The Comfy Chaos of Childhood

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Mom wasn’t always an extreme hoarder.  The illness didn’t settle in until after I moved out of the house to live on my own, but she WAS unorganized and had a lot of clutter.  Even though she was employed as a housekeeper, she wasn’t great at keeping our house tidy.

My Mom is incredibly crafty…she is skilled in just about any handicraft you can imagine, and she has all the supplies for each of these hobbies.  And she was brilliant at starting a new project, but often didn’t finish them.  These half-finished crafts still exist in limbo around the house at various stages of completion.

As a kid, it was normal to have the pile of laundry sitting on the sofa, and if you needed something to wear, chances are you’d find it in that pile.  There was extra stuff pushed to one end of the dining table that always seemed to be there at every meal.   I was never really required to put my toys away, so I missed out on learning that discipline early.

The only time we really did a major clean was when guests were expected.  Then the whole family would rally and whirl about the house shoving stuff from the public rooms, like the living room or bathroom, into other rooms people wouldn’t see.  The walk-in closet did not facilitate “walking in.”

No one would ever know this was an issue, and as I kid I didn’t know any better either.  I figured that’s what you did!  You lived with your comfy chaos until company came.

Surprisingly, we actually seemed to host somewhat often back then.  Mom’s sister and brother-in-law would come to play cards and I’d hang out with my cousins.  Gramma would come and stay the odd weekend.  And I’d have my friend from down the road over all the time to play in my room.

I think the frequency began to trickle as I got into my teens.  I didn’t bring friends from high school home.  And once I went away for college, it was hard to squeeze myself back in.  My old room was repurposed as a ‘craft room’ and I got the spare room.  The spare room that served as a mausoleum for the beautiful porcelain dolls my Mom had lovingly created.  And all the spare parts that had “potential.”

After I graduated college and returned home to try to find a job, it wasn’t too bad.  There was room to relax on a couch, after I moved the laundry.  I could shove a pile of magazines aside to put a water glass on the coffee table.  I had access to a computer and (38,000 bpm) data/fax modem for internet.

After a few months, I got a job in another city, and moved away.  That’s when the small avalanches started; and there was no going back.

The Case of the Silent Phone: Part 4

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Mom called again last night!  At 9:55 pm!  I guess she was able to visit with Lynn for a little bit, and thought to call me.

I was glad to talk with her.  I learned she’s heading in for surgery in 2 weeks, on a Friday before we were hoping to host a birthday party for my husband and soon-to-be two year old.  I don’t know how she’s going to cope afterwards…it’s surgery to repair her wrist from carpal tunnel syndrome, and she won’t be able to use her wrist for 6 weeks.  It’s not likely she’ll get to clearing out under the desk to fix her phone after that point…she’s not even managing to do that now.  I guess having no phone access to my Mom is the new normal.

The Case of the Silent Phone: Part 3

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Backdate to January 2012: I actually got a call from Mom the other night!  Sure, she was at my sisters and only had 20 minutes.  And of course it was during tuck in time for the girls, which has a certain window for success.  I rushed through the bed time routine and sacrificed treasured time with my own daughter to catch a few minutes on the phone with Mom.

And it was unfulfilling.  Because I had so much to say and not enough time to say it, I ended up saying nothing of importance.  We spoke of trivial things; pleasantries; generalities.

Mom promised “I’m devoting this weekend to getting under the desk to check the phone jack.”  I know it’s hard for her to get down that low, and that there’s a ton of heavy papers and books under the desk.  But I thought she said she’d already done that weeks ago.

I suggested she get a cell phone.  She said everyone else has suggested that, too, and if she can’t get this phone fixed she’ll have to consider it.

The Case of the Silent Phone: Part 2

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Others are starting to notice.

It’s not just me who’s left wondering “Where’s Mom?” My half-brother called me mid-December.  He wanted to know if Mom was okay.  He had tried to send a floral arrangement to her for Christmas and the florist told him there was no response when they tried to arrange delivery to Mom’s house.  My brother wondered if she’d moved!

Nope.  She’ll never move from her nest.  Can you imagine the work that would take?  But Tim doesn’t know about her hoarding, and so once again I preserve her reputation.

