HomeSpunHealers

(Photo from www.fairfaxcounty.gov)

“I can honestly say that I was never affected by the question of
the success of an undertaking. If I felt it was the right thing to do, I
was for it regardless of the possible outcome.”

Golda Meir
(1898-1978, Prime Minister of Israel, 1969-74)

 I have recently been exposed to a problem that my mother has that I have known about my whole life, but that has gotten really bad over the past few years.  Her problem is that she is a compulsive hoarder.  My father and I used to help her keep it under control when we lived with her.  From about 10 years old, I was the “housekeeper” in my home.  My father worked outside the home, sometimes 7 days a week, so the house cleaning was my mom’s territory.  She was what I would call “messy” then.  She had a problem with clutter accumulating in various areas: her dresser in her bedroom, the hutch in the kitchen, the top of the floor model TV.  And she would wash clothes and then pile the dried clothes in a large chair in the junk room, which she always had an open ironing board in.  I thought everyone had one “junk” room in which things were piled up.  I thought this was normal.  But as I visited others’ homes, I noticed that some were messy, but most were cleaned up and picked up all the time, every single room.  And I longed for a home like that.  So, I became the “housekeeper.”  In fact, although I resented the fact that my mom didn’t do more housework herself, I sort of enjoyed the peace and order and cleanliness that followed my house cleaning chores.  Sometimes, I would venture to clean off my mother and father’s dresser, throwing away a lot of stuff that seemed useless to me.  Invariably, I would get blamed for a missing important piece of paper that had some vital information on it.  So, I only cleaned the dresser a few times in my life.  Eventually, I moved out, and my dad began to help with the onslaught of clutter.  We never talked about it, but I don’t really think he knew how much of a help I was in managing the situation until I went off to college and then moved out for good when I got married.  Occasionally, he and Mother would have a big clean-up and would throw away massive quantities of “junk.”  I truly believe that is how my wedding dress and hat were disposed of and all the many, many pictures that were taken when I was a small child went missing.   I guess they were small sacrifices to make to help dig them out of the heaps of clutter in the house. 

So, even though I know this has been a lifelong problem for her, I only recently found out how bad it had gotten.  My dad died in 1999.  He had been sick for a while before he died, but mainly the clutter had been delegated to the spare bedroom that my grandmother occupied when she lived with them for over six years.  When it was time to receive visitors before the funeral and after, my mom was okay with folks coming in because the house wasn’t embarrassing then.  I visited my mom many times after that, and I noticed each time that the clutter was a little worse.  Eventually, it got bad enough that I insisted on coming over to help her clean up.  She didn’t want me in her bedroom, but I insisted, and I was appalled at how cluttered it had become.  My son and I both worked in there until we could get the floor empty enough to vacuum and clean the carpet.  There were still huge piles of clothing and magazines and other “stuff” that I thought could just be thrown out, but she insisted she would do it, and she basically asked us to leave.  She said she appreciated what we were doing for her, but I could tell that it was really stressful for her.  I never went back for another cleanup session after that one time.  I offered to many times, but she wouldn’t hear of it.  Every time I wanted to see her, we would arrange for me to meet her somewhere, but I wasn’t ever invited into the house.  About two years ago, she had to have minor outpatient surgery, and we arranged ahead of time for me to pick her up and take her for the surgery, and then she would stay with me for a couple of days until she had her followup doctor’s appointment.  When I was taking her home, she didn’t want me to go inside, but I needed to help her get her overnight bag and her cat’s carriet inside.   The clutter was bad, really bad.  I wanted to help her by taking out a few cardboard boxes that nearly made the hallway impassable, but she just wanted me to leave.  I could feel the tension and anxiety about me questioning the clutter, so I just left.  After that, she has not let me inside.  Not until two weeks ago.

