Hot damn. I'm baaaaack!

So I took an extended, albeit unannounced, leave of absence from the blogosphere. I needed some time and space to keep weeding through and discarding some of the emotional detritus from my past. It's been an interesting seven months. (Since blogs are tone-of-voice free and since I am Queen of the Understatement, let me just translate the word "interesting" for you. It's been fantastic, gut-wrenching, amazing, and incredibly draining. Thank god for good friends and a good therapist.)

Those of you who have been following me for awhile (thanks, by the way! I am awed and humbled and touched by all of your comments) know that I have been battling for years to extricate myself from some pretty damn destructive family-of-origin patterns. I grew up in a very repressive, very judgmental born-again Christian household. (To be clear for any evangelical Christians who may be reading this and bristling, I have nothing against Jesus. He was a pretty awesome dude. I do, however, have a lot -- a looooooot -- against being raised by a family who taught me that I would never, ever be good enough and who slapped a religious coating on that belief and called it gospel.)

My mom is a capital-H Hoarder who has, at last count, managed to fill a four-bedroom suburban home, garage, yard, and variety of sheds with absolute crap. Because you might need it someday, you know? She struggled with depression and, I suspect, hypomania the entire time I was growing up. This part is hard to jam into a nutshell, but I spent my formative years in the role of mother, taking care of her. I was home-schooled until high school, so there was, quite literally, no escaping the chaos and the dysfunction.

My parents were married, but in that "I hate you with the fire of a thousand suns" kind of marriage, where their volcanically caustic relationship poisoned everything around them. My dad lived with us, but we didn't see him much. He spent most of his waking hours (and all of mine) at work. Years later, he came to me and apologized for not taking better care of us kids "because I never knew how bad it was at home." I'm sorry, what? How? What? I have no words. But that's a post for another time.

My dad loves me, I know, but has his own issues around anxiety and shame, especially of the religious variety. Talking with him is like emotional dodgeball, as he lobs giant verbal balls filled with guilt and shame in my direction. Don't get me wrong -- he does his best. It's just that his best kind of sucks. As an adult, I can see that with reasonable clarity. As a child, his constant disappointment and disapproval of me was soul-crushing.

It's been a long road (16 years and counting) to weed out which parts of me are actually me and which parts of my inner voice come from my parents. It's an important road and I am fully aware that I'll be traveling it for the rest of my life, but sweet mother of all that is holy. It's a lot of work. Good work, necessary work, but still. These last six months or so have been pretty intense for me in terms of making peace with my need to turn my back, if not on my family, on much of what they have taught me and on the parts of who they are that diminish me.

It is wretchedly and wrenchingly difficult for me to stand tall and take care of myself, given that I was explicitly and implicitly taught for years that to do so is unacceptable. The good news, the news that brings me peace and joy and amazement that life can be so incredible, is that I actually can. I can take care of myself, and I can love myself, and I can give myself all of the nurturing and understanding that my parents weren't able to when I was growing up. I deserve to be loved, and I deserve to love myself. I wake up in the morning now and am filled with a gratitude so profound that it borders on joy. I am safe. I am happy. I am me, and it's pretty damn fantastic.

It's not me, it's you

I've worked long and hard to gain emotional distance from enmeshment with my mother and her hoarding. (Geographical distance helps too. I now live 700 miles away from her and my childhood home, which I can only imagine is filled to the rafters by now.) I don't visit much, as the visits are unpleasantly laced with dysfunction and weird interactions between my mother and me. There's a lot of verbal tap-dancing going on with my attempts to derail her before she gets going on topics that set her off and make me crazy. Religious discussions go something like this. Mom: "I wish you went to a Bible-believing church more often." Me: "I believe there are many paths to God." Mom: "I'm so sad that you're going straight to hell!" She's a very conservative Evangelical Christian. I'm about as liberal as you can get without being Noam Chomsky, so politics are also off-limits. Discussions about other members of the family aren't so great either. Me: "No, I think my younger brother is doing pretty well. He likes his new job a lot." Mom: "I just don't understand why he would want to work for a morally corrupt institution like a bank. Do you think he's morally corrupt too?" Oh, and the holidays. Mom: "I'm setting a boundary and have decided that I'm not going to allow you in my house. Why don't we meet on Christmas Eve at Carl's Junior?" Me: "WTF?" (Note: The first few were just examples. The last one actually happened, minus the swearing at my mother part. And let me tell you, there is nothing more depressing than eating greasy hamburgers in a fast food joint on Christmas Eve.) 

