Disorder's Life #6

Well, seems I got the days wrong. After spending a restless night tossing & turninng & unable to get a good nights sleep, turns out that it wasn't this morning that the decluttering charity guys were due to come but tomorrow morning!! So now I'll probably have another resless night of tossing & turning to look forward too, great huh! *sighs!*.

Disorder's Life #5

Back home & alone again after spending the week at my father's home with my 3 children. They're living else where but I get to see them at least every weekend in my father's home. And there's hope that if I do get my place back to how it should be my children can return home to me.

Tomorrow the people from the charity that helps declutter, cleans & organise homes like mine are coming round, in the morning. To say I'm feeling nervous, anxious & afraid would be an understatement. I don't know if they know what is "rubbish" & I'm sure they're thinking the same thing about me lol.

I know I can get my home back with help, but it depends what kind of help that is. Chucking all my things out is not what I would call help, sifting through it all on the other hand is. In the past the kind of help I was offered amounted to ditching your possession as trash & starting from scratch, also known as a "Blitz Clean". I couldn't do that, infact I'm pretty darn sure that for me this approach would probably have been more likely to increase the hoarding behaviour. It would of at least traumatised & damaged me psychologically.

I'm off to bed now with a sleeping pill so that I can at least try to be as well rested as possible for tomorrow.

Disorder's Life #4

At my father's for the week with my children. They're on half term holiday but are not allowed  to live with me because of the state of my home, so when I see them it's always at my dad's place.

I would go into it more but it's (them being away from me) not an easy thing to talk about. It has been & still is a very painful experience/situation for me. I can't even imagine what it must be like for my children. I have alot more to say but....

Man, I hope this will be a situation (not detailed) in the future that I and my girls can all look back on & say it helped our family & not destroyed it.

Disorder's life #3

Had an appointment this afternoon with an organisation called Thames Reach, My housing's KiT service & a charity called Mobile Repairs Service. I had felt quite bullied on the first visit I had with the allocated support worker from Thames Reach, so on the 2nd visit I asked for the support worker from the mental health service (as I have OCD, depression & anxiety) to be present.

Maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel???

Disorder's life #2

Yesterday my closes friend, the only friend who knows about the state of my house came round, I had asked them if they might be able to help me abit & they were kindly willing. I had many reasons for not asking them before now if they could help.

1. They have physical health problems for which are classed as disabled.
2. I never have visitors (as you can imagine hoarding is an intensely embarrassing & humiliation problem) & it was only over the last few months (after they spent months pestering me about it) I felt trusting enough to let them in my home. The first couple of times I led them (oh the shame of it!) eyes closed to a room I felt was not as bad as the rest of the house. They tolerated that request quite well but never lets me forget it, lol!

When they came & saw the full extent of my hoarding yesterday they were so good about it. I was hyper sensitive, watching their every reaction & feeling intensely embarrassed. But they seemed very understanding, empathetic & unjudgemental.

When we started the tidying I found myself having to stop many many times because I started to feel very anxious & overwhelmed, especially when I  saw them touching things to throw away. We agreed that they would show me first before throwing something away but I was still on high alert anyway, watching their every move from my peripherals, & then I saw it! them try to make a few decisions of their own,for eg; they were about to throw away a sock! I know, it's just a sock, but it has a pair & once found & washed can continue it's purpose to be worn.

Anyway, when I just had to stop, they were abit pushy & didn't understand why we had to keep stopping & starting. But, they didn't really get fed up or at least they didn't show it lol, & in the end we decided that it was better if they just hold the bin bag while I put stuff into it. This small thing really really helped.

I lasted 2 hours because I had to stop for the day, they didn't think we had accomplished much & wanted to keep on going but I couldn't. I felt we did quite good considering the emotional/psychological state I'm thrown into with this.

Today I think I might be able to continue the work I started with my friend yesterday. I will at least try & see how I go. I'm thinking I will have/need about 4 bin bags: 1) Rubbish, 2) Clothes, 3) Letters, 4) Toys. I'm not making any firm decisions right now that yep I'm gonna just do it today, less the pressure I put myself under causes me to crash & burn.

The main thing I know is I can't push myself too much. My perfectionist personality causes me to over examine & analyse things alittle too much, until I'm at the point of not even being able to move for fear of making the wrong decision. I read somewhere there's some frontal lobe decision making mechanism playing up here in hoarders.

Disorder's Life

Trying to get past the mental block that hinders me from clearing up the clutter & mess of my home. Every time I think about or even make a move to sort this place out a heaviness comes over me, pressing down on me like a big leaded blanket. It's crippling!

I over analyse things in attempt & a strive for perfection. What am I left with at the end of it? Anything but perfection, infact something worst than if I just went ahead with it and did! without thinking.

I've noticed that I need someone with me to clear this place up, when I do it on my own there is no feed back, so I don't feel any accomplishment, though I'm thinking if I reward myself with something i really want then that might give me the boost I need.

Worst still I've had people take one look at my efforts & ASSUME that NOTHING has been done. This leaves me feeling deflated, like well what was the point of all that hard work if no one can even tell.

The current situation (involving my family life & housing) I'm in I'm getting ALOT of misconceptions & assumption made about me, "they" are assuming that I don't want to change, that I don't want to make an effort to change, that I don't want to work with anyone to enable change. While in reality I always got so excited & felt a sense of relief when someone wanted to engage with finding help. But then they would inevitably ask "how can we help you?" WTF!

I would so like to work with experienced experts in this condition so I am not forced to try & think up my own  answers & cures to my problem.

I want someone to work WITH me, not over me (forcing, supervising, manipulating) or around me (so called Blitz clean). I want someone to help me achieve the goals I have in my mind, of a clean, ordered house. I want someone to listen to me, really listen, without jumping to conclusions & making assumptions.

I want to help other people like myself achieve the goals they had in mind that ended up making them have a hoarded house in the first place. People save things because they want to make use of it!