She called me and confessed.  It seems she had fallen in her kitchen and couldn’t get up.  She wasn’t near a phone, so she couldn’t call for help.  She sat on the kitchen floor for over 20 hours before her hairdresser called her minister because she didn’t show up for her weekly hair appointment.  My mother never misses her weekly hair appointment.  The situation ended up with the minister and the rescue squad and police officers at her locked door.  The police were able to enter the kitchen where she was, and the EMTs were able to get her on her feet.  She wasn’t hurt physically, but she was devastated emotionally because someone had finally seen the squalor of her home.  One EMT fussed at her, making her cry, but the more sensitive female EMT talked to her about her safety.  They insisted that for her safety, she unblock the windows and the doors so that if something in the future did happen to her, they would be able to get a gurney and life saving equipment in to her.  That made sense to her, and she realized that she had to do something, so she called me.  I think she was afraid that the minister would call me, but he didn’t.  In fact, if she hadn’t told me the whole story, I wouldn’t have known about the incident.  It terrified me to think of her sitting on the floor for over 20 hours.  What if she had broken a hip?  What if she had a heart attack?  What if she needed insulin, and she went into a diabetic coma?  But she wasn’t hurt; and if I hadn’t insisted, she wouldn’t have let me help her with this problem.  In fact, I don’t think she really sees it as a problem.  She’s embarrassed, yes.  She understands the danger of it.  But she can’t do anything about it.  She’s a hoarder.  She can’t stop accumlulating things, and she can’t bear to part with anything.  She’s also weak physically, so she has a really hard time even taking out the trash because it’s a long walk (to her) to the back alley where her trash recepticle is located.

I won’t even try to relate the horror of what I saw when I finally went to her house.  She can’t use her kitchen at all.  The double sink is piled above the window with dirty dishes full of decaying food.  The stove is the same way, piled high with dirty pots and pans full of decaying food.  There is so much stuff piled on the floor that she has a very narrow walkway from the back door to the hallway and back to her bedroom, to the bathroom, and to the laundry room at the back of the house.  Everything else is piled nearly to the ceiling with “stuff.”  Some of the stuff is brand new stuff; some is pure garbage, rotting food, and trash bags that she’s filled and set aside in case she ever did get it out to the back alley.  There are boxes and cans of food that she buys every week, tossed in with bags of old out of date canned food and boxed food that she has meant to throw away.  In between, mixed in well, are bags of sprouting or rotting or almost completely decayed potatoes, onions, apples, and oranges.  There are a multitude of small plastic bags of cat waste that she removes from the cat’s potty pan, bags she has meant to throw away with the other bags of trash.  The stench is almost unbearable.  So, this is where I wanted to start.  She wanted to start at the back of the house in the laundry room.  So, that is where I started.  In one day, about 8 hours of straight work with no breaks except to go to the bathroom twice (and I won’t go into that horror), I managed to get to the floor of the laundry room, the windows cleared so that she could see into the back yard again, and the place cleared enough so that she can now get her washing machine replaced.  She uses her dryer to dry things she washes by hand.  Everything else is just stacked up.  And if she runs out of clean clothes, she buys more.  But that task was an easy one although it was tough physical labor.  That was all trash that she didn’t mind me throwing away.  It felt good to accomplish so much in just one day, but the kitchen was still there, and I wanted to attack it the next trip over to help her.  That was Monday. 

She wanted to concentrate on clearing the doorway to the living room because that was what the EMTs had such a fit over, or so she believes.  What lies on the other side of the kitchen behind that blocked doorway, I’d rather not face right now.  I just wanted to clean the kitchen to the point where she could cook again and wash dishes again and clean out the refrigerator so she could use it again.  She’s not eating well.  She eats fast food and junk like cookies and candy.  She’s diabetic, so she needs to eat healthy.  But I worked all day with her, and we never did get to what I consider the necessities.  In fact, because she wanted to handle all pieces of paper and look in all bags and check all dates on food containers, it was a very slow process.  But I honored her wishes and needs, and I helped as much as I could in the painstaking excavation.  I carried out about 15 bags of pure garbage and about 20 or so boxes.  The real problem is that there are good, usable items all mixed in.  And she wants to keep every single one of them, even the spilled packets of Splenda that were mixed in with filthy trash that needed to be thrown out.  I would have just tossed them all when I swept up the filth, but she insisted on picking up every single packet and throwing them on the top of the pile.  This is why after 8 hours of cleaning, we had made no discernable progress.  But I’m going back today to try again.  I told her that I had nightmares about her not being able to cook or use her refrigerator or wash her dishes.  She doesn’t like me having nightmares, so even though she tried to give me the same excuse she’s been using for years to get me to stay away, the “I can get the rest by myself” excuse, after taking a few days to recuperate with my family in my own clean home, she is allowing me back in to try to help her.

