The hoarding expert 'fires' me: I can't help you, he says.

I haven't posted in a while. I've been through a few disappointments. One big one was the "hoarding expert" from the local mental health agency. When Thomas first came to visit me, he made a number of sweeping but hope-provoking statements, saying that he could see that distraction was obviously my main problem and that he planned to "change my brain to change my life." He would teach me how to deal with the distraction and make decisions about organizing my things, using cognitive behaviour therapy. (I have had some exposure to cognitive behaviour therapy, but I was eager to see how he planned to apply it in my case.)

The next week, however, he forgot that he was again supposed to come to my house. He phoned me from his office instead, when he realized his error. I don't remember the details of what we talked about on the phone, just that I was disappointed.

The third week, he came back to my house, made a cursory tour of my house with me to point out safety hazards (blocked exits, stairways, hallways) and then announced that he couldn't help me any more. He said that he felt my friend Elaine's volunteer help -- helping me stay focused on my cleanup task and providing advice where needed -- was what I needed, and he couldn't provide that. He offered to apply for funding to have some entity come in to haul away my excess stuff after I had decided what to keep and what to dispose of. I am physically able to take things away. My problem is that I become overwhelmed and am easily distracted when I approach any decluttering or organizing project. I need help DECIDING what to take away -- not help with TAKING IT AWAY.

I tried to tell him that I didn't want to be a burden to my friend -- she was helping on a volunteer basis and had other responsibilities to take care of -- a job, a husband, and a daughter. She has warned me that she will only help as long as she sees me making progress. I appreciate her help, but making progress is often very difficult for me. I don't want to lose her friendship. I'm trying to do as much on my own as possible.

Thomas said that if Elaine and Kathy could no longer help, I could call him back. But he needed to focus his efforts on clients whose health and safety were impacted by their hoarding. (Mine isn't?) And he could only help me by providing funding for hauling stuff away.

Thanks, but no thanks...

So much for Thomas's offer to "change my brain, change my life." He had said that he could use the same strategies to help me bridge the gulf between my daughter and me. He said the gulf wouldn't just go away with decluttering. I needed to change my brain... But how do I change my brain? Thomas never answered that question. 

Kathy, my OT, wasn't surprised that Thomas's initial offer of help had fizzled out. She had encountered Thomas in working with another one of her clients. He had flaked out on them, too, after raising that person's hopes for change.

(Thomas is young, attractive and can be very charming. He was not at all charming on his last visit. I felt that he had fired me.)

Kathy's helpful suggestions

Kathy's time with me is limited -- usually one hour every week or two -- but she usually has concrete suggestions to help me. I have had trouble dealing with several stacks of papers, for instance. She had me try to   deal with as much of the stack as I could in 10 minutes. I was actually able to make headway. The problem is just getting started. And it helps to have someone here with me to help me stay on task.

At other times, she has helped me break down a mess into small parts, which made them easier to tackle.

During her last visit, I showed Kathy the daunting task I was currently confronting: How to make room in my basement so that my daughter and her partner could store some of their furniture for the next year. It looked impossible, but Kathy suggested that I send a bunch of my stuff off to a local charity -- they will send out a truck to pick up large items. She helped me write up a list of large items to dispose of and then she had me phone to schedule the pickup while she was there. 

By letting go of these items (which had included some of the items I failed to sell at the garage sale), I was able to make room for my daughter and her partner to move in a single bed, two dressers, and assorted other items. I had to sort and clean other things in the basement as well, so it was a week-long effort -- but very successful in the end. I sent off about five bookcases, one large lateral filing cabinet, one large mirror, a garden hose caddy, and other items. I had to get rid of linens and clothes to make room in my shelves and bins for other items. I moved about a dozen or more empty bins into the garage. If I find I don't need them elsewhere in the house, I will donate those to a charity.

In the weeks since Thomas fired me, I have had both successes and failures. The work is often extremely slow, and I become stalled at times. I still become quite overwhelmed. My psychiatrist has increased my Sertraline (antidepressant) dosage from 50 mg per day to 200 mg. He has also increased the prescription for Concerta, an medication for Attention Deficit Disorder. My brain seems to be working better, but I am having frequent problems with intestinal problems. On some days, I have spent all day lying on the sofa in pain, not hungry or wanting to eat. I am losing weight, and most of my pants won't stay at my waist. 

