and she's relatively good about not keeping rotting food (note the "relatively"). The things my mother hoards - particularly in the house I grew up in - are so obviously trash. Paper is the biggest culprit. She can't throw away magazines, or newspapers, or any of her college papers or notes from when she went back to school. I knew she loved me, and I knew the paper was trash, so I never felt like she loved the stuff more than me. I'm sure I had moments of wishing that she would dump it all as a show of love for me, but, in general, I don't think this weighed on me too heavily.
Responsibility though...this one I felt / feel. But, well, maybe I'm a bad daughter / person, but I felt / feel responsibility for the places my mother has trashed / is trashing more than I felt / feel responsibility for her. By the time I was in high school I understood the concept of rent, or the amount of money required to own a home, and I was aware that my mom was not paying rent to my grandma. She claims she did, off and on when she could, but clearly she wasn't paying what anyone else would have had to pay to rent that home. As I looked forward to moving out when I reached college, I became consumed with guilt at the idea of leaving the house in that state. I knew it wasn't my fault that it got that way, but I also knew that my mom wasn't going to do anything about it, and so, in my mind, it became my responsibility. When my mom slowly started spending more and more nights at Jack's house, and I eventually did as well, this feeling of responsibility increased. Were we really just going to walk away from a house, full to the brim? Apparently so; my mom seemed to feel no responsibility towards that home. My high school diary is FULL of these thoughts.
My mom's siblings broke in an dumped everything shortly after I graduated college. I remember when my mom found out and called me in a panic. All I felt was sad that they hadn't thought me adult enough to call me ahead of time and have me help. I had truly failed my responsibility to the house and my grandma.
I think I could just cut ties with her now if it weren't for Jack. I've never met my father, and while Jack and I aren't very emotionally close (he's not a big talker; it's kind of hard to get close to him), he's been very good to me - and my mom - and I guess he's the closest thing to a father I'll ever have. I feel a responsibility to him. She is a problem, and I can't just walk away and leave her for him to deal with all on his own. I'm also scared shitless of the moment when his patience finally breaks and she ends up on my doorstep, so this sense of responsibility to him isn't entirely selfless. Again, maybe I'm a bad person - already admitted it.
Saturday, May 17, 2014
Sentimental Objects
A year or so ago I was home for a friend's wedding. I have one trunk stored at Jack's house, in the basement (well, it was in the basement, till my mom decided it was in the way - because she needs the entire basement - and had him move it to under a pile of her junk in the garage). It contains ALL of my sentimental objects from childhood to the present. Every time I've been home since leaving to live back east I look through it and reminisce. But if I don't remember why a particular note that contains an inside joke between friends was funny anymore, I throw it out. If I want to add a stack of love notes from a current boyfriend, I cull through my stack of love notes from the last boyfriend and only keep one or two that are particularly special. Every time I throw something away from this trunk my mom howls about what an unfeeling person I am. It's gotten to the point that I carefully destroy things before I throw them away so she won't fish through the trash to rescue old letters to me to keep for herself. Or, I pack things and fly them back with me so that I can dispose of them in my own trash, where I know they will not grow legs and climb out.
So anyways, I was out for a friend's wedding and I was looking through my trunk, and I noticed a bag of clothes nearby. They looked familiar, so I opened the bag up. It was a bag of my old clothes from high school. Nothing particularly special, like a prom dress or anything, just some old sweaters, jeans, etc. No chance they will fit me again, and no chance they ever would have fit my mom. I was surprised they were still around. They must have been things I didn't take to college with me, so I obviously wasn't attached to them. "Can I donate this somewhere Mom? They're my old clothes...I don't think you need to keep my old things on top of your own." I pointed out. "Well, you might have worn them, but since they're your clothes from high school, I probably bought them, so I think that they're mine to decide what to do with, and I want to save them." By high school I actually had a job and bought much of my own clothing at thrift stores, but that's really beside the point; yes, she may have bought some of those clothes...not a reason to hold on to them. I queried, "Do you think I might fit them again at some point? Are you saving them to one day give to my hypothetical future child? Do you have project ideas to use them? Do you think a t-shirt from the late 90s might one day be worth money?" The usual response: "I don't have to justify why I save what I do."
Before moving back I went through all mine and my boyfriend's things and made a hefty donation. I do this every time we move, and sometimes just for fun. No point moving things you haven't used in a while and probably won't start using again. This weekend I'm going to the Maker Faire (a convention with crafts people and DIY technology, etc) with an old friend of mine. We used to go when we were in college, and this is the first time I've been in town for it in six years. Our favorite place to visit there was a giant clothing swap. There are all these silk screen stations and sewing machines to alter clothes you pick up right there. I think the first time we went we spent most of the day there. But, it's a swap, so to get in, you have to bring something to donate to the pile. Since I just moved, I don't have any spare clothes lying around.
Light bulb! You know where I'm going with this? "Hey mom...you know that bag of my old high school clothes that you wouldn't donate last year that have stayed sitting out on the patio untouched for the last year? Could I possibly take that to Maker Faire so I could get into the swap meet?" No. "What about just some of it?" No. "Why not?"
So anyways, I was out for a friend's wedding and I was looking through my trunk, and I noticed a bag of clothes nearby. They looked familiar, so I opened the bag up. It was a bag of my old clothes from high school. Nothing particularly special, like a prom dress or anything, just some old sweaters, jeans, etc. No chance they will fit me again, and no chance they ever would have fit my mom. I was surprised they were still around. They must have been things I didn't take to college with me, so I obviously wasn't attached to them. "Can I donate this somewhere Mom? They're my old clothes...I don't think you need to keep my old things on top of your own." I pointed out. "Well, you might have worn them, but since they're your clothes from high school, I probably bought them, so I think that they're mine to decide what to do with, and I want to save them." By high school I actually had a job and bought much of my own clothing at thrift stores, but that's really beside the point; yes, she may have bought some of those clothes...not a reason to hold on to them. I queried, "Do you think I might fit them again at some point? Are you saving them to one day give to my hypothetical future child? Do you have project ideas to use them? Do you think a t-shirt from the late 90s might one day be worth money?" The usual response: "I don't have to justify why I save what I do."
Before moving back I went through all mine and my boyfriend's things and made a hefty donation. I do this every time we move, and sometimes just for fun. No point moving things you haven't used in a while and probably won't start using again. This weekend I'm going to the Maker Faire (a convention with crafts people and DIY technology, etc) with an old friend of mine. We used to go when we were in college, and this is the first time I've been in town for it in six years. Our favorite place to visit there was a giant clothing swap. There are all these silk screen stations and sewing machines to alter clothes you pick up right there. I think the first time we went we spent most of the day there. But, it's a swap, so to get in, you have to bring something to donate to the pile. Since I just moved, I don't have any spare clothes lying around.
Light bulb! You know where I'm going with this? "Hey mom...you know that bag of my old high school clothes that you wouldn't donate last year that have stayed sitting out on the patio untouched for the last year? Could I possibly take that to Maker Faire so I could get into the swap meet?" No. "What about just some of it?" No. "Why not?"
"Because you'll never be in high school again. Stop pestering me."
