STUFF

Seen that new A&E show, "Hoarders"? It's on after "Intervention."

It's in the same kind of format as Intervention- the website describes it as:

Each 60-minute episode of Hoarders is a fascinating look inside the lives of two different people whose inability to part with their belongings is so out of control that they are on the verge of a personal crisis. Whether they're facing eviction, the loss of their children, jail time, or divorce, they are all desperately in need of help. In a fly-on-the-wall style, we'll capture the drama as experts work to put each on the road to recovery.

I had never heard of it until a couple of weeks ago when my Uncle came to visit. He brought it up in reference of my mother. We have always referred to her as a "pack rat" but it turns out the actual term is Compulsive or Pathological Hoarder.

I started watching it about 2 weeks ago out of a sense of familiarity and a sort of curiosity. I had no idea the affect that watching it was going to have on me. I actually yell back at the TV, talk to myself, and end the episode with the most overwhelming urge to grab a black 50 gallon trash bag and pick and area of my house and start throwing shit away.

This is because my mom is a stuff hoarder. A small portion of this is also, I think is because I am pregnant, the hormones make me a bit more sensitive than my normal nature. Also, as I described in an earlier post, I have been mentally taking stock/nesting here lately and that has included analyzing things from my childhood, specifically my relationships with my own parents as I build the foundation for my transition into parenthood, and this is one of those things that had a big impact on my relationship with my mother.

Unlike the people I have seen so far on Hoarders, my mom accumulates "stuff" that is mostly useless, but not anything that is unsanitary (unless maybe the occasional expired food product in the fridge). Her kitchen stink is completely mounded full of dirty dishes at any given time, but it is confined to that area. That part isn't so much hoarding as it is just being fucking lazy. (I fail to grasp this based on the fact that she has a dishwasher that she purchased as soon as I left, I was her dishwasher prior to that.)

The rest of the house is completely packed with stuff. Every surface. Every table, chair, desk, floor, and bed. Also hallways, counter tops, shelves, TVs, you name it. There are actually "goat trails" throughout the still accessible areas of the house ("goat trail" is a term that refers to the narrow passages that lead between piles or walls of stuff in the dwelling of a hoarder. They may have stuff in the trail as well so footing can be unsure, like paths used by mountain goats). In her case, she's a small lady, so her goat trails are sized for her access and no one else. I am about 7-8 inches taller than she is and I cannot navigate these trails without knocking shit over constantly. My Uncle is a good 3-4 inches taller than me, its even worse for him. I don't think other than the exterior doors any doors in that house can be completely closed anymore due to the sheer amount of stuff. It's maddening as hell when you cannot move through a space without knocking shit over or continuously causing stuff-slides.

The stuff consists clothes, books, magazines, newspapers, mail, flyers, binder clips, extension cords, shoes (not usually in sets), random containers, misc. shit purchased at Big Lots, cosmetics, cigarette boxes, tissue boxes, ashtrays, unopened shipping packages (stuff ordered but never opened), figurines, knickknacks, and I can't even remember what else. It blurs even in my minds eye.. to me it just looks just like one huge throbbing mass of stuff.

There was usually a place cleared off on the couch so she could watch TV. If you needed to sit in the other chair, you had to dig for it. If you wanted to pour yourself a bowl of cereal, you had to find some semi-flat surface in the stuff mounded on all surfaces in the kitchen to balance the bowl so you could pour the cereal into it.

When I lived there, my room was the only place you could actually see the floor or any surface. 2 years after I left, when I returned, every surface in that room including the floors, furniture, and beds were covered in stuff. The access trail only reached into the middle of the room. You could not get to the closet of the dresser without having to crawl over things. There was no where I could put down my bag unless I put it on something.

She wasn't always like this. When I was little, maybe about 7 when we moved in that house, you could still see the floors- there was stuff piled up in the corners and the hallway, it was cluttered even then, but it was nothing like it would become. By the time I was in middle school the house had reached the level of unmitigated disaster. I remember having to vacuum the trails, thinking how worthless it was. She wouldn't even let me move stuff to vacuum under it.

