Tag Archives: child of a hoarder

Drainage

BY bonnie

altar

When my mom died and I had to clean up her house, her kitchen sink was clogged. We didn’t get to it right away because, frankly, a sink full of gross water was not a priority in that house. It took a few weeks to drain fully.

Later, as I was sorting through all her old papers, I came across a move out list from when we moved in 1989. This was the house we lived in when she fell apart. It was the worst of all her toxic waste (literally) and her hoarding. She fucked that place up. Once the toilet was broken for I don’t know how long. But we couldn’t call a plumber because of the state of the house. In the move out papers I found that she’d clogged that kitchen sink, too. And then I remembered her telling me that an old landlord of her in the 70’s had charged her for a broken garbage disposal when she moved out.

The woman had serious problems with draining, with letting shit GO. And this is metaphorical as well as literal. She was a hoarder with clogged sinks and grudges that were 30 years old. I feel like the clogged sinks were a desperate cry from the Universe to JUST LET IT GO, WOMAN.

When we first came to view this house, I could tell the woman who owned it at the time was a hoarder. She was clean, but her hallway shower was storage and that’s never a good sign in my experience. I don’t know how I find all the hoarders in the world, but I do, somehow.

Anyway, she put these stupid metal hair catchers in the bathroom sinks and they are forever getting clogged. She couldn’t let things drain, either.

I haven’t done anything about them in almost four years for a few reasons including not really knowing what to do (cause they were STUCK in there), being super busy in other, more important, areas, and, simply, being ~~lazy~~ tired. But today I yanked them out with jewelry tools because that is how I roll and I replaced them with cute little plastic cups from Daiso. I am so ready to let shit drain now. DRAIN AWAY, SHIT. BEGONE. (Certified witchy spell right there.)

I pulled a random goddess card for my altar last night and it was Ostara. Fertility. At first I almost burned it and ran away BECAUSE THIS UTERUS IS CLOSED FOR BUSINESS OKAY (despite the fact that it would have to be the son of god or some shit bc the vagina isn’t exactly a party zone either right now) but then I read the card and it can also apply to the fertility of art, creativity. I read that as: the goddess who motivates you. So, yes, I am choosing to tap into Ostara’s energy of motivation and creativity. I did a deep cleaning of the living room yesterday, pulling all the furniture out and doing battle with the sentient dust bunnies who have been trying to set up civilizations back there. I feel so much clearer in my head without al that dust. I feel so much lighter in my core now that my drains drain. Household cleaning is the same as soul-cleaning and I too often let it go because it feels too overwhelming, despite the fact that I know damn well how much better I’ll feel once I’ve just sucked it up and done it already.

These past few months have been filled with a lot – a lot – of psychological work, much of which has been the Universe’s way of forcing me to do the work of psychologically untangling myself from my mother. I spend so much time and energy worrying about whether I’m turning into her and apparently the Universe has decided it’s time to stop that bullshit and figure it out once and for all. So I’ve been tested by being put in triggering situations that mirror my own traumas and I’ve worked it out each time. When I used to knit more often, sometimes I’d have to untangle yarn. Sometimes I’d have to untangle a whole skein of yarn. I’d declare THE YARN NEVER WINS and it never did. I untangled it every time (except one time, but that was some of that fancy yarn with fringy stuff and so that doesn’t count). That’s what this felt like. I’d struggle with it, and then suddenly, I’d find the key knot and I’d feel it loosen and come undone. And just like that I was me and she was she. And – surprise! – turns out I’m not my mom.

It’s fitting that I’d finally get around to making my drains drain after all that. It was like closure on this chapter of the psyche work I’ve done recently (KNOCK WOOD, UNIVERSE, PLEASE NO MORE PSYCHE WORK FOR AWHILE OKAY). I untangled myself from the shit, and now I’m washing the shit away. Furthermore, I’ve worked to redo my drains in such a way that they won’t clog again. The little cups I’ve got in them are easier to clean, and semi-disposable. In the mean time I’m looking for a more permanent solution, but the point is that things are flowing away again. Just as they should be.

Children of Hoarders, Delving into the Psyche, Depression/Anxiety, The Zebra

Where I get emotionally naked for you.

BY bonnie

For most of my life, I didn’t actively choose my life’s direction. I have often described it as allowing myself to be carried by the current of my own personal river, or by following the strong, yet subconscious, pull of my own Oak Tree. I don’t know if this was a good thing or a bad thing, to just allow myself to be passive about where I went. Is it even passive? Or is it highly intuitive? Is it a result of having been raised in an abusive home? That I had to let go and just go wherever Life took me? Or that my conscious mind shut down and allowed my intuition to guide me? My inner core of self-hatred would tell you that I’m just lazy and undriven. I don’t know what the real reasoning is or whether it is a good or a bad thing – and right now in my life, I’m right on the cusp of fully believing either (or both). Although I may have some regrets and, if I had the chance to re-do some things in my life, I might find that tempting these days, ultimately I do acknowledge that every thing I’ve done had led me to where I was supposed to be.