So I tried a gentler tactic. "I won't ever be in high school again, but do those clothes" (which I guarantee she hasn't looked at since she bagged them up and put them downstairs) "help you remember the person I was then?" I suggested, "What if you just keep my high school uniform? Or we could go through the bag together and see if a particular piece or two hold particular memories, and donate the rest." No.
She went so far as to pull out a few of her own pieces of clothing (that still fit her...one blouse that still has tags) to give me for the swap to shut me up about my old high school clothes. I'm glad for anything to leave the house, but is that not ridiculous?
If I told this story to a stranger they might almost think it her answer was sweet. But for a hoarder, EV.ER.Y.THING. is a sentimental object. How does anything hold meaning if everything holds meaning?
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
A Place for Everything, and Everything In It's Place
A few nights ago we had a short blackout. My mom pulled out a flashlight from a junk drawer. Days later, the flashlight was still sitting in the bathroom, where she last had it when the power went back on. I put it away this morning. This happens a lot. If she's looking at a book, it doesn't go back on a bookshelf when she's done. It sits on the couch cushion next to her and a pile of other discards grows around it until there's a big mess, which she "deals with" - only when it becomes inconvenient to her - by shoving it all in a bag or box.
When I first got here, I told her a story about a friend of mine from grad school. Jess is a little bit scattered, but organized in her own way. I would never have been able to borrow notes from her, for example, because they wouldn't have made any sense to me, but you could see that there was a structure present. She was hired to clean and organize the theatre department's prop storage the summer between our first and second year (I have an MA in Theatre Arts). Nobody was supervising her, because Jess is a hard worker. Late in the summer I got a call from Jess. She asked, "Santina, what playwright do you associate most with stoves?" What? Why? "Well, I've organized everything by the playwright I most associate it with; so, like, all the chairs are in the Ionesco room, because he wrote The Chairs." "Um, Jess..." I responded, "does Ward [the prop master] know you're using this...'system'?"
Ward was pretty pissed when he found out, but to Jess's credit, she knew were everything was right away for the next year. She took big piles of dusty props that were in no order and she sorted like with like - in a system that made sense to her - and put everything on shelves - in a system that made sense to her - and it was visibly much neater, and was easily accessible for her - because the system made sense to her. The point is that she did a lot of work, and she did use a system, it's just that when she graduated a year later nobody else could find anything in prop storage because the system only made sense in Jess's mind.
I shared this story with my mom soon after I returned home because I wanted to stress that I was there to help her do things in a way that made sense to her. I am a really good organizer, and my systems are more generally logical - other's tend to be able to find their way around a space that I've set up. However, I don't want to force my systems on my mom. I want the mess to be cleaned in a way that makes sense to her, so that she will be able to maintain it.
Sharing this story with my mom was a mistake. It has since been twisted; any time I move anything I am "imposing my system instead of letting her do it her way." But, no system is not a system. Jess did actual work, with a visually measurable impact, that created more space and made finding things easier (for her). My mom leaves things wherever they land till they are in the way, then she bags them up, shoves them in a corner, and re-buys things because she can't find the things she's already bought. This is not a system.
When I first got here, I told her a story about a friend of mine from grad school. Jess is a little bit scattered, but organized in her own way. I would never have been able to borrow notes from her, for example, because they wouldn't have made any sense to me, but you could see that there was a structure present. She was hired to clean and organize the theatre department's prop storage the summer between our first and second year (I have an MA in Theatre Arts). Nobody was supervising her, because Jess is a hard worker. Late in the summer I got a call from Jess. She asked, "Santina, what playwright do you associate most with stoves?" What? Why? "Well, I've organized everything by the playwright I most associate it with; so, like, all the chairs are in the Ionesco room, because he wrote The Chairs." "Um, Jess..." I responded, "does Ward [the prop master] know you're using this...'system'?"
Ward was pretty pissed when he found out, but to Jess's credit, she knew were everything was right away for the next year. She took big piles of dusty props that were in no order and she sorted like with like - in a system that made sense to her - and put everything on shelves - in a system that made sense to her - and it was visibly much neater, and was easily accessible for her - because the system made sense to her. The point is that she did a lot of work, and she did use a system, it's just that when she graduated a year later nobody else could find anything in prop storage because the system only made sense in Jess's mind.
I shared this story with my mom soon after I returned home because I wanted to stress that I was there to help her do things in a way that made sense to her. I am a really good organizer, and my systems are more generally logical - other's tend to be able to find their way around a space that I've set up. However, I don't want to force my systems on my mom. I want the mess to be cleaned in a way that makes sense to her, so that she will be able to maintain it.
Sharing this story with my mom was a mistake. It has since been twisted; any time I move anything I am "imposing my system instead of letting her do it her way." But, no system is not a system. Jess did actual work, with a visually measurable impact, that created more space and made finding things easier (for her). My mom leaves things wherever they land till they are in the way, then she bags them up, shoves them in a corner, and re-buys things because she can't find the things she's already bought. This is not a system.
Saturday, May 10, 2014
Baby Steps
This blog is turning out to me more negative than I had hoped when I began it. I don't know why, but when I moved home from the Midwest, I had really really high hopes that my mom and I would achieve some kind of breakthrough and I would be able to be a positive force in her life, and show her the joy of a clean living space. Maybe it was the fact that I'd been away for six years and hadn't come face to face with my mom's stubbornness as often in those years, or the fact that I as so miserable in Chicago that I started to see home with overly rose tinted glasses. At any rate, I was sure that I was going to have the one COH blog that was happily recording progress stories.
Things have not gone according to plan. But, on the eve of Mother's Day, I thought I'd take a break from the anger and frustration to celebrate a tiny baby step I saw my mother make the other day. My mom has been recycling a good amount of paper the last few weeks - filling the bin. For someone who has a particular issue with paper, this is a step in and of itself. In particular, the other day I saw her recycle half of a ripped up Christmas cracker (those tubes with little goodies inside and you pull on either end of the paper to open them). Why is this significant? Because it wasn't an old receipt that you couldn't read the numbers on anymore, or a TV guide so old that some of the shows aren't on the air anymore; it was a solid 6" x 4" ish piece of pretty gold paper with an embossed design and embedded glitter. "You could do something with that."
For a woman who refuses to throw away an expired coupon in the kitchen junk drawer because it features a one inch picture of the Campbell's soup kid in a graduation cap (an old version of their "labels for education" logo) that is "so cute!...You could cut it out and do something with it," throwing away a solid scrap of quality paper is a step.
Happy Mother's Day to all those out there who may be struggling with their own mothers as well!
Things have not gone according to plan. But, on the eve of Mother's Day, I thought I'd take a break from the anger and frustration to celebrate a tiny baby step I saw my mother make the other day. My mom has been recycling a good amount of paper the last few weeks - filling the bin. For someone who has a particular issue with paper, this is a step in and of itself. In particular, the other day I saw her recycle half of a ripped up Christmas cracker (those tubes with little goodies inside and you pull on either end of the paper to open them). Why is this significant? Because it wasn't an old receipt that you couldn't read the numbers on anymore, or a TV guide so old that some of the shows aren't on the air anymore; it was a solid 6" x 4" ish piece of pretty gold paper with an embossed design and embedded glitter. "You could do something with that."
