You know when you see a lifelong friend for the first time in years and you wanna run, jump in their arms, and hug them?
Uh..well..that's what I feel like doing to yall!
I have been a "packrat", sustained in a very high level of 2nd (and once in a while, 3rd) degree squalor my entire life.
Until the past few days, however, I had no idea such a coined word even existed in reference to my plight...much less tons of others who lived like I did, with the same thoughts, actions, feelings, and (seemingly unbreakable) habits! People like me end up on the news having their homes condemned or on episodes of Clean House.
I'm 26 years old, an only child, married for almost 3 years, and have a 10 month old baby. I'm a college graduate, was valedictorian in high school, have worked in HR management, and present a good "outer" image. Behind closed doors though is horrible!
Since childhood, I've been acutely aware of the overly emotional attachments I have with things, but have never known how to cope with it. My mom and dad are packrats & messy nowadays too, although I dont remember their house being messy when I was under 12 years old so I don't know if this is inherited traits or a product of life changes amongst my parents and me?
My childhood room at home was always terribly messy though. Most of the time it would get cleaned once every few months after being fussed at by Dad. One time when I was around 9, my cousin cleaned my room for me while I was away and I got terribly upset ( to the point of crying and yelling at my parents) because she had thrown away my paper plate. I don't remember why...i think I had drawn something on there.
Cleaning skills was something I did NOT have.... being an only child, I was quite spoiled in the area of domestic duties. Mom thought that she was giving me a better childhood by letting me "be a kid", but I've since learned that while it gave me a "better" childhood, it took away an "easy" adulthood.
I didn't move out from my parents until 2006 when I married, and I will admit only to you guys that my room hadn't been cleaned in over 2 years at that point. I was the "queen" of packing...there was sooo much stuff and everything had a perceived sentimental value. I have always been good about clearing out "real" trash, but "good" STUFF was a total different thing! Especially clothes...oh lord, the clothes...I wasted over 10 grand during my teen years on clothes. Today I kick myself thinking how it could have been invested.
Anyway...so flash forward to age 23 (2006) when I married. It took a year to realize that my laundry fairy didn't move in with me. Where was she? and why, oh why was my husbands clothes from the last 5 weeks staring at me in the eye???
How in the world was it possible for a home in which 2 people were both gone 10 hours per day....could stay so filthy?
? It seemed as if my efforts were like spitting on a blazing building! I wasnt sure how it happened - one day things would be semi tidy, then poof...we'd be wading through paths, jumping over things, and eating take-out...or crashing at my parents because it felt too depressing to be in our hovel of a pigsty..
When we married, my husband came into our home with nothing more than the shirt on his back (he had just moved from NY and was staying with someone here, so he owned nothing) - it was MY stuff that completely filled our 1100 sq. ft 3 bedroom home. I would barely get a path made when my dad would "make" me bring more of my childhood STUFF over from their home to my new one. . So add sentimental childhood stuff + wedding presents + 1st year of married life STUFF...and you have complete CHAOS. I have always been embarrassed of my messy habits and don't think I've ever taken any photos either. It was just horrible all the stuff that filled our home. My husband is a messie too, but not to the packrat extent that I am...he's just not the type to clean up after himself. He takes my lead - if I'm clean, he is...but if I slack, he does too.
We also have pets (3 dogs, and a ferret who just recently passed away), and we've had times where their poop and pee got bad...2 years ago, my Gabby had puppies in my closet. When they started moving around we baracaded them up them in our kitchen (which became unusable), and the poop got completely out of hand. Then there was the time when the mice population got outta control...thousands of them, literally. The poop was overwhelming with them too. (I'm really too embarrassed to even write this and was tempted to erase this whole paragraph).
Ive tried everything...before and after marriage...to "get organized". I'd buy organizational books (another vice of mine - book clutter), read organizational blogs, follow flylady..! Things would be fine for a day or so, but then somehow it would all fall apart and I'd wake up one day with a completely squalored environment again. I could never figure out exactly what was wrong with me. Nothing the books said "truly" applied to my problems!
Anyway, I've now been married almost 3 years.
For the past 2 years I've been taking TINY baby steps towards a brighter, cleaner future. My first successful step was learning to let go of useless things - papers, magazines, shoeboxes, magazines, torn shirts, toilet paper rolls, used giftwrap, shoes that were no longer wearable. For a long time I simply would not get rid of any thing like that for all of the common fears (may use it someday, may need it, someone else may need it, etc). I remember how victorious I felt one day when I threw away an old junk mail pamplet from some college (that I didn't even go to) . A small step, but I'm sure you all understand the feeling of triumph! My mom even joked with me about being able to throw it away.
For the past year and a half, I've been working on slowly taking things to the thrift store (a previously undoable feat because of all the sentimental value attached to everything). It was very liberating watching my husband take the boxes away in the car (haha, I was too chicken to take them myself...I may have backed out!).
I've also been working on learning to clean in small spurts. Being a perfectionist, I never ever ever thought cleaning could be done in spurts - cleaning to me meant hours and hours of work. Therefore I'd only "clean" when the mood struck - and it would be all out cleaning, scrubbing, painting, the works. My mom even calls those moods "cleaning spells" because she could tell when they hit me. I've greatly improved since our first year of marriage, but I still slide back into squalor every now and then. I find that now that I have a baby, I'm more determined than ever to have a clean & clutter free home.
Over the past 8-9 months I've lifted myself out of my 2nd degree squalor habits and have kept a semi clean home...nothing I would be proud of my mother in law to see (thankfully she lives in NY!!!!), but "ok".
Also, I don't know when it happened (i think when my baby was born) but I've lost that strong sentimental attachment to everything. Just today I forced myself to throw away scented candle jars from my wedding that had a bit of wax still in them. I was so proud of myself. It was HARD, but I still did it. I also had my husband throw away two retail boxes that my mario batalli pots came in that my uncle gave me last month. They were such NICE strong boxes, but I knew rationally they were just clutter. I didn't watch as my husband left out the door with them though (he mockingly yelled out "help me! save me!" as he exited). But still. I've come a LONG way. And just last week, I sold 30 lbs of clothing on Ebay! It was hard, but I'm still alive and kicking. So, that's good, right?
I also realize now that when things are cluttered and dirty, I tend to get depressed easier...or is it vice versa? Either way, depression and squalor seem to go hand in hand in my world.
Anyway, I found Squalor Survivors a few days ago and have been reading everything in detail shaking my head in agreement to everything mentioned. I seriously could have wrote many of the testimonies....so many of the motivations and reasons and feelings mentioned are things that I think too, although I never knew anyone else ("normal") lived or felt like I did. After all, I'm not ***, I'm educated, middle class, private school, no terrible abusive relationships, no drugs, etc. I was always embarrassed by my hidden messy secret.
So...after reading sooo many posts on here now, I felt like I just had to join and shout hurray.