The Joyful Housewife

We are back from helping my mom, resuming our normal workaday lives. I have lots to say about the hoard-busting process - much of it not yet processed in my own brain yet though.

As I’ve said before, my mom has a bit of a hoarding problem. She has several storage units and garages filled with piles of intermixed stuff that we are trying to get rid of so that she can live a functional life. We set up a triage to sort through as much as we could in one week and managed to get rid of 80-90% of what we went through. The problem is that for various reasons, (e.g., her having to move quickly without help over a decade ago, chronic disorganization, etc….) the stuff is all mixed up. There are books, clothing, magazines, knick-knacks, baby clothes, childhood toys, dishes, and anything else you can imagine, all mixed together in each box.

Our goal was to toss, send to Goodwill, or auction most of the stuff, while getting out any childhood treasures or pictures that each of us daughters (or mom) wanted to keep - saying goodbye to the rest.

The above picture is of my Holly Hobby doll that mom gave me when I was five and home from kindergarten with the chicken pox. I have strong memories of it because it was almost as tall as me and I loved it! It was something that I was hoping to find. After doing so, I walked around our sorting area, hugging it for about five minutes, got pics of me holding it, then took pics of it in the Goodwill pile and said goodbye.

So, goodbye, Holly Hobby! You are fondly remembered, but we don’t need to keep you anymore.

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This was Casey yesterday. I found him nearly sliding down behind the couch pillow, belly up, fast asleep. He woke up when I got out the camera. And now I am here, sick on the couch again.

It is time to be getting ready to go home to California for Christmas. This has always been a bit of a stressful vacation because of my mom’s illness. But it’s been getting worse, so this year my older sister is coming out for the second time this year (and the second time in a decade) so us sisters can all help mom get rid of stuff.

You may remember our first hoard-busting trip last summer. Now it is time to continue the journey.

I need to be doing laundry and packing, but after spending the past two days grading papers, I feel I deserve one casual relaxation day before I go to California to meet my sisters at my mother’s house and deal with Part Two of the Hoard-Bust-a-Thon.

But first a couple pictures of my kitchen for me to look at while I’m away.

I need to get up off my bum and get some stuff done. My flight leaves tomorrow afternoon and I’d like to be finished packing tonight so I can spend the morning with my husband before I go.

I’ll do my best to post while I’m there. I’d really like to post more about the actual process of dealing with a  family member who is trying to recover from compulsive hoarding, but unless you are on A & E’s Hoarders, which I KNOW you all have seen by now (how odd that something that made me self-conscious and different my whole life, became a TV show the very same year I discovered that there was a real name and therapy for it!) it can be very difficult to betray someone’s privacy. While going out there and helping mom is MY life and something I’d very much like to blog about in detail, it is HER house and HER stuff, and I have to be respectful of her right to not have photos of it posted all over the internet.

So, argh!

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Okay, okay, okay. I’ve been meaning to fill you in about why I haven’t been posting for weeks. My family is currently in the process of getting my mother help for her compulsive hoarding. My husband and I, both of my sisters, and the older sister’s husband and four kids, went out to California to visit with each other and to assist mom with getting organized. I hadn’t seen my older sister since my wedding two years ago!

Well, when we got there, it quickly became apparent that the situation was way worse than some of us had realized. Not only was my mother’s apartment full to the point that one could not walk freely in it or sit on or sleep in any of the furniture, she also has filled several garages and storage facilities with stuff.

On to the next plan: Killing the Hoard Beast

This has involved me extending the first leg of my trip several extra days (while my husband came back to Denver alone) and then returning for the last week of July (I leave in 2 days) and for my oldest sister’s family to stay out in California several weeks longer than they had originally planned. 

And difficult as this process is, we have grown closer together as a family and manage the most poignant moments with a dose of humor. For instance, as we were driving to mom’s house for the first day of cleaning I was trying to find a way to describe how bad the conditions have become - I go home to mom’s every Christmas, but he had only been there once three years ago - when I came up with a perfect analogy.

My mom’s house is like the Swamp of Sadness in The Neverending Story. You cannot let it get you down or you will lose all hope and be unable to move forward. It is no wonder that compulsive hoarding and depression go hand in hand.

