Hoarding memories

[cjsmith]

I honest-to-God know someone like this. No eBay, no glass tchotchkes, but many details (such as the sleeping arrangements) are eerily familiar.

My mother knows another one. In his car, there's just enough space for his body.

My grandma had leanings this way. When we cleaned out her house at her death, we found an incredible number of stunningly useless items. Y'know, some things are just useless (junk mail, perhaps) but some are mind-boggling in their uselessness (half of a bicycle, rusted into one fused modern-art-ish shape). But her case was peanuts compared to some of these. She could invite guests in. She slept on her bed. Her clothing was stored in closets she could physically reach.

I've thought about this a bunch because I too keep stuff I probably shouldn't. I'm bothered by the knowledge that whatever object it is I'm holding in my hands would have value to someone, somewhere. (O'course I can't necessarily find that someone.) So this is a theme that bounces around in my head. If I had fewer commitments outside the house, if I lived alone and owed no one the courtesy of picking up after myself in at least the common areas, would I head a lot farther in that direction?

Today the aspect that comes to mind is the idea that this kind of thing is so invisible. I could have next-door neighbors who will, in a week, be found dead of suffocation because the newspaper stacks fell over... and I'd never know it ahead of time. If it's that far advanced they won't let me in the front door, of course, and they present the same Sane, Well-Groomed, Perfectly In Control public face that most of us put on every day. What hides behind all those faces? I know what's behind mine, and I've seen glimpses of a few other people, but most of the intense living variety of fears and hopes and troubles and dreams is hidden most of the time.

NaNo beckons. I wonder if I'll make my little thief main-character a hoarder?

Comments

[joedecker.livejournal.com]

NaNo beckons. I wonder if I'll make my little thief main-character a hoarder?

Seems like there's a wealth of plot opportunites....

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Indeed! Now that I think of it, I can't use the thief that way. He needs to be agile and respond quickly to stuff. His life is going to change a lot. He can't be dragging a baggage train. But someone...

Hahahahahaha, the ruling Archduke! He's already pretty uninterested in actually running the place; this'll give him something else to be doing. Heh, possibilities. :-)

[dizzdvl.livejournal.com]

I have some of these people in my family. It's scary. Their kids can't ever have friends over because the friends can't come inside.

Scary.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

It is, really. A lot of us have a touch of this buried deep somewhere, and as long as it's not out of hand it doesn't bother anything. There are some pretty extreme situations out there though. The newspapers falling over and suffocating someone is not something I made up.

[just-cyd.livejournal.com]

omg. omfg. that's dad's garage for as long as i can remember, and any other space he's allowed to take over unsupervised. "but i might need that someday" or "that could be valuable/worth money/a collector's item/has nostalgic value" are very familiar.

definitly sending them that link.

(not that diane is above suspicions herself; she had a garage full of boxes from her ebay splurge before she started dating my dad. it took her and joel and entire day to break them down)

Oops, redoing comment, had wrong book in there.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Sounds like the two are well-matched. A packrat who marries a neatnik is asking for trouble, and all too often gets it when the neatnik gives the ultimatum "your stuff or me". (The author of Stop Clutter from Stealing Your Life has been divorced this way multiple times.) But a packrat and a packrat might be a match made in heaven.

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

I used to live with someone like that. While he was on vacation, his housemate (landlady, lover, whatever they were) hired someone to clean out the garage. They threw away about 30 tubes of hardened caulk, many pounds of rusty nails in coffee cans, lots more stuff, and he was really angry about it. But it was her garage, she'd asked him to clean it, and she wanted to park her car there.

I tend to pile, but I don't hoard total crap, and I do a clean-out every so often, as you saw. :)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Wow. Hardened caulk and rusty nails. Wow.

Like you, I tend to pile but I also clean up every so often. :)

What's really sad to me is the people who hoard cats. Living conditions for those poor animals can get heart-sickeningly awful.