I never had a friend spend the night. I wasn't allowed to have friends over, and really, who would want to?

It went from bad to worse as I proceeded through high school. There were brief periods of time where the living room was accessible- not clean, just less of a disaster. You might be able to sit down without moving stuff or briefly glimpse the top of the coffee table or TV. Possible see the surface of a shelf. After I left, that never happened again as far as I know.

If she couldn't find something it was somehow my fault. I had moved it or thrown it away as far as she was concerned and I paid no matter the case. I was a latchkey kid starting in the 4th grade and I spent most of my childhood locked in that fucking house. Even in middle school/high school I was not allowed out very much, that place was my personal hell. I was an overachiever (I knew early academics were my out) and active in sports & clubs, partially because it is my nature, but mostly because I would do pretty much anything to get out of that house and away from her. When I was stuck in the house, I was often buried in books as my escape.

She was depressed constantly and had nasty mood swings. I never knew how she was going to act when she came home from work. I remember bracing myself every time I heard her car in the driveway- wondering what her state would be when she hit the door. I was staying with her for a week or so at some period after college and I remember hearing her car pull in the driveway and I realized I was having a borderline panic attack. My heart raced, I broke out in a sweat, and I all of a sudden felt like a trapped rat.... just like when I was a kid. That was the last time I stayed there.. I could go for brief visits, but that pretty much it.

I believe she also had a form of ADHD. Dozens of half-finished home improvement projects are caught in the debris of that house.

She would start, get something completely ripped out and then rapidly lose interest. I remember only one project being finished during my time there, and it was started and finished within 6 months of us moving in when I was about 7. She ripped out the kitchen counters, tile, and cabinet fronts when I was 11. By the time I graduated college, the counter top had eventually been put back in, but the cabinets had not, and the floor remained tiled only halfway, the rest was exposed particle board. For at least 10 years, the missing cabinet fronts exposed to heaped dishes and various shit in the cabinets. I swear she must have had 400 plastic disposable sour cream/butter/cottage cheese containers stuffed in one cabinet. Things we constantly on the floor from falling out of the cabinets or off the counters. My Uncle has since finished that project and the half finished bathroom that she started while I was in college for her. The rest I am sure remain unchanged.

There was a point when I was in college or maybe right after where she decided she was ready to "get the house cleaned up and organized." My uncle and I offered to help. As soon as we started trying to get things hauled out, the freak out began. There was yelling and screaming, accusations.. it was crazy. Everything that we managed to haul out she drug back into the house within hours. According to her, what she needed was "just some bins and storage organizers to organize her stuff." That endeavor faded quickly and I left not long after. It was miserable experience. I think this is when I realized there was a mental issue at play.

Based on my experiences with my mom's hoarding, I thought that watching "Hoarders" might actually be therapeutic for me and maybe it is, but it seems like right now, it's just bringing out the rage.

This couple on the episode 2 weeks ago were in danger of losing their kids if they didn't get the house cleaned up. They had months to do it and what did they do? Nothing... "it's an addition, it's a disease".. what the fuck ever. Lets call it, if you let your own issues take control of your life above the well being of your children, you are fucking selfish. You owe your children better than this.

My mom owed me better than locking me in that fucking shit hole of a house for 8 years, but she didn't bother to look past her own issues to worry about the well being of her kid, and that's what I see when I watch this show. They are defending the hoarders and begging people to be understanding and have compassion, yet no one is examining the affect on the kids who have no choice but to grow up in that crap or confronting the parents about the ramifications of these choices on their children who have no escape. I get that it's an addition like alcoholism and drug abuse. But you know what? Before it becomes an addition, it was a fucking choice. Let's not forget that and just because it turns into an addition does not erase the responsibility that results from the decisions that were made when it was a choice.