But I’m a grownup now (it took me longer than most people) and I felt like I should make some decisions about where my life should go. Last year I made some major changes and intentions for what I wanted my life to be and where I want it to continue to go. And this past year has been really, really hard. I feel like I’m suddenly swimming against a very strong current in my River. And I can’t help but wonder if that means that The Universe doesn’t want me making my own choices. I resent that idea. I want to be able to choose my own life now. I want to go to school and find a career and maybe not be broke someday.

And then how much of this is a desire to JUST BE NORMAL FOR ONCE IN MY LIFE? A side-effect of growing up in a hoarder home is that I’ve always been desperate to live in a way that at least appears to be a regular middle-class lifestyle. As I write this I am realizing this is also tied directly to my intense need to always be liked by everyone. My self-worth is the same as my appearance or the appearance of my home. (This is why I need to never stop writing. Remind me, okay?) So maybe The Universe feels I need to live an unusual and quirky life, and it’s trying to steer me from the life that isn’t supposed to be mine?

Fuck if I know.

I just wish I knew what I’m supposed to do next. What my direction should be, or whether I should stop trying to pick a direction at all. When I decided to get divorced, I was heading into a long tunnel I couldn’t see all the way through, but even then I felt more sure of myself than I do now. At least a tunnel only has one way to go. These days I feel more like I’m lost in a misty forest – I can see a lot of way to go, and I can guess at some of the outcomes, but I don’t know which path is mine or if I’ve even stayed to the one path or if I’ve skipped around, confusing the issues at hand. Does anyone know where the manual to my Life is? Can I get another copy from my manufacturer? I think I’ve lost mine.

(If you can count and navigate all those metaphors, you win a cookie. But a theoretical cookie. Unless you’re local and I’ll see you soon in which case just remind me and I’ll bring you some cookies. There are these really good gluten-free ones at Costco these days.)

Children of Hoarders, The Zebra

I have no idea what to title this one. It’s got everything. Pictures of the new place, hoarding trauma, procrastination, cleaning tips. I need a cookie.

BY bonnie

We’re getting settled in our place. I mean. I haven’t even begun to unpack the kitchen yet because shelf liner paper. And I can’t even unpack the office yet until the new desk I ordered gets here (my last desk literally fell apart when they picked it up to load it on the truck). But the living room looks mostly like a living room and my new bed came today and IT’S JUST SO LOVELY.

And I’m supposed to be studying the neurons of the visual system, but instead I’m thinking about how the hell am I going to keep the house as sparkly as it is right now after the Merry Maids were here last week? The answer is I probably won’t. But I’m going to try. Because clean = sane for me.

One of the things I want to write about here at this blog is being the child of a hoarder. And I’d like to write a big introductory post before I start adding in little details, but Life Is Messy and these little details are what’s on my mind right now.

Way back in the dark ages in like 1991 my mom wanted to try to keep the house clean. I don’t remember which era of the house this was. Maybe she was hoping to start from scratch, or maybe it was after my friend’s mom came in and cleaned up for us and bought us fancy peach towels with seashells on them that we weren’t allowed to use. Anyway, my mom found this book about an index card cleaning system. It’s what Flylady is based on, actually. And my mom got as far as buying index cards and a card file box.

Anyway, a couple of years ago when we were cleaning out my mom’s house, we found the book. And I donated it to a thrift store or something. Because like hell I had time for that shit right then. And now that my new place is all sparkly and lovely, I was thinking that maybe it would be nice to find a copy of that book and see if the system might work for me (because another “perk” of being the child of a hoarder is that you don’t know you are supposed to clean certain things like the top of your refrigerator). Only, I realized that I felt very sneaky about this. I felt like I had to keep it a secret that I was thinking about looking for a copy of this book. Because I made the grave error of getting rid of it once and now I’ll have to admit that I’m the wrongiest wronger to ever have wronged. Because hoarders keep things, in part, so that they can always be fully stocked. Some hoarders enjoy sharing the things they’ve kept, and that is part of why they hoard things – to feel useful. (Others don’t want to share the things they hoard. At. All.) But, in my experience, hoarders tend to be very I-told-you-so when you get rid of something and then later need it again. (I’ve also developed a sense that I have to be sneaky about throwing things away because I’ve been yelled at so many times in my life after one hoarder or another picked through my trash and got mad at what I got rid of.)

But the thing is this: YOU CAN ALWAYS FIND THE STUFF YOU NEED. Sure, you might have to buy it all over again, but for most things in life that’s not going to be much of a big deal. And spending the extra $10 to get a new copy of this book is well worth the sanity that not hoarding affords me. I live in a little home. I don’t have space for Stuff I Might Need Someday. I keep the things I definitely need, the things I love, and, if I still have room, the things that are too valuable to replace but will realistically probably be used someday. The rest I can replace.

So the point is that I’m going to look into buying (or borrowing from the library) another copy of this book to keep my sparkly home sparkly. And if it doesn’t work for me after all, that’s okay, too. The other point is that identifying the issues I carry with me from my life with hoarders helps me to isolate it, and remind myself why I’m safe now. The other other point is that I need to go study the neural basis of visual perception now.