I needed to lose weight, and now I seem to have lost about four pant sizes. However, I am not trying to lose weight. And I am not sure whether the weight loss signals another health problem. I have made an appointment with my general practitioner.

I have tried not to call on my friend Elaine's physical presence too much -- she has limited time and I don't want to be a burden -- but I have been emailing her and talking with her to tell her what I'm doing and get her suggestions. Also, my friend Diane (from second grade) offered to provide guidance from affair. On good days, I try to send them my to-do list and then report back to them on my progress. I may post some of these interchanges to fill in the gaps in this blog. Even writing emails can be time consuming, and Facebook and other Internet wonders have a way of distracting me from my clean-up duties. 

Neatness is not a habit for me

My living room, dining room and kitchen, despite my ongoing work, are still pretty messy. They have fewer things in them, but they still contain too many things in them. I find it very difficult to put things away, no matter how hard I try. There are always seemingly more important and urgent things to do.

This is hard! No wonder I feel overwhelmed!

Confession 1 - I am a Solitaire addict

I've just deleted Solitaire from my iPad. I have an addiction to it... This seemed my only recourse. I was losing too much time and energy to Solitaire. I need to delete it from my other devices for my own sanity.

This was just one thing that has gotten in the way of my decluttering work over the past week.

Confession 2 - I routinely overcommit my time and talents

I also committed another particularly me-like sin since my last post: I overcommitted myself -- again! I inherited a somewhat Type A personality (softened by the antidepressant, but not totally suppressed). However, I haven't been a superwoman since my teenage years -- if I was so even then. In my mind, I was. However, that may have just been an illusion.

A week ago I followed through on a promise, as a beginner videographer, to video dress rehearsals and two performances of a local youth musical production. This was time-consuming, stressful and exhausting, and now I've learned that it was probably against copyright to record the performances at all. I'll figure a way out of this, but I don't know my path yet. The effort exhausted me, and I took several days to recover.  Unfortunately, my video cameras, tripods, memory cards, batteries, cables, and power cords are still somewhat of a jumble. I know that I need to organize them in some useful way, but I don't know exactly what I need to do.

Gains and losses

In the past 10 days, I have taken away another two loads of things and sent away bins of stuff for recycling and landfilling.

Despite this effort, my house has again descended into chaos -- even the decluttered kitchen and semi-decluttered living room. I have engaged in more of the churning activity that is typical of hoarders.

My treasure trove of plastic bins stayed on my balcony for several days, collecting rainwater and tree pollen (to which I am allergic). I have washed them AGAIN and begun moving them to space I have created in my basement, where I plan to use them for sorting and storing hardware and computer parts. (The computer parts are now almost all in the basement, mostly sorted, and most of my music is now back in the living room/dining room.)

Reality shock - the money factor!

Last Tuesday, I visited my financial advisor for a reassessment of my investment risk. That part of the visit was routine. However, I have involved Myrna in my concern about my compulsive spending habits. Her advice to me was direct, though compassionate. If I don't find a job to supplement my current meagre sporadic income, then I must find some way to limit my monthly spending to $2,000 or less per month. Or else I will run out of money before I die. This means a major cutback in spending.

I am not "poor." The problem is that I have been blessed with affluence. However, I need to realize that my circumstances have changed, and my spending needs to change to reflect that reality.

I knew this news was coming -- I had been worrying about it for the past year. I have attended two "Living on Less" courses at a local Anglican church to try to reprogram my mindset toward spending. I am doing better, but I need to do MUCH BETTER. I am hoping that Thomas is able to help me change my brain to fix this problem.

My mental health advisors want me to get my house in better shape before I again start looking seriously for a job. They feel it would HELP my job search effort if my home were less chaotic. My clutter problem was getting worse because looking for work and worrying about money was overloading my naturally anxious brain.

Because of a nice inheritance from my parents (nice, but possibly not enough for my spending habits over the rest of my life), I don't qualify for most government disability support because of my mental health problems. I want to work, and I feel I have skills to offer -- but I am having trouble finding work. Has my mood disorder become severe enough to become THE BARRIER to employment -- or is it just my age (61) and job-hunting methods? I have attended several job-hunting courses provided by local agencies.

