How I got out of squalor/hoarding:
One thousand plus hours of work,
to get out of Fourth Degree Squalor
AND
unhoard 35 years of stuff.
I started out in Fourth Degree squalor (according to the SqualorSurvivors scale).
I didn't realize that I was also a hoarder because I don't have emotional attachments to things, and I hate to shop.
Once I started unsqualoring, I realized that I had 35 years of PAPERWORK in hundreds of boxes, that I was scared to get rid of.
The definition of hoarding is "
difficulty discarding items -- which take up space and make some living areas unusable as intended"
So I realized that ...
I'm not a "shiny things" hoarder.
I'm not a "sentimental memories" hoarder.
But ... I am a paperwork hoarder.
I joined the former forums at SqualorSurvivors in April 2006. I read and wrote but was too paralyzed to do anything at all.
I would try the chatroom. Fifteen minutes seemed HUGE and IMPOSSIBLE. Even five minutes was too much.
Sometimes I could do a 30-second challenge, but that was rare, and still felt scary.
A friend came one day in November 2006 --- and helped me wash all my clothes at the laundromat . She also cleaned my kitchen. But I wasn't able/willing to maintain anything.
At that time I was mainly worried about FINANCIAL squalor, as I was months behind on rent, and in dangerous debts to shady companies, so financial recovery had to be my main focus.
My journey out of squalor began in January 2008. My home was being sold to a new landlord and the bank needed to come inspect. A friend from SqualorSurvivors drove to my home and helped me do a 13-hour marathon of cleaning, and stash-and-dash, to get it presentable.
I kept it maintained for 5 months but then fell back into squalor.
And it was HARD to maintain because everything was in "stash-and-dash" boxes -- so I had to dump things out to find anything. There was no real order to anything. I didn't know where things go.
My journey began again in November 2009 and January 2010, when I hired someone to help me. We worked on the kitchen and I got a lot done, but I wasn't able to keep up the energy and I just ... fell flat.
I fell back into squalor ... but at least the kitchen was arranged in a good way, and it has remained in that good arrangement, thanks to my helper from that time period.
Then I gave up.
In mid-August 2010 -- I decided to really COMMIT to getting it done, and I then found someone who could help me longterm.
I committed to a marathon of 20 or 30 hours EVERY week.
But I took breaks and ate. Morning break. Lunch break. Afternoon break.
I unhoarded each item and looked at it, one piece of paper at a time, and made decisions. I had someone sitting with me, but I made all the decisions myself. It was emotionally exhausting.
Every five weeks, I took a week off.
Sometimes it was two weeks in a row that were taken off.
With this method, I unhoarded 35 years of stuff, one item at a time. I had set hours every week during which I did this process.
I also included paying bills and maintaining gains
WITHIN the 20-30 hours.
And I paid someone to sit with me through all of it. She listened to me talk out loud about every item, and she listened to me emotionally process everything. Sometimes I just sat and talked for an hour, but I count that as "work", because it was ESSENTIAL mental-emotional work.
My helper did do some heavy lifting and heavy scrubbing. But most of the real work was done by me.
I paid her for 980 hours of work ... spread over one year and four months.
So it basically took me that long ... to unsqualor and unhoard.
Working hours were set as:
- 8 hours Wednesdays 10am-6pm
less one 20-min break.
- 8 hours Thursdays 9am-5pm
less two 20-min breaks, and a one-hour lunch.
- 7 hours Fridays 9am-4pm
less two 20-min breaks, and a one-hour lunch.
That averages 23 hours, less 2 lunches = 21 hours.
Sometimes we did 9-hour days, but not often.
There were some days when my "decision muscles" in my brain were just TOO TIRED, and I could NOT unhoard another item that day. When that happened, we would try something different, such as give the dogs a bath, or organize my dance costumes.
I also did about 4 or hours of miscellaneous household things (mostly paperwork and shopping errands) during one "day off" -- done by myself without support from my aide.
This is how I came up with the figure of "30 hours per week".
I treated it like a job. Because ... it *was*.
What I did on my "days off":
- Four hours a week working on my stepwork for my 12step program, writing and conferring with my sponsor.
- I also attended several meetings in various 12step programs on various days of the week.
- During the rest of the week, I relaxed, guilt-free. I had fun. I went swimming. I laughed.
- I practiced my spiritual belief.
- And I took care of my health. Medical appointments, physical therapy, etc.
Without set days for FUN, I would not have been able to sustain such hard work over such a long time period.
So it was a marathon ... but filled with breaks.
A marathon in the sense of "very long race".
Not a sprint.
I have no human children and I am unemployed. I had other financial resources to live on. So my only responsibility ... was caring for my pets.
I had the time and the finances, so I took the opportunity to get it done.
Paying my helper cost me a TON of money. But I considered this to be like a drug addict going to inpatient rehab for a month or two. It costs a ton -- but it was necessary for ME ... to do it this way ... in order to have a CLEAN base to stay clean from.
It is worth it to me ... to be "SQUOBER".
(sober from squalor)
We worked from August 2010 through October 2011 very hard.
After it was all done, my landlord hired people to pack up my belongings and move everything out for a few weeks, and he paid for storage, and he gave me a temporary place to stay.
And then my landlord and his staff used the paint colors that *i* chose and the carpet that *i* chose, to make my home BEAUTIFUL. And then his staff moved all my belongings back in, where I directed.
During the following 2 months, after the renovations, my helper and I did a little more work, but we took more weeks off in between sessions.
I paid her for a total of 980 hours over the entire timespan.
My home is beautiful and I am grateful, and I keep it clean.
I started out with it being hard to even do 30 *seconds* of work at a time.
As the years went by, I worked up to 30 hours in a week.
Edit to add ... it was actually MORE than 1,000 hours.
I paid my helper for 980 hours
but ... I did some work on my own each week, too.
So, in addition to the 980 hours working with a helper,
you could add about 200 hours of my own towards paperwork, groceries, selecting paint and carpet, planning, etc.
More than a thousand hours.
Adding another edit:If I had been able to toss paperwork aggressively, I would have been done a LOT faster. But this is where my "inner hoarder" insisted that each piece of paper be gone through, one at a time.
I wish I had had been bold enough to toss faster. But I wasn't. So I spent more time, energy, and money to do it perfectionistically.