I did a little Internet research to determine if the swamp is called the Swamp of Sadness or Despair (I’m still not entirely certain) and I stumbled upon a website that does a Jungian analysis of the movie:

Atreyu did not enter the Swamp of Sadness alone, he rode on Ortex, his trusted white horse. The horse, friend of his youth, did not make it through the Swamp of Sadness. Ortex was overcome with grief which lead him to a state of immobility. Without movement he became stuck, slowly sinking to the depths of the swamp. “For whoever let the sadness overtake them would sink into the swamp.” (Petersen/Weigel)….Atreyu pleaded for the life of Ortex, “I understand it’s too difficult for you. Fight against the sadness, you have to try. You have to care. You have to move or you will die.”(Petersen/Weigel) A sad or fearful experience is often that which initially propels a person onward to self discovery. It is this experience which makes people aware of the weaknesses and frailties within ourselves which need to be confronted….It is in a Swamp of Sadness where many also get stuck and go no further.

~ Jungian Interpretation - Noel Clark

Oh, what memories of childhood tears that scene evokes! 

But, the truth is, coming up with that analogy actually helps the sadness, despair, and hopelessness that mom’s house can evoke to dissipate. 

My sisters and I have started a private blog post pictures, to post before, during, and after photos, and to allow a little bit of humor to get us through this overwhelming and unending process.

More to come….

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I didn’t learn much from my mom about how to keep a home. She was a single mom working as a teacher and putting herself through graduate school, so she can’t be blamed for having her plate full. We also lived too far from extended family to gather much for the holidays. I don’t think my mom ever made a turkey and stuffing (but I did learn to make killer pumpkin pie from her). And to top it off, she suffers from Depression and as I’ve mentioned before, she is a compulsive hoarder. 

Here’s an excerpt from the Wikipedia entry on Compulsive Hoarding:

Compulsive hoarding (or pathological hoarding) is the acquisition of, and failure to use or discard, such a large number of seemingly useless possessions that it causes significant clutter and impairment to basic living activities such as mobility, cooking, cleaning, showering or sleeping.

Characteristics:

living spaces sufficiently cluttered so as to preclude activities for which those spaces were designed

significant distress or impairment in functioning caused by the hoarding (for all family members as well).

And from the Obsessive Compulsive Foundation website:

Living spaces sufficiently cluttered so as to preclude activities for which those spaces were originally designed. Obviously, with many items coming into the home and very few going out, the clutter will accumulate. It does not take long for the clutter to spread onto the floors, counter tops, hallways, stairwells, garage, and cars. Beds become so cluttered that there is no room to sleep. Chairs become buried under clutter, so there is nowhere to sit. Kitchen counters become so cluttered that food cannot be prepared. For many hoarders, it gets to a point where there might be only a narrow pathway that connects each room, and the rest of the house is piled several feet high with clutter. It becomes impossible to use many areas of the house for their original purpose.

So you can see how difficult it is to maintain normal housekeeping practices in that environment. My mother wasn’t a slob and we didn’t live in abject squalor, but there was no such thing as a regular routine and I’ve developed a fear of housework that extends beyond vacuuming, sweeping, basic laundry, some ironing and dish washing.

Mopping? Toilet scrubbing? Shower and bath cleaning? Gag me!

Counter-tops, stove-tops, dust bunnies, the depths of the refrigerator…. and clutter, clutter, clutter! The list of things I avoid cleaning as long as possible is nearly endless.

But above all, I’m most deficient in home cooking. Or any kind of cooking.

I plan to master all of these skills in the coming year. 

Enter The Homemaker’s Mentor. Here, Mrs. Martha Greene and Mrs. Rebekah Wilson, who are both homemakers, mothers, and authors, offer cheap and “helpful lessons to inspire you and expand your homemaking skills.” I could kiss them!

Unfortunately, my purse strings are a little too tight to pay even the small amount that they charge for something that I can get for free. They do, however, offer some free sample lessons, such as how to bake the perfect pie and laundry, so I’ll update you on how I like those when I read through and try them.

And check out their Curricula for 2008:

Lot’s of fun stuff there.

See! I told you this learning to keep a house business would be fun!

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