The government has raised the retirement age to 67 -- and I would genuinely like to work till I am 67. However, for people to work until they are 67, business needs to be willing to hire older workers -- as well as people with minor disabilities. I believe my mood disorder, in regards to work, is minor in its affect on my employers, but I'm not sure they share my view of the matter. I feel very frustrated.

I am not a 'flake' 

Perhaps this is why I overcommit to volunteer activities I know I can do. However, my desire to succeed prompted me to spend several hundred dollars to purchase additional video supplies for my volunteer effort. I should have turned down the volunteer post, since it was stressful and took away from my decluttering effort, but I was concerned about appearing like a "flake" to the show directors.

The man who hired me straight out of journalism school, when I was a young woman of 24, told me, years ago, that one of my references had told him that I was a flake, "but I hired you anyway." Under his tutelage, I won a number of writing awards and honours, including the chance to come to Canada on a Rotary fellowship. I am deeply grateful to him, even now, for giving me a chance to show my worth.

I am easily distracted, but I am not a flake. I am intelligent, I work hard, and I usually do just fine.

Myrna has me working on a budget and collecting information about a possible source of income. I will meet with my accountant about my tax returns on Wednesday. I am not through my money hell yet, but at least I am beginning to face reality.

I must change my BRAIN to change my HOUSE?

[Sigh! I can't remember the specifics of my visit from Thomas, the hoarding specialist from the local mental health association, but this is how I recall this encounter:]

Thomas visited me at home yesterday to tour my house and get a sense of the nature of my problem with stuff. His comments were extremely unsettling but insightful. I am still trying to absorb what he said. 

'Your house is full of distraction!'

He told me that he feels that my house reflects the state of my brain -- it is stuffed with many beautiful, interesting things that are all distractions. "You have a house full of distraction!"

And my brain just can't deal with all the distraction, all the "documents" -- bits of information -- that I am trying to stuff into it. I need to learn to limit the input, so that I can organize and manage the internal database that is my brain.

He said it was also obvious that even though I am intelligent and creative, I seem to have problems with organization -- a type of disability. "We all have areas of disability, and this seems to be yours." 

I shared that I had noticed, in my work with programmers, many of them seem to be "marathoners" at logical, step-by-step thinking, while I, the technical writer, seem only capable of "sprints" of logic. "My brain hyperlinks from one topic to another, instead of following one topic to its conclusion," I agreed.

I had told him that my psychiatrist had felt that I didn't have Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) because I had always been a good student in school and was able to focus extremely well on some things -- working on the computer, playing my flute, writing, photography. 

'Your house is a sheet of music with all the notes poured out on it as a jumble of ink'

Thomas pointed out that computers and music all have some inherent structure to them -- helping direct my brain on the proper path. "But your house has no structure, it is a jumbled mess of creativity. Your house is a sheet of music with all the notes poured out on it as a jumble of ink."

I had told him that I find it very difficult to decide where things should go in my house. And even when I make decisions, I often change my mind. He promised to help me learn how to impose structure on the house. One of the first challenges, he said, would be to create a space that would be completely empty of things and a space that could have things stored in a disordered way. He wants me to learn that some places are supposed to be EMPTY.

Creating 'empty' areas...

My initial thinking is that my hallways and stairways should be the empty areas. My friend Elaine had already pointed out that paramedics could not get a stretcher through my hallways or up my stairs if they needed to. I have been working to empty these areas, but these pathways are still serving as areas for temporary storage of things destined to move upstairs or downstairs.

Thomas asked me other questions about my things -- I can't remember just what he asked me -- and it came out in our discussion that both my father and my ex-husband had controlling personalities. My brother always tells folks that I had to move to Canada, 1,000 miles away away, as a young adult, to get out from under my dad's control. (My brother also experienced my dad's efforts at continuing control of us as we became adults.)

I never questioned that my dad loved me -- he just didn't know how to let go of me, to let me be the somewhat freer spirit that I wanted to be at times. I don't know that he wanted me to be a spinster, but he certainly mounted campaigns against the other men in my life. I was engaged three times as an adult before finally marrying without his approval at age 30. 

My dad died 16 years ago from Alzheimer's Disease and other complications. He never liked my ex-husband, and we were still married when he died. In fact, we remained married for 25 years. I thought it was a happy marriage, but my ex-husband may remember it differently. 