“She’s having trouble with the phone lines.  You know how it is in an old house, and how terrible the phone company’s service is,” yada yada yada.  So Tim was satisfied with that, although sympathetic.

And you know what?  I’m not sure the flowers did ever get delivered.

More recently, Lynn tells me the doctor’s office has been calling to find Mom.  Mom and Lynn have the same GP.  I guess they were trying to set up appointments and need to touch base with her.  It’s things like this that make you realize how important a phone line is…emergencies aside, you need a phone to just organize your daily life!

All these weeks later, and I’ve only spoken with Mom a handful of times.  She came for 3 days at Christmas, but with the flurry of the holidays, I didn’t really get to “talk” with her.  And she called once from Lynn’s house.  That’s it.  I wonder if it pains her as much as it does me to not have this contact?

What if?

What if I couldn’t reach my daughters one day?  Would they wonder about me?  Will they realize it’s been a long time since they’ve heard from me, but assume I’m okay?  Would they picture me dead, tangled between boxes of vintage knitting patterns and bolts of dusty fabric?  Would they cringe fearing “someday” they’ll have to go through all my stuff and cope with mouse feces, raccoon carcasses, disintegrating plastic bags, and mold?  I can’t imagine doing that to my kids…but I suppose Mom didn’t start out thinking like that either.

But here we are.  What to do about it?  I’m at such a loss.  I live 3 hours away, have a full time job, a husband and 2 children.  I can’t just pick up and drive over to help her troubleshoot her phone problems.  Lynn is busy with work, too, and besides, Mom won’t let her in the house.  I don’t want to travel that distance just to be turned away.  I don’t want to stand outside my crumbling childhood home and see the chunks of fallen plaster on the lawn.  I don’t want to force my way through the door because it only opens a crack.  I don’t want to pick my way past piles on the stairs and trigger a landslide.  I want the door to open wide, like my mother’s arm, as she greets me with a huge hug.  With the insistence I sit at the table with a cup of tea while we lose track of time chatting about life.

But, we don’t always get what we want, do we?

The Case of the Silent Phone: Part 1

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  • I thought the worst of it was when the raccoons moved in, but I’ll talk about them in a different post.  I started writing my thoughts about Mom’s phone problems before I started the blog, so this is a bit of back story.

It’s January 25, 2012.  I’ve not been able to phone my mother for about 7 weeks.  7 weeks of not hearing her voice.  7 weeks of wondering if she’s okay.  7 weeks of fearing she’s buried alive (or dead) under a pile of her belongings.  You see, a few weeks before Christmas Mom’s phone line just stopped working.  Her towering piles of stuff keep her from getting in close enough to any wall jacks to see if the phone cord has fallen out.  She wouldn’t dream of calling in a phone repairman…not that they’d get anywhere anyway.  My best guess is a mouse has chewed through the wires in the wall, but I have no way of knowing.

Mom has created a comforting nest around her of treasured belongings, but in doing so, has built a barrier to rival the Great Wall of China and I’m on the outside.  I miss her.  I’d like to be able to call her every Sunday night like I’ve done every week since I moved away from home.  I’d like to give her updates on what her grand-daughters have been up to; discuss birthday party plans; and ask how her doctors’ appointments have been going.

I didn’t realize right away her phone wasn’t working.  I had spoken to her on a Sunday night as usual.  Then I wanted to call her again a few days later to talk about a shared Christmas gift for my sister, Lynn.  No answer.  I figured she was sleeping (her medications make her very sleepy).  A day later I tried again.  No answer.  Maybe she was out shopping, as she frequently does.  By the time the next Sunday rolled around and I STILL hadn’t gotten a hold of her, I began to worry.  Lynn hadn’t heard, and people were starting to wonder.

Since she lives nearby, Lynn went over to Mom’s house.  I’m sure it was with a knot of dread in her stomach.  Her van was in the driveway.  The lights were on.  No one answered the doorbell.  Moms dog started to bark.  The emergency key Lynn had didn’t work in the door.  I guess the locks where changed at some point.  Lynn was able to force the garage door open, and picked her way through a garage crowded with all the molds, tools, concrete, and debris from my deceased fathers statuary business.  She was able to get to the door that lead into the house, but piles as high as her shoulders kept her from going any further.  What effort that must have taken to get even that far.  I’m sure she was afraid she’d run into a raccoon!