For a woman who refuses to throw away an expired coupon in the kitchen junk drawer because it features a one inch picture of the Campbell's soup kid in a graduation cap (an old version of their "labels for education" logo) that is "so cute!...You could cut it out and do something with it," throwing away a solid scrap of quality paper is a step.
Happy Mother's Day to all those out there who may be struggling with their own mothers as well!
Saturday, May 3, 2014
Drug of Choice
I don't know a whole lot about dealing with a drug addict - fortunately I've never had to. But I have a feeling that you don't pat their hand and say "there, there...I know this is hard. I won't take your drugs away from you; you just slowly get rid of them on your own time when you're ready." A hoarder is addicted to stuff. Why is it not ok to take it away from them, even slowly? Let them experience a little withdrawal. Why is the "treatment" for this addiction so catered to the addict's "feelings"?
I've been reading a lot of other blogs by "COH" (Children of Hoarders), and I read a really powerful entry last night on http://www.hoardersson.com. It was an entry about COH "talking points," or points about how a child of a hoarder is affected by their parent's disorder, as a child, and long into adulthood.
He writes: "As a final thought, children of hoarders sometimes are portrayed as being inappropriately angry, impatient, or otherwise unsupported of family members who are undergoing treatment for hoarding. Professionals, in particular, are reminded that many children of hoarders have suffered a lifetime of neglect and abuse and are desperately in need of support. In such cases, expecting COHs to be patient and respectful participants in the treatment of hoarders may be likened to expecting victims of sexual abuse to help their abusers to get treatment, without acknowledging the damage done to the victims, much less getting treatment and support for them."
I've read so much about forming a caring support team for your hoarding loved one. In Digging Out they even have a sample scenario where a hoarder's landlord patiently joins a "harm reduction team" aimed at making his tenant's crowded home easier for her to maneuver...YEAH RIGHT! Any landlord who knew their tenant was a hoarder would evict them - as they rightly should. All the info out there is about forgiving your hoarding loved one for past harm and gently doing things on their terms to make their life easier. Reading the quote above was a breath of fresh air. It was such a relief to read about hoarding "treatment" from the point of view of a COH.
I've been reading a lot of other blogs by "COH" (Children of Hoarders), and I read a really powerful entry last night on http://www.hoardersson.com. It was an entry about COH "talking points," or points about how a child of a hoarder is affected by their parent's disorder, as a child, and long into adulthood.
He writes: "As a final thought, children of hoarders sometimes are portrayed as being inappropriately angry, impatient, or otherwise unsupported of family members who are undergoing treatment for hoarding. Professionals, in particular, are reminded that many children of hoarders have suffered a lifetime of neglect and abuse and are desperately in need of support. In such cases, expecting COHs to be patient and respectful participants in the treatment of hoarders may be likened to expecting victims of sexual abuse to help their abusers to get treatment, without acknowledging the damage done to the victims, much less getting treatment and support for them."
I've read so much about forming a caring support team for your hoarding loved one. In Digging Out they even have a sample scenario where a hoarder's landlord patiently joins a "harm reduction team" aimed at making his tenant's crowded home easier for her to maneuver...YEAH RIGHT! Any landlord who knew their tenant was a hoarder would evict them - as they rightly should. All the info out there is about forgiving your hoarding loved one for past harm and gently doing things on their terms to make their life easier. Reading the quote above was a breath of fresh air. It was such a relief to read about hoarding "treatment" from the point of view of a COH.
Thursday, May 1, 2014
Happier Times
We had a rough morning. Mom's still mad that I cleaned up in the kitchen. She's still mad that I am interfering with her TV viewing because I want to sleep. I think she proposed to Jack that she box everything in the bedroom up, probably asking him to buy her more large plastic bins, and put it downstairs so I could have a place to sleep, and she could watch TV late into the night. She pulled him outside for this conversation, but bits of it came up in the ensuing fight the three of us got into.
I lost my patience. I kept the yelling and swearing to a minimum, but I said some mean things. Except, they weren't mean so much as true. She said she hated how Jack and I "gang up on her." Jack, ever diplomatic tried to reassure her that he and I were not a team. "Fuck that," I responded. "We are a team. We want the same thing - a comfortable and presentable house for everyone that lives here. Maybe you won't stand up for yourself, but I will. It's your house and I hate seeing her fill it with shit." Ok, maybe it wasn't necessary for me to stand up for a grown man; he can stand up for himself if he wants.
She left to tutor. Later in the day I pulled down the photo albums of my childhood. All these photos were in a box at the old house. Many years after we had abandoned it, I got the idea to dig them out and put them in an album for my mom for mother's day. I was in college then. I took the bus back to our old house and snuck in the bathroom window. I was shocked by what I saw. The entire bathroom floor had sunken in in our absence. There were mushrooms growing around the toilet. I walked around the little paths of the house for a few minutes, freshly overwhelmed by it all. I saw mouse droppings, but thankfully didn't encounter a mouse (there were no mice when we lived there - lots of bugs, but nothing bigger). I found the box of photos and got out as quick as I could. I took the risk of leaving through the front door and being spotted because I was scared to cross the bathroom floor again.
Looking at those photos now is such a mix of emotions. There's a relatively clean house in the background of them, but I never remember it looking like this. Apart from a collection of school portraits, the photos end when I'm three or four. There's family in our living room for birthdays, laughing and eating cake. There's me taking a bath in the kitchen sink, and you can see the counters. There's my mom and I, happy and smiling, like any other parent and child. Where did it all go so wrong? Why couldn't anybody stop it before it got out of control? Why can't we get back there? She was clearly happier then; why won't she even try to get back there?
I lost my patience. I kept the yelling and swearing to a minimum, but I said some mean things. Except, they weren't mean so much as true. She said she hated how Jack and I "gang up on her." Jack, ever diplomatic tried to reassure her that he and I were not a team. "Fuck that," I responded. "We are a team. We want the same thing - a comfortable and presentable house for everyone that lives here. Maybe you won't stand up for yourself, but I will. It's your house and I hate seeing her fill it with shit." Ok, maybe it wasn't necessary for me to stand up for a grown man; he can stand up for himself if he wants.
She left to tutor. Later in the day I pulled down the photo albums of my childhood. All these photos were in a box at the old house. Many years after we had abandoned it, I got the idea to dig them out and put them in an album for my mom for mother's day. I was in college then. I took the bus back to our old house and snuck in the bathroom window. I was shocked by what I saw. The entire bathroom floor had sunken in in our absence. There were mushrooms growing around the toilet. I walked around the little paths of the house for a few minutes, freshly overwhelmed by it all. I saw mouse droppings, but thankfully didn't encounter a mouse (there were no mice when we lived there - lots of bugs, but nothing bigger). I found the box of photos and got out as quick as I could. I took the risk of leaving through the front door and being spotted because I was scared to cross the bathroom floor again.
Looking at those photos now is such a mix of emotions. There's a relatively clean house in the background of them, but I never remember it looking like this. Apart from a collection of school portraits, the photos end when I'm three or four. There's family in our living room for birthdays, laughing and eating cake. There's me taking a bath in the kitchen sink, and you can see the counters. There's my mom and I, happy and smiling, like any other parent and child. Where did it all go so wrong? Why couldn't anybody stop it before it got out of control? Why can't we get back there? She was clearly happier then; why won't she even try to get back there?
