Hi all,
I've been reading your boards for some time now, but haven't made a post of my own, due to not being sure if I really belong here or not... I think I do, though, and I'd like to share my story in its entirety (something I've never done before). I apologize if this is rambly and stream-of-consciousness-y. Like I said, I've never admitted the depth of this to anybody so it's hard to really know how to tell it all. This is probably going to be incredibly long.
I'm not a hoarder by any means. I guess I would be considered a clutterer. When I look at this site:
74.125.93.104/search?q=cache:A8Gc7BPzIr0J:www.clutterersanonymous.net/20questions.html+clutterer&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us, I am able to answer yes to questions 1, 4, 5, 7, 8 9, 10, 11, 18, 19, and 20. WELL, let me clarify; in the PAST, I could have answered yes to those questions. Currently, I cannot answer yes to any of them. My concern is keeping it that way.
A little background. I am 22 years old. I lived with my mom until I was 17, when I moved a few hundred miles away for college. I dropped out a year and a half later and moved back in with my mom. When I was 20, I sublet a room from one of my girlfriends, but we made MUCH better friends than roommates, so I moved back in with mom again after a year. It has been 13 months since then, and last week, my fiance and I moved out together. As you can see from my brief history, this is the first time I have had an entire home under my responsibility rather than just a room.
My mom is definitely a clutterer, but has never lived in filthy conditions. She buys more than she needs for the house, and is fairly *** about cleaning/putting things away, but keeps things reasonable, albeit messy. She absolutely hates cleaning, and the only time I have known her to clean is if she's very angry (she will take out her frustrations on the mess, I guess) or if she has taken a diet pill. Basically, there was never any regular or maintenance cleaning, just bursts of cleaning frenzies every 2-3 weeks.
OK, back to my living situations. I've always been messy. Obviously, I pick this up from my mom. Apart from having bad cleaning habits herself, she never actually taught me how to clean either. Things I had to learn from people besides her: how to make a bed, how to clean a bathroom, how to fold laundry.. there's more, but you get an idea. There are still some basic things I don't know how to do, such as iron clothes (my fiance is going to teach me, for now we have Downy wrinkle releaser
) or how to clean an oven. That's not an excuse for my poor cleaning habits, though; it's easy enough to look online to learn how to do these things. I'm just explaining a bit of history.
So, growing up, my room was basically always messy. My mom would tell me to clean it when it got too bad, which basically consisted of stuffing as much as I could under the bed and vacuuming the carpet. When I got to be a teenager, she stopped enforcing room cleaning, and it got really bad. Worse than I've ever admitted to anyone. I didn't even go in my bedroom for a year or so (around age 15)except to throw more junk in there and clean my pets' cages.. I slept in the living room. I had a pet rabbit and 4 rats living in there and I was shamefully *** about cleaning after them. Eventually, (and this is literally my life's biggest regret), I gave up on them and gave all the animals to the shelter. I am really disgusted with myself for doing that now, and realize now how important it is for animals to have forever homes. I have done much better by the pets I have had since then, but I don't think I'll ever fully forgive myself for giving up on the ones I had as a teenager.
OK, sorry for the tangent. So, even after getting rid of the animals, I still didn't go in that bedroom for a long time. I finally did, and it took days of leaving the windows wide open to air out the room before the stench dissipated enough for entering the room to be bearable. I knew how badly I had done by those animals, and I also realized how much I hated cleaning cages, so I swore to myself never to get a caged animal again. It then took a couple of days to clean everything out of the room, but finally it was livable again (though still somewhat cluttered). It had been really disgusting.. I can't mince words. Piles and piles of things, rotting food, animal droppings, papers and junk everywhere. It was truly abhorrent. After I cleaned it out, it became messy again very quickly, but never FILTHY like it had been before. (Me not having to actually live in the room definitely contributed heavily to its previous filth.)
As I mentioned above, I moved out to go to college. I shared a room, so while things might have been a bit messy, they were never bad to the point of being embarrassing. Having someone else living in the room kept me accountable. This was actually one of the cleanest periods of time in my life... I was even washing my bedsheets once a week!
In my sophomore year of college, I dropped out and went back home to live with mom. I can't really remember what my room was like at this time. Probably messy, as always, but not horribly so. But, then, my boyfriend (at the time) wanted guinea pigs.