Still, once in awhile, the guilt kind of gets me. When I was younger, I tried and tried to help her get the house clean. But her hoarding brain takes over and gets in the way. I might need this someday/it's still perfectly good/I'm keeping it to read later/my mother gave it to me/I don't know what to do with it, so I'll just move it into this pile over here -- her inability to make decisions about letting things go gets in the way of making any progress. Add to that her anger and recrimination over my attempts to help (how could you do this to me/you're just like your father/you love everyone else more than you love me/I never should have had kids) and I ended up in a situation that was very damaging to me. To both of us, really. So I got really pissed off and quit trying to parent her, which also pissed her off.

Over the years, I've gotten less angry and more sad about the way she's choosing to live. (In case you were wondering, she's still on the angry wagon, albeit in a passive aggressive kind of way.) I wish I could help her, and sometimes that wistful, wishful thinking starts to steer me down the wrong path. I understand that she has a mental illness (well, at least two of them, by last count) and that it's not her own doing. That's where the guilt gets to me, a bit. I know that she's sick and that I would never wish her illness on my worst enemy. Maybe I should be a better daughter, I think. And then I remember. It's not her fault that she's mentally ill, but it is her fault that she refuses to seek help for her illness. It is her fault that she uses it as an excuse to be nasty and verbally abusive. It has nothing to do with me. The guilt here isn't even a little bit mine. It's all hers.

I hate Mother's Day

Really. I hate Mother's Day with a fiery passion. Most of the time, I feel like I've made my peace with having a mother who just couldn't care for us kids the way that most mothers do. But then sometimes I run across something (like this truly lovely blog post) that makes me realize that I still mourn not having a functional relationship with my mother. I still have an internal sense of that lost little girl who grew up in a hoarded house with no room for her, physically or emotionally.

I know I can't possibly be the only one out there who hates Mother's Day. Granted, it really isn't the type of thing that tends to come up in conversation. I might as well announce a hatred of puppies and unicorns. But then again, maybe not. Truthfully, I don't see how children of a hoarding mother -- or a mother with any kind of mental illness -- could avoid having at least somewhat mixed feelings about the day. Hoarding tends to be comorbid with other mental illnesses, which means that many of us children of hoarders had additional parental issues to deal with. Female hoarders have a higher incidence of panic disorder, binge eating, OCD, substance abuse, and bipolar I disorder (the kind with the really high highs and the really low lows). Male hoarders have a higher incidence of social phobia than male non-hoarders. (See this NIH-published study for more information.)

My extremely anxious mother hoarded, binge ate, and suffered from what seems to be undiagnosed bipolar disorder. Growing up with her was less than delightful. Don't get me wrong -- she loved us and tried to do the best that she could (although her best was a total nightmare). So every year, as Mother's Day rolls around, I once again try to make my peace with celebrating a mother who couldn't cope with her own life, much less the lives of her three children; a mother who prioritized her relationship with things over her relationship with people; a mother with whom I, more often than not, had to assume the role of care-taking adult. That's all still true, come to think of it.

So here's to all of those people out there who have mixed feelings about the holiday (and the people who outright loathe it, like me. I know you're out there.) Happy freaking Mother's Day.

I heart routines

This post made me realize afresh how much I really, really like routines. Apparently, it's not just me. Granted, as an elementary school teacher, I probably have more routines than most people. Math at 8:30, read a story at 10:00, lunch at 11:00.... The more time I spend with tiny people, the more I realize that kids really do thrive on that routine.

And that makes me think about the complete and total lack of routine that I had growing up. Waking up in the morning, I never had any idea what that day might be like. Will I have any clean socks? Can I even find my socks? Which side of Mom will I see today -- the fun-loving, childlike mom, or the angry, moody one who's obsessed with her stuff? Looking back, a complete lack of schedule, routine, and predictability meant that I drifted through most days feeling completely unmoored.

As an adult, that may help explain why I have such a deep-seated need to be able to predict, with reasonable certainty, what today will hold. Life has definitely underscored the lesson that there are many, many things that are not under my control. The struggle for me now is to create a routine that takes into account what I actually can control, while letting go of the things that are simply uncontrollable. It's  still a work in progress, but the fact that I can articulate the struggle at all makes me realize that I've come a long way from that kid searching for clean socks amid the hoard.