My dad was also a hoarder, so he influenced me in that way, too. Like him, I often followed my intellectual passions to the extreme, absorbed in my interests. We both loved books, nature, science, music and photography. We were both extroverts, people who never met a stranger. We were both perfectionists, always striving for perfection but, of course, never reaching it.

My dad's dad had been very controlling as well, and he had broken with him as an adult to pursue his own path. I never really broke with my dad, I just sought to keep some distance between us so that I could be the independent thinker that he had taught me to be -- not realizing that would mean that I might disagree with him at times.

My ex-husband was extremely logical and seldom acted on his emotions. He was an introverted, shy  banker. My friend Liz, who knows us both, thinks I brought excitement, passion and creativity to his somewhat reclusive, dull life. 

Ultimately, however, I drove him crazy. He couldn't control me as he would have liked. I wasn't predictable in ways he would have liked me to be predictable. He wasn't the violent sort, but he would often grumble under his breath at me as he walked away and engage in passive-aggressive acts of rebellion. My dad was more actively aggressive. 

My ex-husband provided structure for my life...

From my point of view, my ex-husband provided some structure to my life that I was incapable of adding on my own. He forced me into a set sleeping and wake cycle, a set schedule of activity, and set expectations for food and other purchases. 

After my parents died, I suddenly had money of my own to spend, and I exercised my freedom in ways that irritated my husband greatly: I brought a van of my parents' furniture home to Canada with me; I had repairs and upgrades made to our old house; I bought musical instruments, music, cameras, books, clothes and other things to feed my creative passions, etc. My ex-husband began complaining that there was no longer any room for him in the house.

Thomas agreed that my things reflect my rebellion against my father's and ex-husband's controls. After my ex-husband left me, I indulged my freedom from his control by spending even more on music and books. He had fueled my insecurity by telling me that I looked too old and dressed in a dowdy manner. I tried to pick better clothes and even dyed my hair for a while to try to fit his image of what I should be. (The other woman he left me for was 22 years younger, so I couldn't match her youth. She was an exotic of two foreign cultures, so I couldn't match her cultural uniqueness. And I was going through menopause, not the greatest time of life to be fighting for the survival of one's marriage.)

[There is more to be told from Thomas's visit, but I need a break.]

"Little boxes on the hillside, and they're all made out of ticky-tacky..."

Pete Seeger sang a song about "little boxes made out of ticky-tacky." He was singing about the mass-produced housing and consumerism that took over America during the 1950s and '60s, but it sounds like a good description of the plastic containers that have taken over my house. I have temporarily assigned a huge pile of empty ones to my balcony.

My friend Elaine was horrified to learn that I had purchase about 40 large plastic shoebox-sized boxes for storing my shoes and computer parts. I stand by the purchase, but I realize that I do have too many plastic containers, so I have temporarily moved many of my empty ones out as I continue to declutter my living room, dining room, kitchen and basement. I am not ready to dispose of the extras yet, but they can sit on my balcony until I know which ones I want to keep.

I'm working alone till Sunday afternoon, when Elaine is coming over for a while. I am hoping to have some real progress to show her, but that means that I will need to stay focused tomorrow, so that I can get lots done. I hope to impress her -- although her standards and mine are probably quite different.

I'm absent minded but dementia free!

I had good news from my doctor this morning: I do not yet have dementia. As my scatter-brained-itis gets progressively worse, I was beginning to wonder. I scored 30 out of 30 on a dementia-screening test. I have fit the stereotype of the absent-minded professor all my life, so I suppose it is somewhat normal that my house reflects my scattered mind.

I had better get to bed now so that I can put in a full day's work tomorrow.

Catching up...

I have slacked off on blogging for the last few days, but I can now see that the blogging really helps me stay focused. My friend Elaine, who has been helping me some, has been away for several days, so I had the chance to try to do things on my own -- an essential goal. Blogging also helps reinforce the learning that happens as I work on decluttering and fighting my compulsive need to reacquire.

"A place for everything and everything in its place"

A problem that I have is deciding on a specific place for each thing, remembering where that place is and remaining consistent in storing that thing in its place. I struggle with that almost all the time.