You may remember that I had promised myself I would never have caged animals again. I wanted to abide by this.. I told him that I hated taking care of caged animals, I was bad at it, they wouldn't live well with me, etc. He was leaving to go back to college in a month's time, so pleaded with me for the guinea pigs to stay with me just until he left for college (his mother wouldn't let him have them in the house). Unwisely, I relented.
Well, those damned guinea pigs lived with me until they died (the last one passed away a few months ago). He NEVER took them! In my defense, I took care of them much better than I took care of the rats or rabbit (due to the guilt, I'm sure), but I'm positive that their standards of cleanliness were not up to where a "normal" person would want them. During the best of times, I was cleaning them every 3 days. During the worst (I had lost my job and couldn't even afford fresh bedding for them)... I don't even want to think about it. One of my most shameful, horrifying memories involves begging my mom for $10 to replace their bedding; they had gotten so filthy that my room was infested with fruit flies and it stunk. When I finally replaced the bedding, it was all soaked into one giant layer, and maggots were living underneath it. I remember vividly, gagging with horror, but thinking to myself, "You deserve this, you deserve this," while cleaning up the mess. That was after having them for about 6 months, and I can proudly say that they NEVER got that bad again. (The house did get a small fruit fly infestation two years later but it went away on its own and I was keeping up with their cage, so I don't think the guinea pigs had anything to do with it.)
At some point, I moved in with a friend of mine, and brought the guinea pigs with me. While living in her house, the cage never even got to the point where you could smell it. My room was still very messy, however, but I hid it where it couldn't be easily seen. (The room was sort of like an L shape, and I hid all the mess around the corner.) The shame of my friend (or anyone) discovering what a slob I was was a huge motivator. Of course, she had her own issues which led to me moving back in with mom after a little less than a year.
During the time I was living with my friend, my mother had had an addition put on the house and converted my old room into an office. I was given a new room, about 1/3 the size of my old room. It was very small, with no room for a dresser. I was able to fit a twin size bed, a desk (a very large desk, to be fair), a very small chest of drawers (tupperware style.. maybe 2.5 ft tall), and the guinea pigs' cage in the room, and that was it. With no dresser (and no closet either) in which to store clothes, my room became messy very, very quickly. That's not an excuse.. I could have at least folded them neatly or something, but I didn't. My desk and floor were extremely cluttered, and I never vacuumed. Maybe I vacuumed 2 times in the year I was living with my mom.
FINALLY, we come to the present day! Last week, my fiance and I got an apartment together. We have a bedroom, an office, a bathroom, a kitchen, and a large kitchen/dining combo. There are also 6 closets. This is to give you an idea of the space I am maintaining and what I have to work with.
The place is IMMACULATE. Well, my only complaints are the floors, but we don't have a vacuum or mop yet (we will be getting those this week and I can't wait). I am terrified of falling into my old patterns and have been working so hard to maintain the apartment's current pristine-ness. I wash the dishes and clean the counters every day. I have been practicing ETE and never leave any remnants of anything I do behind. I wipe down surfaces in the bathroom as needed and have already thoroughly cleaned it once (I intend to do so every week). Admittedly, 1 of the closets is a little disorganized, but at least everything in it is in bags/boxes, not just floating around loosely.
I have heard tale of people who grew up messy/with messy parents and when they got their own place did a total 180 into a neat freak. I hope and pray that's what's happening to me, but I'm so afraid I'll slide back into old habits. My fiance has no idea what a slob I can be. He has seen my room at my mom's house fairly messy, but he chalked it up to the fact that I was hardly ever there. (I spent 5 days a week at his place before we moved in together. The apartment we are living in now is NOT his apartment, it is new to both of us.) I want to live up to his expectations, and even more, I want to live up to my OWN expectations.
WOW. I have never admitted to anyone how gross I can be before. This has been pretty cathartic. Reading everyone's stories here and recognizing bits and pieces of myself in them has also been very cathartic. This forum and the squalorsurvivors website are both a great resource. I hope I am welcome in your community.
I'd really like to maybe get a buddy (or buddies?) to talk to, so we can keep each other motivated or vent or.. I don't know. I would really like to participate here. I am really inspired by you ladies and the huge strides you have made. Thanks so much for this forum. And if you've read this far, then KUDOS TO YOU!!!! You deserve a batch of homemade cookies! (And someone to clean up after cooking them!
)
