freshstart
4-10-16, 5:59am
Our cleaning lady, Tammy (it's not as snooty or expensive as it sounds) has become a close family friend. She and my mother adore each other. They do social stuff when my mom is up to it. Well, her lung spontaneously collapsed so we've been without her for a month, 2 more weeks and thank God she is back.
In the middle of my mother's regular hoarded bedroom is an explosion of wedding dresses and clothes for my brother's wedding weekend, shoes, etc. She lost track of what fit and what didn't and trying on is really hard for her with her breathing and stamina. I was talking to her and she started to cry about the mess. Normally we do not do well trying to de-hoard her together. I just don't have the patience and luckily, Tammy, the cleaning lady does, she keeps as much of the hoard at bay as possible. So I jumped in without thinking.
I remembered we had found 1 dress, and pants and a shirt for the rehearsal, and 1 other pair of pants. Everything else was to be returned. She is very hard to fit, barely 4'11" and wears a 3x, she is full of fluid from the abdomen down, the widest pair of shoes we could find on Zappos were too small for her swollen feet. Somewhere from my brain I pulled the 4 things that fit and hung them where she can see them and be happy that she has a few things to wear. The rest I started making piles of where each dress, outfit, shoes, came from and bagged them up and put them in the hall. Then I dug through the dreaded Paper Pile that had become so tall in Tammy's absence, it was 17" tall (I had to know, lol). I found every receipt and have managed to return to two stores and arrange for a Zappos pick up.
We worked well together, I think it mainly was because we both wanted the crap out of her room. She is not going to hoard wedding dresses that don't fit. So for once we were a team instead of facing off. I started to think maybe I could help with the hoarding. Until she asked me to get something out of her linen closet. A rain of empty pill bottles came down on me. It was like when someone fills a closet with tennis balls as a joke. But this is not funny. There have to be hundreds of empty bottles. She says she knows she doesn't need to keep them but she can't throw them away, she can't answer why. So every time my dad goes in this closet for a towel, this happens to him, too. He's so pissed, he's taken everything he needs out of there. I offered to write down every single med and its dose because maybe she's afraid she will need one of the meds again and not remember to remind the doctor of what exactly she needs. that was the only reason I could come up with to keep them, but I have no idea why she has to keep 23 bottles of the same drug, under my theory she should only have one bottle. She's thinking about it. Meanwhile I put them in a large garbage bag and shoved them on the highest shelf that she can't reach.
Tammy came for dinner the other night. I cannot wait for her to come back and be the keeper of the hoard. I'm pretty much done after the pill bottles, lol. I will help her to keep looking for wedding stuff but the piles of other crap can wait for Tammy's gentle touch.
I feel bad for her all the way around. I know from hearing it all my life how much she hates to live this way. She is so OCD with her meds, has so many checks and balances, she uses timers, that it takes her an hour to take pills that are pre-poured in a pill box. In theory, she should open the pill box, take the pills and be done. I catch her doing her hour routine at 3 am. She saw a shrink for this because her (my) primary said just one OCD ritual is usually easily resolved with a med. Well, the med made her looney and no less OCD. Then he was the only shrink who does therapy and meds for Medicare patients and he left. She can see a shrink for 15 mins for meds but she is scared of the meds and go to a psychologist for therapy but she really is too sick to add in both these regular appointments. She never told the shrink she was a hoarder. so she doesn't just have one easily fixed OCD problem. So she will probably die a hoarder.
I had decided to de-hoard the basement box by box but after spending time in her space, I realized I am not totally done with my spaces. I appreciate so much the help I got here, that I had downsized my home way before I got sick and that they help me with the taxes. But I miss my completely organized townhouse, I swore never to be like her and I totally wasn't. My basement storage was a thing of beauty. It's hard to stay organized the way I want in such small spaces without adding to the storage problem in the basement and I won't do that. My room has become an office, den and BR so it is cluttered even after I've de-cluttered. I am getting on that tomorrow.
It was funny, a while ago my mom told me she had a list of goals, I suggested we look at that again. It had the usual- organize papers and organize room, I said skip those for now, what else? "Spend more time out of my room and spend more time with my daughter." So we watched something on Netflix together and it was really nice. Coincidentally, spending time with her is on my to do list, also.