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
Creativity
In Digging Out, the hoarding help manual I've mentioned before, the authors point out that hoarders are often very creative people. They ask you to do an exercise, in which you envision all the things you could do with a bottle cap. The average person can think of one or two things (including just throwing the damn thing away). The average hoarder can think of ten to fifteen things to do with a bottle cap, which makes it harder for them to throw it away.
I guess we're supposed to be impressed by that. But, you know what, if Picasso had just looked at canvases and thought amazing pictures in his mind, but never actually painted them, he wouldn't be an artist. Nobody would know who he was; nobody would care.
I cleaned the kitchen, unauthorized, the other day. My mom was out of the house, and I just couldn't take sitting there, looking at the mess and doing nothing. I literally cleaned - moved the table and swept up an inch of dust and rotting flower petals, etc - and I did some reorganizing. I was careful to throw so very little away. For example, she had a shelf full of mostly empty sticky honey jars with bits of unusable crystallized remains. I cleaned out all of them, wiped down the sticky shelf, and then saved one of each style of honey jar, and recycled the rest. Nobody needs nine almost empty honey jars. Nobody needs five cleaned honey jars either, but I left them on the shelf for her to do nothing with for ten more years.
When she returned she saw that I had cleaned and went out to the recycling bin and started digging. She pulled out an old take out container and one jar. I was secretly glad she didn't pull out more, but I was still dismayed that she pulled out anything. "This is not trash!" she proclaimed, holding up the take out container. "You have a whole cabinet of actual tupperware, I didn't think you'd miss a take out container," I countered. The take out container in question has a scalloped bowl. "This would make a great mold - for sand, or jello, or even plaster or something."
True, maybe it would. But she won't do any of those things with it. She'll tuck it back where it was (maybe, eventually, if I'm lucky - right now it's sitting on a ledge where she left it) and eventually probably forget it's even there. I understand, and even respect, creative re-use. I can actually think of a lot of things to do with a bottle cap. Back in college, when I drank more, I would save the cool ones. I made thumb tack sets and jewelry out of them and gave them away to friends. I bought some epoxy and pins and made buttons out of them. My art school roommate covered a whole coat with them. My aunt - whom my mom can't stand that I have a relationship with...another story for another time - flattens them and makes awesome tambourines. I even saved up a whole bunch with the intention of covering a table top with bottle caps and resin. But I never got around to that project, and so, after about a year of hanging on to a box full of bottle caps, I recycled them. Because being an actually creative person means being able to let go of old ideas and run with fresh inspiration sometimes.
I guess we're supposed to be impressed by that. But, you know what, if Picasso had just looked at canvases and thought amazing pictures in his mind, but never actually painted them, he wouldn't be an artist. Nobody would know who he was; nobody would care.
I cleaned the kitchen, unauthorized, the other day. My mom was out of the house, and I just couldn't take sitting there, looking at the mess and doing nothing. I literally cleaned - moved the table and swept up an inch of dust and rotting flower petals, etc - and I did some reorganizing. I was careful to throw so very little away. For example, she had a shelf full of mostly empty sticky honey jars with bits of unusable crystallized remains. I cleaned out all of them, wiped down the sticky shelf, and then saved one of each style of honey jar, and recycled the rest. Nobody needs nine almost empty honey jars. Nobody needs five cleaned honey jars either, but I left them on the shelf for her to do nothing with for ten more years.
When she returned she saw that I had cleaned and went out to the recycling bin and started digging. She pulled out an old take out container and one jar. I was secretly glad she didn't pull out more, but I was still dismayed that she pulled out anything. "This is not trash!" she proclaimed, holding up the take out container. "You have a whole cabinet of actual tupperware, I didn't think you'd miss a take out container," I countered. The take out container in question has a scalloped bowl. "This would make a great mold - for sand, or jello, or even plaster or something."
True, maybe it would. But she won't do any of those things with it. She'll tuck it back where it was (maybe, eventually, if I'm lucky - right now it's sitting on a ledge where she left it) and eventually probably forget it's even there. I understand, and even respect, creative re-use. I can actually think of a lot of things to do with a bottle cap. Back in college, when I drank more, I would save the cool ones. I made thumb tack sets and jewelry out of them and gave them away to friends. I bought some epoxy and pins and made buttons out of them. My art school roommate covered a whole coat with them. My aunt - whom my mom can't stand that I have a relationship with...another story for another time - flattens them and makes awesome tambourines. I even saved up a whole bunch with the intention of covering a table top with bottle caps and resin. But I never got around to that project, and so, after about a year of hanging on to a box full of bottle caps, I recycled them. Because being an actually creative person means being able to let go of old ideas and run with fresh inspiration sometimes.
Monday, April 28, 2014
Actions Speak Louder Than Words
There's a song from the musical My Fair Lady that's been stuck in my head for the last few days. Eliza, a flower seller from the streets, now dolled up, taught to speak proper English and passing for high society is being romantically perused by a young society boy. She's sick of his flowery promises and poetry and demands, "don't talk of stars, burning above / if you're in love, show me!"
About a month before I moved back home, I visited for a few days to interview for the summer job I ended up getting, which sealed the deal on my plans to return. My mom and I had a rare heart to heart talk. She told me how she didn't feel like a whole person anymore. She lamented that she had nobody to hike with. She admitted that she would like to do more creative things but she didn't have the space to do them. She also whined that she didn't have the money for supplies, but I assured her that she already had far more supplies that she remembered, they were just buried - and that's a fact.
This conversation gave me so much hope. I kept going back to it as I packed my own apartment up and mentally prepared myself for the task of working on the house with my mom. I thought of "reward" projects we could do together. She has an old bedroom set stashed in the garage that she rubs a piece of sandpaper across once every few years and says she's refinishing. I though we could work on this together (I've actually re-finished many pieces of furniture in my line of work) and then move it in to her freshly cleaned bedroom. I pinned projects to do with the mountain of saved coffee cans in the kitchen. I envisioned mornings of hard work, followed by afternoon hikes, after which we'd come home and cook together and eat at the cleaned dining room table. I was excited not just to help her get her life together, but also to help our relationship grow. She's always said what a creative person she was before me (sometimes implying, sometimes straight up saying it's my fault that she gave up on her own creative pursuits), but the problem of her hoarding is so big and prominent, that I've never seen those sides of her. I was excited about the possibility of getting her back to solid footing so that I could see her as a whole person, not just a person struggling with a major mental issue. And, of course, I thought that would be good for her.
How naive was I? She doesn't want to actually sew with the fabric she brings home. She doesn't want to make the lanterns she's saved the mountain of coffee cans for. She doesn't even want to escape the house and go for a walk, let alone a hike. She wants to sit on her ass in front of the TV and waste her life on trashy programming, while making those around her miserable. I know this, because this is what she actually does. If you really want more out of your life, and someone is offering to help you get it, then you take that offer. She's just a lot of talk.
About a month before I moved back home, I visited for a few days to interview for the summer job I ended up getting, which sealed the deal on my plans to return. My mom and I had a rare heart to heart talk. She told me how she didn't feel like a whole person anymore. She lamented that she had nobody to hike with. She admitted that she would like to do more creative things but she didn't have the space to do them. She also whined that she didn't have the money for supplies, but I assured her that she already had far more supplies that she remembered, they were just buried - and that's a fact.