The task seems insurmountable.  If I didn’t love her so much and fear for her health, I would give up and let her live that way.  After all, outside of her house, she seems quite normal.  She’s always amazingly clean and well-dressed.  She keeps her medical appointments and gets pretty good reports from her doctors.  She goes to church Sunday mornings and Sunday evenings and Wednesday evenings.  She has friends from church with whom she does things.  But no one comes in to her house.  And even though the EMTs know the truth, even her minister who was there that afternoon does not know the full horror of it.  He didn’t come inside.  She’s made him promise not to send in a cleanup crew from the church.  She doesn’t trust anyone else but me to come inside and know what it’s like.  And that places a big burden on me, but one that I accept.  She’s my mother, and she needs me.  Maybe at some point, she will allow me to have some help, but for now, she is counting on me and me alone to know about her secret. 

I don’t know what the result of me going there once a week, or even twice a week this week, to work on the clutter will produce.  I doubt I will be able to get her house into shape so that she will be willing to let neighbors in for a cup of coffee.  But I have been able to replace one lightbulb in her hallway so that she doesn’t have to walk through the clutter in darkness at night, and I have been able to put the chain back on her flush valve so that she can flush her toilet.  And if I can figure out a way to get the filthy dishes out of the way (I am thinking there is nothing to be done but to carry them outside) so that she has access to her sink and her stove again, and if I can get the floor cleared in front of the refrigerator so we can get the door open and get that cleaned out so she can put good food inside, then I won’t worry too much about the garbage and other things still piled high over and under and around her table on the other side of the kitchen.  If I can get that done this time, then I can come home and sleep without waking up shaking and remembering the stench.  Then maybe next time, next week, I can start to work on clearing that doorway that she feels she must clear.  And the week after that, maybe we can get her pantry emptied of all the out of date food so that she can put the good food in there and out of the floor.  I’m not sure what to do with all the other stuff that is not kitchen related in there.  Maybe it will just have to stay piled on the kitchen table and on the floor underneath and all around it for a while.  I won’t think of the other rooms.  I’ll take this one visit at at time.  And I’ll try so very hard not to let myself get discouraged if I don’t see any improvement when I leave her.  I’ll measure my success by how much I have piled out in the alleyway in and around the trash receptacle.  And I will remember the chain on the toilet and the light bulb and perhaps even the empty sink and stove and clean refrigerator.  And I will honor her and respect her wishes as much as I can.  This is a severe psychological disorder.  She is delicate, and I am the strong one, and I’ll have to move forward in faith that this will make a positive difference in her life.

Empty Nest syndrome is that blue funk transition that many mothers (sometimes fathers too) experience when all of the children have grown up and have moved out to start living life on their own.   It’s a passage in life that all parents have to face sooner or later, and some of us are completely unprepared for the total emptiness we feel once we have reached this stage in the lives of our children. 

It’s not just that the house is quiet that’s disturbing, but we are left to realize just how much of our own self we lost in the process of parenting.  We became great mothers.  We sacrificed our needs and wants, laid our own dreams and wishes on the back burner, and invested ourselves entirely to the care, protection, and raising of our children. Now that our children have walked out the door to begin life on their own, it’s like our identity walked out with them. Who are we now? What are we to do with all this time on our hands?  Depression sets in.

 What we are not able to realize, in the middle of our mourning, is that joy waits on the other side of this painful transition, and there are many ways to celebrate this time in your life, and rediscover the person you left behind: YOU.  Consider the following:

• Rest and Restore. Take time to reflect over your accomplishments. Retreat somewhere and do absolutely nothing. Most mothers will find this hard to do because they have spent many years giving all of their time to the needs and demands of the others in their home. It’s time for you now. Take a break, and enjoy it!
• Reinvent Your Relationship With Your Spouse.  Husbands and wives often forget what it meant to just be a couple before they took on the task of raising children. They became so wrapped up in the lives of their children that their relationship with each other shifted and changed.  It’s time to change your focus.  You can now put all of your energy into catering to and spoiling each other. 
• Take A Class Or Cultivate A New Hobby. Invest in your own interests now.  Fill your extra time exploring new things.
• Explore Your Spiritual Side.  Volunteer some of that free time to a good cause that you believe in.
• Share Experiences.  Talk to other women who have walked this path before you. There are also excellent websites on line to help you on this journey.  Check out: emptynestsupport.com and emptynestmoms.com

Most of all, remember it’s your time, now what will you do with it?