I am pretty lucky all things considered, in spite of this I am fairly well-adjusted. I am not a serial killer or a hoarder, nor am I OCD or a complete neat freak (yet).. My house is minimalistic and I like it that way. I am sure given my history that is not hard to understand. I regularly sort through drawers and closets and throw things away or send them to good will. I don't buy things that serve no function and I refuse to keep things out of some sort of obligation to so one who felt the need to give me stuff.

I do not collect anything and I hate dust collectors - this is basically anything I consider useless crap. It's like the stuff people buy you for Christmas that you don't need, don't want, has nothing to do with anything about you personally, and was bought just because they seem to feel like that have to give you something and won't give you a gift card, because a gift card isn't "something to unwrap."

I take an empty garbage bag with me to the Christmas tree on Christmas morning. If it's not food, something I am going to actually wear, or use, it goes straight into the garbage bag and the bag goes to good will at the earliest possibility. I don't believe in re-gifting either, if it's useless and I re-gift it, I am perpetuating the cycle.

Clutter makes me anxious. I have a hard time breathing. Chaos in my house is the same way. When I do home improvement projects, I do nothing but eat and sleep until its completed. I keep my house clean and uncluttered. If someone stops for an unannounced visit, that is just fine, I expect the house to be presentable at anytime.

Now, lemme stop you here when you decide you want to tell me "it will be different with the baby" or "you'll get used to the stuff" because it should be plain to say that we are not all wired the same. There will be a workable concession found, sure, and there will be baby stuff around- when it's useful; when he outgrows it or is no longer interested in it, it's gone. If it's broken its gone immediately. I don't save mementos, etc- I am just not wired for it. I take pictures, digital- they store easier. This is what works for me and this is something way more important to me that most people. We all have different priorities.

During the recent visit of my Uncle he told me that the last time he talked to my mom a few weeks ago, she told him that the house was "worse" than the last time he'd been there (which I think was about 5 years ago). I can't even imagine. I haven't been inside since probably 2001 or 2002.

I cannot go inside that house. I will never go inside of it unless it is cleaned out completely and that is not likely to happen. Most hoarders never get out. They die with it that way and families are left with MONTHS of cleanup work. (Also, fucking selfish.) Unfortunately, no jurisdiction yet recognizes justifiable arson as a legal defense.

My husband has never been inside, not past the front room anyway, and in there he spent less than a minute before I could extract him.

The last time she visited me (2001). I left my clean apartment and went to work and exactly 8.5 hours later I came home to mounds of her stuff piled on the floor in the bedroom, her crap piled up all over the bathroom sink, a kitchen sink entirely filled with dirty dishes (I also had a dishwasher), a large amount of spattered tomato soup burned to the stove top, and a large and completely overflowing ash tray on the coffee table in the living room where she sat wrapped up in a blanket happily smoking and watching TV just like she does at home.

She continued to sit there and TV while I cleaned loaded all the dished into the dishwasher, cleaned the kitchen surfaces, and spent 20 minutes scrubbing the stove. She blamed the stove mess on the burners being too hot. She never apologized, she never offered to help me. She felt no responsibility at all to clean up after herself or leave my house in the same state she arrived.

I was actually surprised. I shouldn't have been. But this wasn't because of hoarding, this was due to laziness and slobbery. There's a difference. What this proved to me though is that there were multiple things going on.

In the meantime, this is one of those things that has been going around in my head during my mental nesting.

I want my child to have friends over to the house. I want him to have sleepovers and birthday parties at our house. I don't want for him to ever be horrified at the condition of his living space. I love to have friends and family visit and I love for them to have a comfortable space to relax and stay. No one will ever have to worry about navigating through piles of stuff in my house or having to try to find an available surface to put a bag down.

This is something my mother never bothered to provide for me. However, this is something I consider to be important. Important to me and important for me to provide for my son.

The grasp of this goes much further though. For the good of everyone, I will never be able set foot in her house, nor will my son (its unsafe for a child, especially a little one) and she will never be able to stay overnight in my home.

I gotta do what I gotta do for myself and my family.