This conversation gave me so much hope. I kept going back to it as I packed my own apartment up and mentally prepared myself for the task of working on the house with my mom. I thought of "reward" projects we could do together. She has an old bedroom set stashed in the garage that she rubs a piece of sandpaper across once every few years and says she's refinishing. I though we could work on this together (I've actually re-finished many pieces of furniture in my line of work) and then move it in to her freshly cleaned bedroom. I pinned projects to do with the mountain of saved coffee cans in the kitchen. I envisioned mornings of hard work, followed by afternoon hikes, after which we'd come home and cook together and eat at the cleaned dining room table. I was excited not just to help her get her life together, but also to help our relationship grow. She's always said what a creative person she was before me (sometimes implying, sometimes straight up saying it's my fault that she gave up on her own creative pursuits), but the problem of her hoarding is so big and prominent, that I've never seen those sides of her. I was excited about the possibility of getting her back to solid footing so that I could see her as a whole person, not just a person struggling with a major mental issue. And, of course, I thought that would be good for her.
How naive was I? She doesn't want to actually sew with the fabric she brings home. She doesn't want to make the lanterns she's saved the mountain of coffee cans for. She doesn't even want to escape the house and go for a walk, let alone a hike. She wants to sit on her ass in front of the TV and waste her life on trashy programming, while making those around her miserable. I know this, because this is what she actually does. If you really want more out of your life, and someone is offering to help you get it, then you take that offer. She's just a lot of talk.
Sunday, April 27, 2014
She's a Brick and I'm Drowning Slowly
My boyfriend and I have been together almost seven years. He's currently still living in the Midwest, finishing out the season at his job, but he'll be joining me here in a month. Here, literally...as in, under the same roof as my mother and I. Back when I was feeling hopeful I thought this was a "good" plan. I would come out a month before my summer job began, my mom and I would have a month to clear out a bedroom, and my boyfriend and I would stay in that bedroom for the summer while we looked for permanent work and housing and got on our feet. Throughout the summer I could help my mom with more cleaning and he could pitch in with some "handyman" things around the house; fixing the broken fence, etc. So, besides my sleep schedule (see last post) this is the second reason why I'm getting really anxious - I don't want to ask my boyfriend to live out of a suitcase, on the living room couch with me for a summer. Asking him to live out of a suitcase in my mom's bedroom with me for the summer is bad enough.
The concern runs deeper than my fears for a miserable summer. Jack's not going to let my mom live with him forever. Even if I somehow magically convinced her to clean up her act (which is highly unlikely), their friendship has completely deteriorated. It's not a healthy living situation, and since it's his house, the cards are in his hand; eventually he will kick her out. The thought makes me so mad I could punch a wall, but I'm resigned to the fact that she'll probably be living with me again before she dies.
I told my boyfriend today on the phone that if he wanted to stay at his job in the Midwest and just break up with me at this point I would understand. I tried to explain that my mother is a pretty unavoidable disaster that I, as an only child, would eventually be forced to take on. He didn't take me up on my offer. I don't think he was really taking me seriously, but I wasn't entirely joking. I don't want him to wake up five years from now in our house, or apartment (I don't know if we'll ever actually be able to afford a house on two salaries in the performing arts), miserable (because my mom is really good at making everyone around her miserable), and regret having hitched up with a girl who's a package deal with a crazy mom.
Who wants to step on board a sinking ship?
The concern runs deeper than my fears for a miserable summer. Jack's not going to let my mom live with him forever. Even if I somehow magically convinced her to clean up her act (which is highly unlikely), their friendship has completely deteriorated. It's not a healthy living situation, and since it's his house, the cards are in his hand; eventually he will kick her out. The thought makes me so mad I could punch a wall, but I'm resigned to the fact that she'll probably be living with me again before she dies.
I told my boyfriend today on the phone that if he wanted to stay at his job in the Midwest and just break up with me at this point I would understand. I tried to explain that my mother is a pretty unavoidable disaster that I, as an only child, would eventually be forced to take on. He didn't take me up on my offer. I don't think he was really taking me seriously, but I wasn't entirely joking. I don't want him to wake up five years from now in our house, or apartment (I don't know if we'll ever actually be able to afford a house on two salaries in the performing arts), miserable (because my mom is really good at making everyone around her miserable), and regret having hitched up with a girl who's a package deal with a crazy mom.
Who wants to step on board a sinking ship?
Wednesday, April 23, 2014
A Convenient Conscious
I knew this was going to be hard, but one thing I was completely unprepared for was how much TV my mom watches. I didn't know I would be battling with the box for moments of her attention. The last time I lived here, in high school, we had one weekly show that we would watch together, and she would occasionally watch the evening news. At some point, however, they got DVR service, and now, unrestricted by the boring lull of daytime TV, my mom can watch TV ALL DAY LONG! She records what seems to be every single prime time TV sitcom, drama, and several news programs and watches them the next day and / or evening, and even late into the night. Since I'm sleeping on the fold out couch in the living room, this has caused another fighting point. I'm used to getting up at 5:30 in the morning for work. At the moment I don't have to get up so early, but I'm accustom to it, and in a month I will be starting another job with a 7:30 am start time, so in my mind it's not worth it for me to totally alter my sleep schedule for a month so that my mom can stay up till midnight watching TV every night and sleep in till 10:00 or later every day.
Every time she complains that I'm inconveniencing her, I remind her that there is a simple solution. We can clean the bedroom, which we agreed would be done before my summer job began, allowing me to sleep and her to watch TV in the living room. Or I could just "stop being so stubborn and follow her sleep schedule since I'm in 'her' house" (not her house).
On Sunday I asked her to pause the TV. "When this program is over, could you please take a TV break and have a conversation with me?" I asked. This prompted: "No!, Why do you always focus on how I'm affecting you - you're affecting me! My shows are piling up - I won't talk to you till Tuesday." Fine. On Tuesday, I asked her to pause the TV. "It's Tuesday. When this program is over, I'd like to have the conversation you promised we could have today" I stated. An eye roll, "You still want to talk? I thought you would drop it." Seriously? I'm not an infant; you can't put a blanket over a toy and make me forget about it. Putting off a conversation from Sunday to Tuesday is not going to make me give up on it.
I expressed my concerns that in the week I'd been home for we had made no progress on the bedroom. A week doesn't sound so long, but in the frame of five weeks to get a goal done...a week is a fifth of that time. I explained that I had been inquiring about rooms to rent, since I was unsure we could meet our originally agreed upon goal, and unwilling to work around her TV viewing once I was working, and I needed to know if I should follow up with people, or if she could honestly still promise me that the bedroom would be ready. She explained that she could only focus on one thing at a time and that she had a bill for a bridge toll hanging over her head and she felt really guilty working on anything else until she took care of that, and this is what had stopped her from working on the room.
So, your guilty conscious about the bridge toll you need to take care of is just strong enough that it keeps you from cleaning, but not quite strong enough to keep you from watching hours and hours of television. How convenient.