Relatives… Everyone has them. As harsh as it may sound, they can be divided into two categories: The Givers and the Takers. This article is being written with the “Givers” in mind. Hopefully, it will be read, understood, and heeded very early in your life.

Givers, as a rule, have boundary issues. The issue is that they don’t have any boundaries. There’s no lines clearly drawn, no fences set up, indicating what is their’s, what is not, and how far they will go, or what should (or should not) be expected of them. The Takers, being the creative, selfish, manipulative creatures that they are, know this. And they press in further and further trying to gain more and more of what never belonged to them in the first place, and have absolutely no right to claim or expect.

Givers are easily identified in the following ways:

*Givers usually have a problem saying “no.” It makes them uncomfortable to see, or to make, their loved ones unhappy. Givers may resent saying “yes”, but they would rather make their own self unhappy and miserable, than to make others feel that way.

*Giver’s feel responsible to try and control the actions and behaviors of those that they love by doing whatever they feel necessary to “rescue” them.

*Givers become increasingly tolerant of the inappropriate behavior of the Takers in their lives. They try to find ways to rationalize it. This gives the Takers more ground to take advantage, and to play out their lives in a totally irresponsible fashion.

*Givers get so tangled up in the lives of others that they become unhappy and their own lives suffer.

While it’s good to be a kind, generous, and caring person, it’s also necessary to establish some boundaries that clearly indicate what we will, or won’t do for others, and what we will not tolerate. It’s important to establish when it’s right to help someone, and when it’s time for them to learn to help their own self.

There are subtle clues that indicate that you might need to set some boundries within certain relationships in your life. If you find yourself saying things like: “I am fed up ”, “I am sick of….”, “I can’t take it anymore”, then it’s a good sign that you need to set  boundaries.

Learn to refuse to “rescue” and refuse to be rescued. Insist instead that everyone become responsible for their own life. You might make a few Takers upset when you pull the rug out from under them, but the goal here is to put some joy and peace back into your own life. Please trust that the world will not fall apart the moment that you realize that you are not the axis on which it spins.

Be good to yourself. Start treating yourself as good as you have always treated everyone else. Claim your property, set your boundaries, and build those strong fences. Learn to recognize what is your property, and what clearly belongs to someone else. If you must rescue someone then save yourself.

As I sit here this morning, sipping on the most delightful cup of Snowflake tea, I am remembering a conversation I had recently with a nearly 60 year old man.  He was sharing his childhood memories with me. Especially, the relationship he had with his parents.  He told me that he didn’t experience any hugs while growing up, that compliments were never dished out to him, and that his father was never around.  The pain in his face, as he spoke, was as fresh as if it happened yesterday.

Many of us are still carrying around the psychic dragons of our childhood. We are quick to blame our parents for our faults and inadequacies, and what was once a wound, now becomes a character flaw that only we are now responsible for.  Until we face our dragons, and slay them, we cannot heal and grow spiritually into all that we are destined to be.

In order to heal it is necessary to become completely honest with ourselves as to who is actually responsible for what’s happening now.  It is also necesary to be willing to forgive what is in the past, so that we can live happily in the present.  Our subconscious will continue to rip open that wound until we are willing to be healed of it.  When we make the conscious choice to bury the pain of our past then change will come.

Slaying a psychic dragon is not as hard as it sounds. It’s helpful to look at our parents now, through our grown up eyes, and realize that they are mere humans also.  They did the best that they could do based on their knowledge and experience at the time.  Knowing this won’t change what happened in the past, doesn’t make what happened right, but it will enable us to be more understanding, to eventually forgive, let it go, and chart a new path for ourselves. If all else fails, turn inward, and seek the assistence of your Higher Power.

What happened years ago does not have to impact the rest of our lives. We can reign victorious over old hurts and wounds. Get dressed for battle and slay those dragons!