[gorillashaman.livejournal.com]

Clearly not any of my business, but the best thing that girl could do for her mother would be to find a way for the whole mess to burn down to the ground some night when mom's out at a bridge game or something. Wow.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Odd how I presumed it was a guy, not a gal.

[rampling.livejournal.com]

I hope you never say anything like that to someone who's a packrat or hoarder. I know from experience that such a statement feels hurtful and violent. It comes off as intolerant and does nothing to help. The person will likely just push you away -- I know, because I tend to cease being friends with anyone who says such things about my place (which isn't nearly as bad as the one in the link). Just a bit of advice from someone on the other side.

[desertmommy.livejournal.com]

I say we nominate her for that TLC show called "Clean Sweep".

I'd love to be on it also

[lesliepear.livejournal.com]

But there are 2 problems:

We live in a condo, so there is nowhere for the yard sale part of the show

And last I checked they were only filming in California :(

[vito-excalibur.livejournal.com]

In regards to how you'd never know what your neighbors are doing; see the Onion last week (http://theonion.com/news/index.php?issue=4043&n=3)?

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

That captures it pretty well, yeah! :-)

[sunnydale47.livejournal.com]

This makes me feel much better ... I may be a pack rat, but I'm a normal pack rat! This poor woman obviously has severe OCD and the son (I think it's a boy, he has Transformers on display) is right, she really does need medication.

Meredith has complained twice that I have too much stuff that she'll have to deal with when I die. Considering that I'm only in my 50s and very healthy (chronic pain conditions don't affect mortality), I think her comments are uncalled for, to say the least. I e-mailed that link to her with this note:

Oh, you thought I was a pack rat, huh? You're worried about how much stuff *I* have? Read this!

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that woman is definitely a sigma or two out on the bell curve there. I feel sad when I look at all that stuff and think that in a way it has no value to her either, because she can't get at it or appreciate it or use it.

[cyan-blue.livejournal.com]

*sigh* I have a close friend on the Other Coast whose apartment - all three rooms of it - is like this. It's been that way for 10 years. He is too overwhelmed and depressed to deal with it.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

*nod* My friend seemed pretty overwhelmed and depressed to me, too, back when I was in closer touch with him, although goodness knows I'm not qualified to make any kind of actual diagnosis (and he'll refuse to speak to anyone who is). I wish he were happier. No matter what his apartment looks like.

Being a packrat, and working to manage it.

[rampling.livejournal.com]

Hi, I'm Clare, and I'm a packrat.

I'm a packrat combined with procrastination, so I have piles of stuff and old boxes that ovewhelm me, and I don't sift through them and filter them as I need to. I find that closed boxes of stuff ending up being nearly permanent to me, because if I open one to filter it, I'm instantly overwhelmed and intimidated. I can't just throw the stuff out, because I do know there are some important things buried in them that I want to keep. So they sit and fester and slowly grow. After I move, many boxes end up unpacked, and some boxes are from a few moves back, even. My place isn't as bad as the stuff pictured in the link you gave, but there are some uncomfortable resemblances.

I recently bought a couple of nice plastic boxes to merely replace some damaged cardboard boxes (4) that contain already filtered stuff that is all that remains from my childhood that still want to save. All I had to do was transfer stuff from the old boxes to the new nicer plastic boxes. I figured this would be an extremely simple start for me, since it didn't involve filtering (which is so unpleasant for me). But when I opened those old cardboard boxes, and started pulling stuff out, I immediately felt overwhelmed again, and ran away. So those nice new plastic boxes (and the nice bubble-wrap lined envelopes I purchased to protect a few old special plaques) just sit on top of those old damaged boxes. I couldn't even get through that simple task! Ugh, I need to find a way to get past these sorts of overwhelmed feelings.

I read a book about organizing that helped a lot; now I have ideas how to divide up the filtering and organizing into more manageable pieces that seems doable. But after my failure with the plastic boxes, I gave up. I keep telling myself to try again, but I don't (that procrastination thing).