Only a hoarder's child

So I just read this post about a kitchen fire in a hoarded kitchen and I had to laugh out of sheer recognition. I've posted several times about daydreaming that my mother's house would catch fire, thereby eliminating the eventual need for my brother and me to clean it up. Apparently, I'm not the only one out there who would appreciate a little divine intervention in the form of a house fire. But I'm pretty sure that only another hoarder's child would file a kitchen fire in the hoarded home under the category of "a Christmas miracle." Under the circumstances, it seems totally understandable.

People clean their dishwashers?

One of the issues with being the adult child of a hoarder is that you're playing catch-up on a lot of life skills that other people take for granted. Housework, for example, is something that I'm still figuring out. How often do people clean their baseboards? Wash their walls? How much time are you supposed to spend cleaning your house every day?

There are a surprising number of websites out there dedicated to cleaning and organizing. This fact makes me feel much better, as I am obviously not the only person out there who's still figuring this stuff out. And, as an added bonus, once in awhile I run across a cleaning-related factoid that makes me laugh. For example, it never in my entire life occurred to me that a person might need to clean their dishwasher, but apparently you can. If I ever get to the point where the rest of my house is so clean that I'm concerned about the inside of my dishwasher, I'll be doing pretty well.

Survey says....

Although there are plenty of books for parents and spouses of people with mental illness, research into growing up with a mentally ill parent has been sadly lacking. Until now, there has been no systematic research whatsoever into the effects of growing up as the child of a hoarder. If you're interested in contributing to the field of knowledge about being raised in a hoarded home, keep reading.

From Dr. Suzanne Chabaud:

Thank you for participating in my research on Adult-Children of Hoarders.  This research is unique in that it taps into so many aspects people’s lives from childhood to future expectations. The conclusions we derive from the completed surveys will guide future research, education, intervention, and outreach for people who grow up in hoarded homes.

Some of you may have participated in the Interview Component of the research. Thank you, again! We are offering for you to participate in this Phase, as well. You are under no obligation.

I know that completing about 200 questions in the survey can be tiring so please take breaks as needed. Do not feel compelled to complete it in one sitting. You may exit the survey and return at a later time. Try your best to answer all of the questions, as I believe that each is valuable. The more completed surveys I receive, the more I can make meaningful conclusions.

It is also important to use the navigation buttons inside of the document; the software only saves information in pages and only when “next” is used to navigate. In order to insure anonymity, we have also programmed the survey to allow exiting and reentering the survey through a web link. Because of this, you will need to use the same computer each time you log back in to continue with your progress. It is best to use IE or Firefox. Chrome has had a couple of compatibility problems.

Thank you, again, for your valuable participation! I hope that you can feel proud for what you are providing. I also hope that your self-examination will be enlightening for you too. If you have questions while you are taking the survey, please feel free to email me. Any technical issues, please email Ms. DuBois at cynthiamdubois@gmail.com. She will happily assist you.

Sincerely,

Dr. Suzanne Chabaud

You can take the survey here.

So yes, I'd say her nerves were bad

It's always fascinated me that we live in a culture that casts so many aspersions on the mentally ill. Blame the Puritans, I guess, as well as any of the Founding Fathers that subscribed to the idea that if you were physically ill, you clearly brought it on yourself by displeasing God. It's not that far of a leap for us to think that the mentally ill are weak, or shiftless, or have done something to bring their misfortune upon themselves.  Pull yourself together! Why can't you just snap out of it?


Or, in our case, we hear others say such things about our parents, if anyone knows about their situation at all. Frances Boudreaux recently published Where the Sun Don't Shine and the Shadows Don't Play. She writes about growing up with her mother, who was a clinically depressed, schizophrenic hoarder. (Just typing that last phrase made my heart ache. Honestly, could it get much worse than that?) 


In an interview, she mentions that "In the 1960s in rural Central Louisiana, you didn't talk about mental health issues. It was OK just to say your nerves were bad, which my mother did." On a larger scale, I think society has moved more toward openness in the past few decades. At least there are conversations happening and funding put toward supporting those struggling with mental illness. On a smaller scale, though, I question how much truly has changed. Hoarding is such a bizarre and misunderstood illness that I very rarely have heard another person begin a conversation about it, even when their lives have been deeply impacted by a hoarder. Yet, when I've mentioned it, I'm almost always surprised by the other person's response. "Oh, my uncle was a hoarder. You should have seen his house!" "My sister..." "My dad..." and so on. There's so much shame and fear of judgment for being related to a hoarder that often, we limit ourselves to saying even less than "her nerves were bad." And so the shame and secrecy continue and we continue to feel alone, even though we truly aren't.  It's enough to make me wonder what would happen if we could be a little bit braver, a little bit more open -- if on a smaller scale, with the people who touch our own lives, we could keep that conversation going.