Every time she complains that I'm inconveniencing her, I remind her that there is a simple solution. We can clean the bedroom, which we agreed would be done before my summer job began, allowing me to sleep and her to watch TV in the living room. Or I could just "stop being so stubborn and follow her sleep schedule since I'm in 'her' house" (not her house).
On Sunday I asked her to pause the TV. "When this program is over, could you please take a TV break and have a conversation with me?" I asked. This prompted: "No!, Why do you always focus on how I'm affecting you - you're affecting me! My shows are piling up - I won't talk to you till Tuesday." Fine. On Tuesday, I asked her to pause the TV. "It's Tuesday. When this program is over, I'd like to have the conversation you promised we could have today" I stated. An eye roll, "You still want to talk? I thought you would drop it." Seriously? I'm not an infant; you can't put a blanket over a toy and make me forget about it. Putting off a conversation from Sunday to Tuesday is not going to make me give up on it.
I expressed my concerns that in the week I'd been home for we had made no progress on the bedroom. A week doesn't sound so long, but in the frame of five weeks to get a goal done...a week is a fifth of that time. I explained that I had been inquiring about rooms to rent, since I was unsure we could meet our originally agreed upon goal, and unwilling to work around her TV viewing once I was working, and I needed to know if I should follow up with people, or if she could honestly still promise me that the bedroom would be ready. She explained that she could only focus on one thing at a time and that she had a bill for a bridge toll hanging over her head and she felt really guilty working on anything else until she took care of that, and this is what had stopped her from working on the room.
So, your guilty conscious about the bridge toll you need to take care of is just strong enough that it keeps you from cleaning, but not quite strong enough to keep you from watching hours and hours of television. How convenient.
Saturday, April 19, 2014
The Plot Thickens...
About a year ago I was in town for a few days for a friend's wedding. I suggested to my mom that maybe we could look through the patio full of tupperware bins stuffed with old magazines and "trim the fat," or perhaps clean out one of the three broke down cars in the driveway that are full of stuff and therefore can't be towed away. She had a meltdown; there was screaming, crying, and a whole lot of pouting. I felt incredibly overwhelmed and completely disheartened. I didn't even touch any of her stuff. Just talking about possibly touching her stuff brought on a reaction.
I knew I needed help, so after flying home defeated, I started looking up therapists in our area that specialized in compulsive hoarding. I could see that any suggestion from me was going to be viewed as an attack, but I thought maybe suggestions from an impartial outside source would have half a chance. I emailed several offices, and the numbers all came in at about $200 an hour. I cried each time I read one of these emails. My boyfriend and I both work in theater; we support ourselves and manage to pay our bills on time and tuck tiny bits away in savings, but there is no way I can afford to send my mom to therapy at $200 an hour. One kind woman carried on a brief email correspondence with me, even after I told her she was way out of my price range. She suggested I read Digging Out: Helping Your Loved One Manage Clutter, Hoarding, and Compulsive Acquiring by Michael A. Tompkins, PhD, and Tamara L. Hartl, PhD.
This book comes up often in searches for hoarding literature, so I assume it's pretty popular. The thesis of the book is: your loved one probably will not change, so don't try to force them to change. They instead suggest you focus on "harm reduction strategies." The book is written for adult children of hoarders whose hoarding parents are getting old and are having even more trouble navigating their cluttered lifestyle. They suggest making sure pathways are clear and wide enough for a walker, etc. There is one key assumption they make over and over again in the example scenarios: that your hoarding loved one owns their own home (most common), or at least pays their own rent.
My mother lives, rent free, in the home of a family friend...and he is not ok with the current state of the house he owns and she trashes. Let's backtrack a few steps. My mom is a single parent, and I am her only child. She's worked hard in life, but she's done several things "wrong." She's actually a really good pre-school / kindergarten teacher, but she never finished her degree. As she got older and technology past her by, and she couldn't keep organized, and she had more and more trouble "playing well" with younger colleagues, her ability to hold down a job diminished. The last several jobs she's had have all lasted less than a year. She mostly just does private, under the table, tutoring these days.
When I was very young we rented a home, with a housemate, from my grandmother. When that housemate eventually moved out, and my mom started struggling, my gradma let us stay on. Our house was normal when I was very young, but from about first grade on - when my mom tried to go back to school to complete her degree - it slowly filled with stuff. First by mom's room filled. When she couldn't walk in there anymore she put a bookcase in front of the door and we kind of ignored that it was even a room. She slept on the fold out couch in the living room. When our housemate moved out, her room filled next. By third grade I didn't have a bedroom; I slept in a sleeping bag on the floor near the door, with my clothes folded in piles by my head. Our fridge broke and we couldn't get it out of the house, so we bought a small "dorm fridge." Our stove broke, so we only used a microwave. Eventually our plumbing went and every time I took a shower I had to scoop the collected water up with a pitcher and toss it out the bathroom window, one pitcher at a time. If I had called child protective services, I would have been taken away from her: no question.
When I was in high school she went on a few dates with a family friend - a man who knew my uncle, her brother. Their relationship as a couple didn't work out, but they remained friends, and somehow, in a very awkward series of events that I don't remember the details of, she moved in with him. I slowly started staying there too, and by the time I was a junior, we lived there and she just abandoned our old house, full of stuff. Jack (not his real name) had a bedroom, my mom had a bedroom, and I slept on the murphy bed in the dining room. For a while this arrangement wasn't so bad. My mom helped with household chores and Jack seemed to enjoy, or at least not mind, the noise and life we brought to his very quiet, very empty, bachelor pad.
But, I left for college, and my mom slowly started to fill his home too. First the basement (which takes up the full footprint of the house), then the garage, and then her bedroom (she now sleeps with him...even though they are not in a relationship). The living room, dining room, and kitchen are still maneuverable, but there are stacks climbing up the walls in all three of these rooms. They live in a nice climate, so even the patio is stacked with tupperware bins. Jack obviously complained, and their relationship became fraught, but he doesn't have the heart to kick her out, so she stays, and they fight, and he is clearly miserable. By the way, her siblings eventually broke into the old house and cleaned up after her; causing an epic meltdown.
It fills me with such disgust that she can do this to another human being. A human being she would be homeless without. To do this to a child is to walk all over them. To do this to an adult is to slap them in the face. I don't know which is worse. Jack has threatened to throw her out several times. I don't know what I would do if he ever actually did. I don't want her with me. I've told her that if it comes to that I would take her, but none of her stuff. If she ever lives under my roof she will be afforded not an ounce of privacy. I will monitor every item she brings in, and regularly check her living space like a teenager suspected of drug use. I feel wretched to leave her as someone else's burden, but I don't want to take her on as mine again.
If she owned her own home, I would let her fill it to the gills, wallow in her own filth to her heart's content, and accept the job of cleaning up after her death. But that's not our situation. The book focuses on forgiving your loved one for the past. The past still hurts me, but I'm out and over it. There were several things my mother did right as a parent; she put my education above all else (she'll say that's why the house slid, though that doesn't account for her current living situation), and exposed me to a lot of art and culture. What I'm worried about is not the past, but the future. I've served my time with her, and I don't want to take on another prison sentence. I've worked hard to provide for myself, and I take extreme pride in my living space.
So, who's written the self help book for our situation? I'm desperate to read it.