Some people make comments like "you'd be better off if everything just burned to the ground." (http://www.livejournal.com/users/cjsmith/438601.html?thread=2663753#t2663753) I find that this kind of statement hurts me and makes me angry. I feel that such people don't understand at all. It feels to me like a violent and rude statement. It certainly doesn't help me at all to hear such things.

I will be buying that book you recommended above, Stop Clutter from Stealing Your Life (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1564145026/cjsflyinpage-20). I will buy it tonight.

I think I'll use this bit of motivation to attack that seemingly-so-simple plastic box move. Accomplishing that will give me the confidence to start on the rest, using those new divide-and-conquer techniques I've learned. Yes. I will get better at this.

Hmmm, I oughtta to make this a post (http://www.livejournal.com/users/rampling/155477.html) in my own LJ too.

Re: Being a packrat, and working to manage it.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

*big hug*

Lemme see if I can find some of my old posts... I was sure I made some describing this book. Darn, they're WAY far back.

The other book I erroneously mentioned in the now-deleted comment is Let Go Of Clutter. This one focuses a lot more on practical decisions than about understanding how you got here. Here's a post I made about that book and later another one and yet a third. I think I lost my steam about that time, but those three might help you decide whether you really want it or not.

About that first book, though, I can say that the author KNOWS whereof he speaks. He's been there. I don't know how gentle and understanding his words would seem to you, but he seemed to strike the right blend between total understanding and toe-nudging-butt for me. He runs out of steam on the practical suggestions after a while, but those aren't what I was looking for. I was looking for toe meeting butt.

Ack

[lesliepear.livejournal.com]

Mark and I tend to have packrat tendencies (he'll never admit it, but he tends to overbuy food at times). And having Alan hasn't helped things in our small condo. But we can get to things - and when I can, I do try to clean and declutter.

But then all of Alan's outgrown stuff I'm keeping ends up in MIL's garage. I'm not ready to part with it *ALL* yet - and none of our friends has had a baby since Alan.

I also feel overwhelmed sometimes when I want to start - I have a tote of papers that was on the dining room table and can't seem to bring myself to sort/file them - and the table's getting cluttered again!

Re: Ack

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Papers are the WORST! Last night I paid bills and instead of just putting all the statements in the usual To File corner of my desk, I put them in their folders. It took something like ten seconds (I only had a few statements). But gah, if I don't do that, the pile gets ginormous!

Help in the Denver Colorado area?

[amaebi.livejournal.com]

Hi! Very early this morning I read this thread. When I got to seminary, a friend on staff who'd been unhappy all quarter at last told me that the cause was that her roommate is accumulating pathological piles of stuff, dumpster-diving.

Does anyone here know a therapist for these issues who is working in the Denver area? Or any good search keywords, if not? Many thanks in advance.

Re: Help in the Denver Colorado area?

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I'll give it a whirl. Hopefully someone more knowledgeable than I am will chime in too.

- Hoarding is the diagnosis term. That's a good search keyword, and a therapist will be able to say whether s/he has experience handling it.
- I believe it's commonly said to be associated with OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder). That'd be another good search term. The Obsessive Compulsive Foundation may be able to point you to resources in your area.
- In my (very limited and completely untrained!) personal life, I've also seen it strongly associated with depression.

Sadly, unless the seminary has ways of forcing the issue, telling a person they've got a problem and need to seek help often doesn't work. :-/ I wish I had good advice to offer there.

[jupiter29.livejournal.com]

Since I don't know you, I suppose I should start by introducing myself. :) I hope you don't mind me wandering by, but I've seen a bunch of comments from you (probably in portia's journal, mostly) and you always seemed reasonably sane and intelligent, so I came over to your journal to take a look around. I think it was the phrase "grease her up and stand back" that finally won me over. :)

But, anyway, I did have a reason for commenting. I swear.