Calling out at the top of her lungs finally caught Moms attention.  She was alive and awake!  But somehow didn’t hear the doorbell?  Or maybe was hiding from it, thinking it was a stranger?  Who knows.  Lynn says Mom stood at the top of the stairs and didn’t let Lynn in, but assured her she’s ok and it’s just that the phone is broken.

And it remains so to this day.

It’s Not Just Clutter: An introduction

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It’s shocking.  And appalling, terrifying, heartbreaking, dangerous, and irrational.  And you probably know someone affected by it.  I’m talking about compulsive hoarding.

What is compulsive hoarding?

According to The Department of Psychiatry at the University of California, it’s defined as:

a disorder characterized by difficulty discarding items that appear to most people to have little or no value. This leads to an accumulation of clutter such that living and workspaces cannot be used for their intended purposes. The clutter can result in serious threats to the health and safety of the sufferer and those who live nearby. Often people with compulsive hoarding also acquire too many items – either free or purchased.

Essentially, a hoarder just can’t bear to throw or give anything away because they perceive it as having value, even if no one else thinks it’s worth it.  For instance, most people would have no trouble throwing away a lone sock with a hole in it, or empty takeout food containers.  But a hoarder finds all sorts of excuses to keep those items.  That sock could be used for dusting!  They’ll find the other one the day after tossing the first one!  Or that salad clam shell container could store spare clothespins, spools of ribbon, spare socks with holes in them!  The possibilities are endless!  But rarely does the re-purposing ever happen.  Instead, those items remain in a pile of other items.

This is my Mom.  She lives like this, surrounded by a house FULL of stuff.  It’s a mass collection of vintage sewing & crafting patterns, unused gifts, bolts of fabric, porcelain doll parts and molds, lace, and other ‘useful’ craft supplies.  It’s all my deceased fathers belongings…he’s been gone 6 years.  It’s all the toys I didn’t take with me when I moved away from home.  It’s the chemicals and materials my father left behind with his home statuary business.  It’s a deep freeze full of meat with freezer burn.  And so on.

I identified her as a hoarder after seeing an exposé on the Oprah Winfrey Show about 8 years ago.  Seeing the video on her show had me riveted.  I learned there was a name for Mom’s excessive clutter.  I was stunned it wasn’t unique to her!  Mom wasn’t just messy; she has a mental disorder!

Mom won’t admit it though.  Or even if she does recognize it deep deep down somewhere, she’s not willing or able to do anything about it.

And so here we are.

Time For A Decision

I’ve started this blog to deal with my emotions on this situation.  I am a happily married woman, with 2 beautiful daughters, and great career.  I live 3 hours away from my Mom, and feel totally incapable of helping her.  I also have a sister, Lynn, who also struggles in her relationship with Mom.  Lynn works in the mental health field, but it’s so different when you’re on the other side of the desk.  She’s afraid people will judge her for not doing more to help Mom deal with her mental illness…but how exactly do you do that?

We’re quickly reaching a fork in the road.  If we go left, it means continuing to sit back while we watch our Mother bury herself with her belongings, slowly eroding any personal connection we still have with her.  When she’s deceased, we’ll have the heartache of the cleanup of her 3000 sq ft house.  If we go right, we arrange to have an official visit her house, likely resulting in a condemnation.  She’d be so angry she would most definitely sever all ties to us, but hopefully it’ll save her life.

Either way, I’m losing my Mother.

Why Get So Personal?

I’ll be posting lots of back story on my life as a hoarders daughter, and also writing about the on-going saga.  Lots of personal reflection, and hopefully I’ll get some guest posters, too.  I also hope to post organizing tips, for those of us who want room in our lives for people instead of stuff.  I promise to always be honest…I’m making a big leap to put all this information out there.  Names have been changed to protect those involved.

I hope this helps bring some public awareness and understanding of Compulsive Hoarding.  I hope it connects with others in similar situations who feel overwhelmed and alone.  I hope by getting all this off my chest I can find peace and clarity.

Thanks for coming along on my journey.