I knew I needed help, so after flying home defeated, I started looking up therapists in our area that specialized in compulsive hoarding. I could see that any suggestion from me was going to be viewed as an attack, but I thought maybe suggestions from an impartial outside source would have half a chance. I emailed several offices, and the numbers all came in at about $200 an hour. I cried each time I read one of these emails. My boyfriend and I both work in theater; we support ourselves and manage to pay our bills on time and tuck tiny bits away in savings, but there is no way I can afford to send my mom to therapy at $200 an hour. One kind woman carried on a brief email correspondence with me, even after I told her she was way out of my price range. She suggested I read Digging Out: Helping Your Loved One Manage Clutter, Hoarding, and Compulsive Acquiring by Michael A. Tompkins, PhD, and Tamara L. Hartl, PhD.
This book comes up often in searches for hoarding literature, so I assume it's pretty popular. The thesis of the book is: your loved one probably will not change, so don't try to force them to change. They instead suggest you focus on "harm reduction strategies." The book is written for adult children of hoarders whose hoarding parents are getting old and are having even more trouble navigating their cluttered lifestyle. They suggest making sure pathways are clear and wide enough for a walker, etc. There is one key assumption they make over and over again in the example scenarios: that your hoarding loved one owns their own home (most common), or at least pays their own rent.
My mother lives, rent free, in the home of a family friend...and he is not ok with the current state of the house he owns and she trashes. Let's backtrack a few steps. My mom is a single parent, and I am her only child. She's worked hard in life, but she's done several things "wrong." She's actually a really good pre-school / kindergarten teacher, but she never finished her degree. As she got older and technology past her by, and she couldn't keep organized, and she had more and more trouble "playing well" with younger colleagues, her ability to hold down a job diminished. The last several jobs she's had have all lasted less than a year. She mostly just does private, under the table, tutoring these days.
When I was very young we rented a home, with a housemate, from my grandmother. When that housemate eventually moved out, and my mom started struggling, my gradma let us stay on. Our house was normal when I was very young, but from about first grade on - when my mom tried to go back to school to complete her degree - it slowly filled with stuff. First by mom's room filled. When she couldn't walk in there anymore she put a bookcase in front of the door and we kind of ignored that it was even a room. She slept on the fold out couch in the living room. When our housemate moved out, her room filled next. By third grade I didn't have a bedroom; I slept in a sleeping bag on the floor near the door, with my clothes folded in piles by my head. Our fridge broke and we couldn't get it out of the house, so we bought a small "dorm fridge." Our stove broke, so we only used a microwave. Eventually our plumbing went and every time I took a shower I had to scoop the collected water up with a pitcher and toss it out the bathroom window, one pitcher at a time. If I had called child protective services, I would have been taken away from her: no question.
When I was in high school she went on a few dates with a family friend - a man who knew my uncle, her brother. Their relationship as a couple didn't work out, but they remained friends, and somehow, in a very awkward series of events that I don't remember the details of, she moved in with him. I slowly started staying there too, and by the time I was a junior, we lived there and she just abandoned our old house, full of stuff. Jack (not his real name) had a bedroom, my mom had a bedroom, and I slept on the murphy bed in the dining room. For a while this arrangement wasn't so bad. My mom helped with household chores and Jack seemed to enjoy, or at least not mind, the noise and life we brought to his very quiet, very empty, bachelor pad.
But, I left for college, and my mom slowly started to fill his home too. First the basement (which takes up the full footprint of the house), then the garage, and then her bedroom (she now sleeps with him...even though they are not in a relationship). The living room, dining room, and kitchen are still maneuverable, but there are stacks climbing up the walls in all three of these rooms. They live in a nice climate, so even the patio is stacked with tupperware bins. Jack obviously complained, and their relationship became fraught, but he doesn't have the heart to kick her out, so she stays, and they fight, and he is clearly miserable. By the way, her siblings eventually broke into the old house and cleaned up after her; causing an epic meltdown.
It fills me with such disgust that she can do this to another human being. A human being she would be homeless without. To do this to a child is to walk all over them. To do this to an adult is to slap them in the face. I don't know which is worse. Jack has threatened to throw her out several times. I don't know what I would do if he ever actually did. I don't want her with me. I've told her that if it comes to that I would take her, but none of her stuff. If she ever lives under my roof she will be afforded not an ounce of privacy. I will monitor every item she brings in, and regularly check her living space like a teenager suspected of drug use. I feel wretched to leave her as someone else's burden, but I don't want to take her on as mine again.
If she owned her own home, I would let her fill it to the gills, wallow in her own filth to her heart's content, and accept the job of cleaning up after her death. But that's not our situation. The book focuses on forgiving your loved one for the past. The past still hurts me, but I'm out and over it. There were several things my mother did right as a parent; she put my education above all else (she'll say that's why the house slid, though that doesn't account for her current living situation), and exposed me to a lot of art and culture. What I'm worried about is not the past, but the future. I've served my time with her, and I don't want to take on another prison sentence. I've worked hard to provide for myself, and I take extreme pride in my living space.
So, who's written the self help book for our situation? I'm desperate to read it.
Thursday, April 17, 2014
Pay No Attention to the (Wo)man Behind the Curtain
So, who knows who, if anybody, will end up reading this blog, but I thought I'd take a minute to - sort of - introduce myself. If you look to the right, you'll notice that I've deleted the "about me" / "contact me" option that Blogger offers. And my posts are signed off with "child of a hoarder."
I was ashamed of the house my mom and I lived in when I was growing up. I never told anyone about the squalid conditions until I let my boyfriend in, senior year of high school. I lived in the dorms in college, so I didn't have to deal with the awkward maneuvers of making sure nobody saw where I lived - sitting out on the porch early when a friend picked me up so they didn't come to the door, etc. I didn't tell any of my friends there because it didn't come up; I was enjoying the freedom of being able to ignore the problem since I was no longer living in it.
In grad school I worked part time at a retail store with a fabulous manager and a great group of colleagues. An older woman who worked there told me the story of a day that started out normal; she got in the shower, and when she got out, police were in her house, arresting her husband for purchasing child pornography. She knew absolutely nothing about it. She was also a special education teacher, so learning this about her husband was extra hard. And she was terrified that people would assume she had known, and label her unfit to be around kids. She hid the story, which made the local news, to the extent that she could for years. And then, slowly, she realized: this was not my fault. She honestly had no part in it, and she got tired of apologizing for it and hiding that shame. She helped me realize that my mom's hording is not my fault, and that I have nothing to hide: I am not the one with the problem.
So now I can just tell people, "my mom is a hoarder." Now, I don't go around shouting it for fun, but if it comes up, I'm comfortable sharing that. The reality TV shows on the subject have "helped," a little. At least now when you tell someone, "my mom is a hoarder," they understand what that means and you don't have to explain, "she keeps so much stuff that entire rooms are sealed off, conditions are unsanitary, not to mention ugly and uncomfortable, and she refuses to sort or organize and continues to bring more things into her home."
My mom however, does have a problem. And she doesn't want to talk about it; with me or anyone else. She's also technologically illiterate, and a little bit afraid of the internet. I haven't told her about this blog. In fact, the only people I've told about it are my boyfriend and my best friend. My friends and family don't need to read it; I'm writing it for myself, and maybe for someone else in a similar situation who happens to find it. So, I haven't told friends and family because it's not something I'm "promoting." I haven't told my mom because she would be devastated and furious to learn that I was talking about her on the internet.