God, I'm chatty at 5 am, sorry!
In the middle of my mother's regular hoarded bedroom is an explosion of wedding dresses and clothes for my brother's wedding weekend, shoes, etc. She lost track of what fit and what didn't and trying on is really hard for her with her breathing and stamina. I was talking to her and she started to cry about the mess. Normally we do not do well trying to de-hoard her together. I just don't have the patience and luckily, Tammy, the cleaning lady does, she keeps as much of the hoard at bay as possible. So I jumped in without thinking.
I remembered we had found 1 dress, and pants and a shirt for the rehearsal, and 1 other pair of pants. Everything else was to be returned. She is very hard to fit, barely 4'11" and wears a 3x, she is full of fluid from the abdomen down, the widest pair of shoes we could find on Zappos were too small for her swollen feet. Somewhere from my brain I pulled the 4 things that fit and hung them where she can see them and be happy that she has a few things to wear. The rest I started making piles of where each dress, outfit, shoes, came from and bagged them up and put them in the hall. Then I dug through the dreaded Paper Pile that had become so tall in Tammy's absence, it was 17" tall (I had to know, lol). I found every receipt and have managed to return to two stores and arrange for a Zappos pick up.
We worked well together, I think it mainly was because we both wanted the crap out of her room. She is not going to hoard wedding dresses that don't fit. So for once we were a team instead of facing off. I started to think maybe I could help with the hoarding. Until she asked me to get something out of her linen closet. A rain of empty pill bottles came down on me. It was like when someone fills a closet with tennis balls as a joke. But this is not funny. There have to be hundreds of empty bottles. She says she knows she doesn't need to keep them but she can't throw them away, she can't answer why. So every time my dad goes in this closet for a towel, this happens to him, too. He's so pissed, he's taken everything he needs out of there. I offered to write down every single med and its dose because maybe she's afraid she will need one of the meds again and not remember to remind the doctor of what exactly she needs. that was the only reason I could come up with to keep them, but I have no idea why she has to keep 23 bottles of the same drug, under my theory she should only have one bottle. She's thinking about it. Meanwhile I put them in a large garbage bag and shoved them on the highest shelf that she can't reach.
Tammy came for dinner the other night. I cannot wait for her to come back and be the keeper of the hoard. I'm pretty much done after the pill bottles, lol. I will help her to keep looking for wedding stuff but the piles of other crap can wait for Tammy's gentle touch.
I feel bad for her all the way around. I know from hearing it all my life how much she hates to live this way. She is so OCD with her meds, has so many checks and balances, she uses timers, that it takes her an hour to take pills that are pre-poured in a pill box. In theory, she should open the pill box, take the pills and be done. I catch her doing her hour routine at 3 am. She saw a shrink for this because her (my) primary said just one OCD ritual is usually easily resolved with a med. Well, the med made her looney and no less OCD. Then he was the only shrink who does therapy and meds for Medicare patients and he left. She can see a shrink for 15 mins for meds but she is scared of the meds and go to a psychologist for therapy but she really is too sick to add in both these regular appointments. She never told the shrink she was a hoarder. so she doesn't just have one easily fixed OCD problem. So she will probably die a hoarder.
I had decided to de-hoard the basement box by box but after spending time in her space, I realized I am not totally done with my spaces. I appreciate so much the help I got here, that I had downsized my home way before I got sick and that they help me with the taxes. But I miss my completely organized townhouse, I swore never to be like her and I totally wasn't. My basement storage was a thing of beauty. It's hard to stay organized the way I want in such small spaces without adding to the storage problem in the basement and I won't do that. My room has become an office, den and BR so it is cluttered even after I've de-cluttered. I am getting on that tomorrow.
It was funny, a while ago my mom told me she had a list of goals, I suggested we look at that again. It had the usual- organize papers and organize room, I said skip those for now, what else? "Spend more time out of my room and spend more time with my daughter." So we watched something on Netflix together and it was really nice. Coincidentally, spending time with her is on my to do list, also.
God, I'm chatty at 5 am, sorry!