See? Sparkly:

I Own a Home. WTF?, The Zebra

I have no idea at all what this post is about. If you figure it out, can you leave me a comment?

BY bonnie

The house is coming along. Some days I feel overwhelmed by all there is left to do, other days I feel confidant that everything will work out and even if it doesn’t it will. Those days, apparently, I am full of zen contradictions. I’m like a damn hippie riddled with anxiety.

These are the things I have learned about myself.

1. I am a picky person when it comes to paint colors. I didn’t think I would be. And then, when I started to notice that I kind of maybe was a little bit, I tried to deny it saying things like, “Oh I don’t really care except I hate all those colors except this one and no I actually hate that one, too.” At some point (I think it was the point where I bought the 36th sample of orange paint to try in the bedroom) I had to admit to myself that I am a picky paint person. I don’t know why this is such a hard thing for me to embrace, but I suspect it goes back to my extreme need to please ALL THE PEOPLE. If I’m picky, I might be frustrating, and if I’m frustrating I might lose all my friends and live alone forever.

I may or may not have been a drama major in high school.

2. I forgot this thing that I learned about myself. If I remember it, or re-learn it, I’ll get back to you.

3. Painting and fixing up an empty house is not unlike cleaning out a hoarder’s house, as it turns out. You spend all day working and at the end of the day you feel like nothing’s been accomplished. You feel certain that this will NEVER EVER END. The jobs just keep adding up. They seem endless. Overwhelming is an understatement. And, yet. My mom’s house got cleaned up. So here’s hoping that someday September will be over and I’ll be settled in my orange-no-purple-no-brown-no-back-to-orange bedroom writing a post about how THANK GOD 2013 is almost over and perhaps I’m about to become superstitious about odd-numbered years.

I’m sorry. I don’t think this post makes any sense whatsoever. Have some pretty pictures of the sky to make up for it.

Just Life, Onwards, The Zebra

Begin.

BY bonnie

It’s been just over two years since my mom died. But I could swear it’s just been one.

I mean, I can account for all the time that passed, and I remember things that happened in that time, but somewhere along the way I feel like I essentially lost 2012. It’s okay. It sounds dramatic to write it out like that, but I assume it’s just part of what grief is.

Well, and recovery from The Worst Year Ever. In 2011 my ex-husband and I split up and just as I was getting my life in order, my mom died leaving me her only heir to clean up her mess (literal mess – it was a hoarder’s house), while in the middle of that (luckily I had wonderful people help me with it) my face and hands suddenly went numb for some reason. I swear I was living Betty Draper’s life what with the dead mom and numb hands. WTF, even? I mean. Of ALL the fictional worlds to mimic, my life goes with Mad Men? NO, LIFE, NO. PICK HARRY POTTER INSTEAD, MKAY?

And so when 2011 was over… I mean. I don’t even honestly know. 2012 happened, somehow. I went to Disneyland a lot. That was probably just as effective as Prozac. I wasn’t really depressed, or maybe I just wasn’t severely depressed. But I certainly wasn’t exactly awake. There were some dark times. The anniversary of her death hit me really hard and most of July was bleak. I braced myself this year for another difficult summer, but it wasn’t nearly the same. It was okay. And I’m sure it would have even been normal except that I’ve spent all of this year holding my breath for other reasons.

I feel like I’ve essentially lost a couple of years now. Things are so different, I don’t even recognize my life from three years ago. I’ve had to let go of a lot. For practical reasons, as well as out of kindness to myself.

I remember when I was a kid I had a list of things that would make my life perfect, or that would mean my life had begun. I know better now than to think life isn’t happening all the time. I may wait for certain things, but I don’t stop living while I wait.

Even so I feel a little like that that younger version of myself now. Like I’ve spent the last two, almost three years, waiting. And that’s not such a big deal for me as an adult with many years under my belt, but three years is a massive chunk of my kids’ childhoods and I feel a little resentful that it’s been stolen from me or them or us or someone. Or no one. I don’t think my kids have noticed, really. But, because of grief, these last few years have been sleepy and surreal for me, and I guess that colors my perception of things.

But now I’m a student. And I am probably/hopefully/most likely/with any luck moving soon to a place of my own. And my divorce is final now. And, I’m a little bit hesitant to say it because of the way the last few years have felt, but I almost feel like my life is about to begin.

Life isn’t what they tell you. It’s not grow up, go to college, fall in love, buy a house, have the babies, be happy, do good in the world, die a peaceful death when you are old and have lived a good long life. It’s grow up in a fucked up alcoholic-hoarder home, feel too stupid to go to college, have zero plans, be essentially asleep in life, get married, have the babies, accidentally start a feminist movement online, finally wake up, get divorced, lose your alcoholic-hoarder mom, go back to school, try to buy a house, live until you are eleventy-one making a difference in the world all the while. It doesn’t look at all like I was promised when I was a little girl. Life isn’t neatly packaged. It’s awkward and convoluted and messy. Life isn’t linear. Life is a web, everything connected to everything. And that’s okay. That’s beautiful. But you have to know what you are looking at to see the beauty. If you expect linear, a messy web isn’t going to look nice. Expect the web. Know now that life is messy and that makes it beautiful.