In respect of the reaction I know she would have, I'm taking an effort to keep this blog as anonymous as possible. I won't ever use her name, or the real names of any of the "characters" in this drama. I won't share where we are, and I'll avoid personal details as much as possible. If you're interested in contacting me, feel free to leave a comment, but I won't be passing out any contact information.
I was ashamed of the house my mom and I lived in when I was growing up. I never told anyone about the squalid conditions until I let my boyfriend in, senior year of high school. I lived in the dorms in college, so I didn't have to deal with the awkward maneuvers of making sure nobody saw where I lived - sitting out on the porch early when a friend picked me up so they didn't come to the door, etc. I didn't tell any of my friends there because it didn't come up; I was enjoying the freedom of being able to ignore the problem since I was no longer living in it.
In grad school I worked part time at a retail store with a fabulous manager and a great group of colleagues. An older woman who worked there told me the story of a day that started out normal; she got in the shower, and when she got out, police were in her house, arresting her husband for purchasing child pornography. She knew absolutely nothing about it. She was also a special education teacher, so learning this about her husband was extra hard. And she was terrified that people would assume she had known, and label her unfit to be around kids. She hid the story, which made the local news, to the extent that she could for years. And then, slowly, she realized: this was not my fault. She honestly had no part in it, and she got tired of apologizing for it and hiding that shame. She helped me realize that my mom's hording is not my fault, and that I have nothing to hide: I am not the one with the problem.
So now I can just tell people, "my mom is a hoarder." Now, I don't go around shouting it for fun, but if it comes up, I'm comfortable sharing that. The reality TV shows on the subject have "helped," a little. At least now when you tell someone, "my mom is a hoarder," they understand what that means and you don't have to explain, "she keeps so much stuff that entire rooms are sealed off, conditions are unsanitary, not to mention ugly and uncomfortable, and she refuses to sort or organize and continues to bring more things into her home."
My mom however, does have a problem. And she doesn't want to talk about it; with me or anyone else. She's also technologically illiterate, and a little bit afraid of the internet. I haven't told her about this blog. In fact, the only people I've told about it are my boyfriend and my best friend. My friends and family don't need to read it; I'm writing it for myself, and maybe for someone else in a similar situation who happens to find it. So, I haven't told friends and family because it's not something I'm "promoting." I haven't told my mom because she would be devastated and furious to learn that I was talking about her on the internet.
In respect of the reaction I know she would have, I'm taking an effort to keep this blog as anonymous as possible. I won't ever use her name, or the real names of any of the "characters" in this drama. I won't share where we are, and I'll avoid personal details as much as possible. If you're interested in contacting me, feel free to leave a comment, but I won't be passing out any contact information.
Monday, April 14, 2014
Home is Where You Keep Your Stuff
There's an old George Carlin routine that I found where he makes fun of how much stuff the typical American has in their home, and how we feel safe surrounded by our stuff. He goes on to poke fun at the anxiety of packing for a vacation, where we must decide how much of our precious stuff to take with us to keep us feeling comfortable while we're away from the four walls and a roof that hold all our stuff. The audience is laughing because, as is the case with all successful comedy, it's true. There are more altruistic sayings, like "home is where your heart is" or "home is wherever I'm with you," but let's be honest: we love our stuff.
There's a great line where points out: "Ever notice how your stuff is stuff and other people's stuff is shit?" On to the point of creating this blog. My mother is a hoarder. To me, and to all other rational minds, my mother lives surrounded by piles of shit. To her, it's her stuff; and she has a lot of stuff to love.
After nearly seven years studying and working on the other side of the country, I'm moving home. For the summer at least (and hopefully only for the summer), I'm literally moving home. My mom understands that she has a problem - or at least understands that too many others think she has a problem to fully deny the problem; I'm never quite sure how she really views her surroundings. She's said she is willing to work on this problem, with my help. So, for the past several months, in addition to packing up mine and my boyfriend's stuff (all of which, broken down furniture included, fits into a 5'x7' taped out corner of our living room...the sight of which fills me with a twisted kind of joy that only the child of a hoarder could truly appreciate), I've been reading as much literature as I can handle about the best ways to talk to, and work with, hoarders.
The suggestions are ridiculous. Don't touch their stuff first. Never throw anything away without their permission. Understand the anxiety it causes them to part with "belongings." Who's going to understand the anxiety it causes me to fake encouragement for her "efforts" as my mother slowly flips through a single decade old magazine in an afternoon only to decide there are too many interesting articles in it and she can't throw it away? My initial reaction to the things I've been reading is always indignation. I feel my stomach twist and my teeth clench down as I attempt to mentally process suggestions for dealing with hoarders that are equivalent to suggesting to parents that they deal with temper tantrums by always giving in to their child's demands, no matter how ridiculous.
BUT, all sources have been annoyingly consistent with their advice. Until I find an "expert" that suggests tying your loved one who hoards to a chair while you gleefully purge and re-organize their belongings, only freeing them when they say "thank you, it does look better, and I'm excited to function as a regular human being now!" I guess I'm stuck taking deep breaths and practicing delivering phrases like "I hear what you're saying and I understand your frustration" without sarcasm. Wish me luck!
There's a great line where points out: "Ever notice how your stuff is stuff and other people's stuff is shit?" On to the point of creating this blog. My mother is a hoarder. To me, and to all other rational minds, my mother lives surrounded by piles of shit. To her, it's her stuff; and she has a lot of stuff to love.
After nearly seven years studying and working on the other side of the country, I'm moving home. For the summer at least (and hopefully only for the summer), I'm literally moving home. My mom understands that she has a problem - or at least understands that too many others think she has a problem to fully deny the problem; I'm never quite sure how she really views her surroundings. She's said she is willing to work on this problem, with my help. So, for the past several months, in addition to packing up mine and my boyfriend's stuff (all of which, broken down furniture included, fits into a 5'x7' taped out corner of our living room...the sight of which fills me with a twisted kind of joy that only the child of a hoarder could truly appreciate), I've been reading as much literature as I can handle about the best ways to talk to, and work with, hoarders.
The suggestions are ridiculous. Don't touch their stuff first. Never throw anything away without their permission. Understand the anxiety it causes them to part with "belongings." Who's going to understand the anxiety it causes me to fake encouragement for her "efforts" as my mother slowly flips through a single decade old magazine in an afternoon only to decide there are too many interesting articles in it and she can't throw it away? My initial reaction to the things I've been reading is always indignation. I feel my stomach twist and my teeth clench down as I attempt to mentally process suggestions for dealing with hoarders that are equivalent to suggesting to parents that they deal with temper tantrums by always giving in to their child's demands, no matter how ridiculous.
BUT, all sources have been annoyingly consistent with their advice. Until I find an "expert" that suggests tying your loved one who hoards to a chair while you gleefully purge and re-organize their belongings, only freeing them when they say "thank you, it does look better, and I'm excited to function as a regular human being now!" I guess I'm stuck taking deep breaths and practicing delivering phrases like "I hear what you're saying and I understand your frustration" without sarcasm. Wish me luck!
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