God bless Elizabeth Vargas

Seriously, the most awesome thing I've seen all day are Elizabeth Vargas' facial expressions in this 20/20 special about children of hoarders. As she clambers through the hoard, it's actually kind of funny to watch the spasms of horror cross her face. This is a woman who probably should never play poker. After mountaineering her way through the hallway to the living room in what seems to be a state of shock, she picks up and puts down a mustard bottle and then a ketchup bottle, clearly thunderstruck by the fact that they are being stored on the living room floor. (Apparently, she keeps hers in the fridge. Huh.)

There was something very validating about being reminded that growing up as a child in a hoarded home is, to most people, completely foreign and simply unacceptable. 20/20 clearly articulated some of the most damaging and lasting effects of growing up this way. Continuously receiving the message that your parent's junk is more important than you are leaves lasting scars. The feelings of worthlessness and hopelessness have a way of following you, although they are most unwelcome companions.

Watching the show was a little difficult for me. But I also felt uplifted by the profiles of hoarders' children who have grown up and gotten out, moving on to create lives of their own. And to Jason Brunet, whose mother was featured on this show and on Hoarders -- your brave message of hope is actually even more awesome than the expressions on Elizabeth Vargas' face. You're right: there are people out there who understand. And there is always hope. So to those of you who are still living with or struggling with a hoarding parent, to those of you who feel worthless and helpless and like nothing will ever change -- it does get better. It truly does.

Wait, how is this my fault?

The comment OneWeeSpark left about this article on children of hoarders got me thinking. A line in the article states that "There are no easy answers to this, which is why so many families of hoarders give up trying to change them." Reading this shot me right down memory lane, back into one of the less-than-delightful aspects of being the child of a hoarder.

Growing up, most people didn't know much about my mother's hoarding. Those that did, while well-intentioned, clearly didn't understand what was going on. There's such a misperception that hoarders are just lazy, disorganized slobs who should get up off their couches (if they can still find room on the couch next to all the piles of newspapers) and just start throwing things away. When someone new actually would see the inside of our house, which didn't happen much, they would typically ask (understandably), "How can you live like this?" This question was often followed by some form of disappointment that we kids weren't helping our mother enough, or the expectation that we should just dive in and start throwing things away, or another insinuation that we were somehow responsible for what was happening.

"...Which is why so many families of hoarders give up trying to change them." It took me years -- decades, really -- to come the the conclusion that (brace yourself!) it is not, in fact, my job to cure my mother. I cannot solve the problem by riding in on a white horse (or a white Dumpster, maybe) and throwing everything out. Hoarding has such deep psychological roots that, typically, if a house it cleared out against the hoarder's will, he or she will just fill it back up again.

Besides that, when did it become the child's job to care for and change the parent? Would someone ask the child of an alcoholic to help Mommy quit drinking? The child of a schizophrenic to help Daddy cut down on his pesky paranoid delusions? Blaming the children of hoarders for "allowing" our parents to live the way they do not only misses the mark, but also deepens our sense of shame around an issue we don't need to be ashamed of.

Now we know, and knowing is half the battle

God bless the internet. When I first heard the term "compulsive hoarding" in the late 90's, two things happened. First, I thought, "Oh! So THAT'S what's wrong with my mother." Second, I thought, "Great! So if there's a name for this thing, there must be a ton of information out there about it." I was right on the first thought, wrong on the second. At that point, research on compulsive hoarding was in its infancy and there just wasn't much information available. There is now. It is oddly comforting to me that Googling "compulsive hoarding" pulls up 402,000 results (and counting).

Back then, I felt alone. Even though I knew there must be other people going through what I'd been through, no one was talking about it. Today, people are making TV shows about hoarding. People are writing blogs and web sites and books about hoarding. So not only are we friends and relatives of hoarders not alone, but now we know what's going on with Mom (or Grandpa, or Aunt Judith, as the case may be). And knowing is half the battle.