Confession 1: For the most part, I have been good at managing my urge to reacquire. HOWEVER, I did make one typical overpurchase during the last few days. I bought about 40 shoebox-sized plastic bins to use in sorting my computer parts and shoes, and I don't regret my purchase. The boxes have worked out very well. I can imagine my daughter, friends, and mental health care workers rolling their eyes right now.  Hoarders love plastic containers and bins, and I have a true "hoard" of them. I'll post photos later to show how I have used these containers. 

Confession 2: I have kept a schedule some days and completely lapsed into chaos and bad practices on others. My sleep specialist, as well as just about everyone else in the world, would like for me to maintain a structured sleep-wake cycle for my own well-being and mental fitness. My mind doesn't tame so easily. 

Bad habit 1:  Poor sleep hygiene. This is the term the doctors use, and I hate it. It sounds like I am sleeping in a garbage pit, but it just means that I sleep and wake at different times almost every day.

Bad habit 2: Playing Solitaire or Sudoku on the computer. I don't know how to stop once I start. This seems like an innocent pleasure until 10 minutes of Solitaire turns into several hours of  Solitaire and gets in the way of a good night's sleep. How can I turn off the compulsive need to play one more game? (Luckily, I have no interest in gambling. My religious upbringing abhors gambling. I don't even play Bingo or buy lottery tickets.)

Bad habit 3: I may go without watching tv for weeks, and then watch episode after episode of a drama series downloaded from from Netflix in one night. Last night, I watched five episodes of The Forsyte Saga, Season 1. How can I parent myself to stop doing this? 

Background Noise (Emotion)

I adore my daughter and her partner. They light up my life. She announced a couple of months ago that they are planning to move to the BIG CITY, a frantic, nerve-wracking 75-minute drive over a scary freeway from this nice, quiet, family-friendly town. They have been living about a mile from me during the past two years. 

Of course, they are a very busy young couple as it is, and I rarely get to see them. My daughter says that that not seeing me often is somewhat my fault. She calls me a social butterfly. However, most of my friends my age, who are also mothers, know the real truth -- we often busy ourselves with social activities to try to fill the void left by the adult children when they have no time for their parents. We would drop our plans in an instant, for the most part, to spend some quality time with our adult children. 

My daughter will one day understand this, but probably not until she has adult children of her own. Right now, the two of them just have three cats. I call them my grand cats, and I miss the chance to spend time with them, too.

I, too, have lived in the BIG CITY, the place where my daughter grew up. However, it was always TOO BIG for me. A trip across town could take an hour or two in rush-hour traffic, especially when one is a nervous driver, like me, who avoids the scary freeway.

My beloved daughter is slipping away from me. That leaves me sad and feeling somewhat abandoned -- just as I did when she moved away for university and the BIG CITY at other times. It will be difficult to just drop by her place in the BIG CITY. I will have to brave the scary freeway or take the bus and city transit. (Luckily, I have 16 years of experience with the transit system, but it does complicate visits.)

I also worry that the move will damage the couple's relationship. Is her partner, a smaller town sort of guy, going to adjust to life in the BIG CITY? I feel a great affinity for both her partner and his parents: I am hoping this guy is THE ONE. He is a nice guy, and he will be good to her. That is important for her future.

Fear of new losses, frustration that I have no power to prevent them... 

One of my friends, a former teacher of mine from high school days, suggested that my hoarding was a "physical statement about the poverty of loss."

When my husband of 25 years left me eight to 10 years ago (He left and came home dozens of times.) prompted an emotional breakdown in me. The strong mother and wife because the nonfunctional maniac. I hurt and scared my daughter during this horrific time of my life. I was no longer the dependable mom that she could depend on. 

My hoarding, as a sign that I am not completely functioning, probably scares, exasperates and angers my daughter. I understand that, and I wish it were within my control to fix the problem. I am now actively, vociferously, courageously and fearfully reaching out for help, but she still doesn't feel comfortable in journeying with me through this battle. I had asked her to at least come over, now and then, to socialize with me -- or work on her own projects -- while I wage my battle. She refuses, and I feel anger, sadness, frustration, fear and loss.

I know that I need to build a world that doesn't depend on my daughter -- but isn't mutual dependence part of what a family is all about? I know that independence also must be there, too. But there must also be relationship -- journeying through suffering together to survive in this world.