I can't see the link you posted, so I can only guess the context from your post, but I've actually been in a house like this. About ten years ago, The guy who lived next to my mother died suddenly, and the mental health people had to come to take his wife away. She wouldn't go unless someone would agree to take care of her dog, so I said I'd do it until they found her family. The first time I set foot in the house, I just about fell backwards. Newspapers, magazines, wooden chairs, there was just stuff everywhere. There was one vaguely man-sized path from the front door to the back door and a few chairs you could fall into along the way. And every other square inch of the house was covered with 3-6 foot high piles of crap.

Eventually we found the dog a home and the woman's sister came to look at the house. We gave her the key and she walked inside. Ten minutes later she walked out, got in her car and drove away and she never came back or returned another call. Eventually we had to clean the place out ourselves (or let it fall to rot next door) and it took months to turn it into a semi-reasonable place to live.

If it makes you feel any better, neither of the two people who lived there were exactly well-balanced. The man was nasty and disagreeable and the woman never spoke to us in all the years she lived there until her husband died and they were taking her away. Creating something like that house takes some serious kind of mental instability, in my opinion.

Don't get me wrong, I can be a slob. And I have way too many books and more pieces of old computer equipment around than I should. :) But to the point where it begins to control your life, I don't think that's something you can slide into all that easily. You can get there without being aware of it, I'm sure, but those around you will know. That's why I always make sure I bring people into my house every couple of weeks. ;)

So, this is the worst possible time to bring this up now that I've admitted to being a slob pack-rat who once had crazy neighbors, but as I said I wandered by to see what your journal looked like, and it seems interesting. I went ahead and added you to my list, if you ever feel the desire to look around my journal and see if anything interests you. If it doesn't, no biggie. :)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

"grease her up and stand back"

*giggle*

Thanks for letting me know how you found me, by the way! Sometimes I wonder just where in the world a post wound up getting quoted. ;-) Pleased ta meetcha!

Creating something like that house takes some serious kind of mental instability, in my opinion.

It's usually associated with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, yeah. Although not all hoarders appear to their neighbors to be wacko. My friend, who couldn't sleep on his actual bed ever, and who moved stuff from the sleeper sofa to the bathroom floor and back every day in order to sleep and shower, holds down a perfectly normal job and I bet not one of his coworkers has any idea what his place looked like.

That's why I always make sure I bring people into my house every couple of weeks. ;)

A handy self-check! ;-)

Thanks for adding me - and if I ever cease to interest or amuse you, I promise I won't wig out if you un-add me. I'll add you back just to get to know you a bit.

[therobbergirl.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking of my Aunt Bea (everyone should have an Aunt Bea, doncha think?) and feeling stunned as I look through the pictures at the link. I'm not stunned at the pictures. It's that Aunt Bea's house was so much worse. Really, no hyperbole. Nevermind an overdose of fridge magnet, my aunt had to buy one of those dorm-sized refrigerators because she could no longer reach her regular one. (You did not want to be there when it was finally reached and cleaned out.)

My aunt is a tiny woman and good thing -- her front door opened only half a meter and even then you have to shove it hard against the crap behind it.

She's only five feet tall so for the longest time, the stacks of boxes only reached six feet. Then she bought a step ladder. Fortunately, she lost it in the rubble so most of the stacks remained only as high as she could throw and then adjust on her tiptoes.

To sleep, every night she removed boxes from her bed and stacked them precariously in the tiny footpath approaching the bed. She was very good about going potty before going to bed, you can be sure!

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Wow. Some days I'm really amazed at how *many* people this affects, y'know? And how strongly. I mean, if I don't go in someone's house (or see their car) I simply don't ever see it. I bet Aunt Bea is a social and kind woman and could hold down a job.

Sounds like Aunt Bea's house is in the past tense, but she herself is not. Did she move? Did family members come by with shovels? What happened to change her environment to something different?