Just the facts for now...

Note: This post was written on Saturday, April 27, 2013, but I wanted to let it sit a while before publishing it. Two people have criticized the blog's lack of emotional content. I have been thinking about that. This post doesn't address the emotion, but I will try to do that in future posts.

I have done both well and poorly over the past week, depending on the day and my mood. I was very anxious about dealing with the tax documents.

Kitchen -- The kitchen is crazy again, because I've been using it to sort hardware from the dining room and living room. (I'll post a photo when I have time.) However, I have continued to use the stove, microwave, sink and fridge and keep them fairly orderly. For the first time in months, I'm cooking and eating most of my meals at home.

Power Room-- I have removed all alien items and disinfected the sink, counter and toilet. I haven't a clue where to put all the cleaning tools (mops, bucket, broom, steam cleaner), waste baskets and cleaning products I have been storing in there. They are sitting in the hallway.
Counselling -- I had a difficult, but helpful, session with Thomas, the hoarding specialist at the local mental health association on Thursday. He is trying to nudge me to identify the emotions that prompt my clutter. He also led me through an exercise to help me get going with the accounting stuff. I had hit a roadblock.

Tom said that he had spoken to my doctor about my concerns that my cognitive functioning isn't quite right, so my physician may check me out when I next see her. I am scheduled to see her in the next week or two.

Visit from the Occupational Therapist  -- Kathy, the OT, visited on Friday. She noticed the hardware sorting station and accompanying mess in the kitchen, but she could see that I had made overall progress.

I delivered all my tax documents to the accountant! -- This is a major miracle. I used the steps Thomas and I worked out, plus a few extra. It took me all day -- after having worked at this for many other days in the past two years -- but my brain felt crippled and inept by day end.

I also picked up three gas royalty cheques that the accountant was holding for me. (She knows I tend to let them go stale, so she has the cheques going to her office instead of here. I found a stale cheque here Friday for about twelve hundred dollars -- I don't know if that has been replaced yet or not. Usually the monthly cheques are for a little more than a hundred. I'll write the drilling company a letter and send that cheque and a couple of other stale cheques I have. They usually send me a letter every now and then, asking me about the uncashed cheques.

(I know this must sound crazy. I really forget these cheques -- major absent-mindedness. I often carry them around in my purse until they are out of date -- and torn to shreds.)

Upstairs office -- I ransacked some of my piles of papers in the upstairs office in looking for more accounting papers -- and found a big stash. The office is a little crazier, but at least I got the documents out.

Basement exit and laundry room -- I swept up the mess on the floor in the laundry room and at the bottom of the stairs by the garage exit. This included sorting my shoes and putting them in pairs in plastic boxes on a small shelving unit. (Photo to come.) The huge bins I had been using there were too large for that entrance.

Backyard -- I uncovered some of my flower pots and cleaned up debris from the recent window installers in my unit. I planted more bulbs, now that it is finally spring.My brain and thinking ability were subfunctional today, too, but I got into cleaning tonight and I feel okay now.

Sleep -- I have two sleep disorders and use a CPAP machine for obstructive sleep apnea. I had been using an old machine that extremely noisy -- the newer one had been packed away for a trip. I finally got the new one working again, and the quiet was WONDERFUL. My sleep problems may be what is affecting my thinking ability and memory. 

I spent more time working the hallway and exit downstairs. I have more pairs of shoes than I realized. I seem to have four almost identical pairs of black loafers. I wear my shoes for years, but I will send some of these to charity. A couple of pairs are tight. I have all my "found" shoes sorted and stored in plastic boxes stacked in a shelf by the door. That is a HUGE improvement. I am often late arriving at events for want of a matching pair of shoes.

Found -- I just found  my health card and driver's license -- which had been missing for several weeks. I had thought that they were somewhere among the music, computer cables or other papers on the living room floor.

"Hoarding: Buried Alive" on TLC

I just watched an hour or more of short clips from "Hoarding: Buried Alive" on TLC. I am thankful that my problem with hoarding is not as severe as the problems illustrated in the clips, but I know that I must fight the problem now, while I have a chance for success. Life will only become more complicated as I age. I must use my remaining strength and intelligence to fight against this illness.