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Post by sparkle on Sept 15, 2009 22:20:30 GMT -5
I'm so new here that I haven't figured out the reply thing works but what I want to do is say Hello, my sister, to Bizzy. The way our lives work is so similar and I don't ever think I could have put it down on paper like you did. The squalor vs. hoarding is an interesting question but since I suffer from both, I've never had to put much energy into thinking it out. I do agree that with hoarding you will definitely have clutter and with clutter, squalor is going to hard to avoid.
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MiSC
Banned
Joined: May 2008
Posts: 1,611
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Post by MiSC on Sept 15, 2009 22:52:29 GMT -5
Sorry, I don't think a group that makes up its own "certifications" is any more qualified to name our condition than we are. The "pros"? Says who? The underlying organization is just another group that hopes to create a cash market for its credential - made up from whole cloth, same as the AKC or the folks who tried to put California black hair braiders out of business by creating a "license" that gave the founding group a monopoly on who would be allowed to work with people's hair. Check any book on the sociology of occupations and professions. This is a well known process. Look, I have no particular objection to any particular group. I am saying bluntly: we should not give up our autonomy in any way to students who want to become EXPERTS ON US. The idea is silly on its face. Sheepskin psychosis is not a substitute for our personal truths. We should not accept outsiders' pronouncements on us as if they know one thing we do not know. As far as I'm concerned, I don't feel as if I'm obliged to accept a marketing group's idea of what I should call myself as if it contained any Higher Truth. It does not. It's a MARKETING PACKAGE. Creating professional jargon is just a way to distance Outsiders from Insiders, the better to sell their package of marketing advantages. "What we on this board call squalor" is just as legitimately called squalor as the jargon promoted by brochures made up by Learned Professionals whose overt goal is to communicate WITH ONE ANOTHER, not with us. Pros = Certified Professional Organizers and psychologists, many of whom work in tandem when dealing with clients who are hoarders. Wow. Attitude much?
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Post by messyang on Sept 15, 2009 22:56:26 GMT -5
As I said in the other post reply, I know I am NOT a hoarder. I throw everything away, even things I need, like tax forms, bills, etc. I have never had any emotional attachment to anyTHING. When keepsakes get dirty, I throw them away , too. I have pawned every piece of jewelry I have ever owned, despite the giver or circumstance of the gift. But I do seem to "collect" cobwebs, dirt, and my dogs drag things out of the trash and litter the house if we forget to cover the garbage cans. I have been known to throw away dishes and utensils to avoid washing them, because they are in such a filthy state. I am afraid that I really am the *L* word. I am a single mom (husband died) of four unruly kids (one autistic), and I live in fear that one day people will know how messy I am.
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Post by limegreen on Sept 15, 2009 23:04:58 GMT -5
Bizzy, I totally know where you are coming from, I can make a mess just sitting in a seat in a theatre, by the end of the show, my programme will be crumpled, all the flyers will have dropped out, and the middle pages will have become unstuck for good measure. Everyone else in the row will have nice souvenir progrmmes to take home, me, I have a pile of trash.
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Post by moggyfan on Sept 15, 2009 23:13:29 GMT -5
Yo, 60--I could not agree more with Every. Word. You. Wrote.
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Post by 60isolderthanithot on Sept 16, 2009 7:32:13 GMT -5
MisC, yes, attitude? Quite. I am not convinced that a fawning reading of someone's claim gives any credence to the claim. Who "certified" them? THEMSELVES. Check it out. Google it. Read the .pdf of their application and look at the "qualifications" to join. It's not a hard thing to do, checking up.
There's a long history of people being roughly handled at the hands of authorities who claimed to know all about someone else - that they were witches, for instance. Or mentally ill, or a bad mother or a neglectful wife or [insert all the claims that have been used to dismiss or boss women around].
It isn't just some quaint historical anomaly. Barely twenty years ago, a private company claimed it knew how to handle Homeowners Associations better than the amateur Boards elected by homeowners. Slowly but surely, they lobbied for enough power to create a "credential" which gave them the appearance of expertise. Part of that process was to hold classes and then define expertise = taking those classes. At their behest, for a few years, Homeowners boards were allowed to foreclose on people's homes if a conflict broke out and a homeowner refused to, say, pay a fine for having a flag that was larger than an arbitrary limit set by the Board. It only lasted a few years but it gave me extreme pause when I tracked back and realized the credential was just one big commercial venture. MANY groups have done the same thing. It is a truism of marketing that one can gain advantage by writing the specs of the job so nobody else can meet them.
People can LOSE THEIR HOMES AND KIDS when Authorities decide that a given level of squalor gives them a right to use force. We would be wise to be careful who we give power to. We don't need more leadership than we have. The 'tude I worry more about is the one where women routinely cave in to the guy in the lab coat and turn the shock dial up to Kill -- without questioning the authority of the one demanding obedience. In my opinion, unquestioning deference goes there. It's wrong and dangerously dependent. There's a reason so many grass roots groups in recent American history consider psychology to be the handmaiden of oppression. The psych community is not so inspiring if you analyze them the same way you'd analyze any other power group. Their own suicide and impairment rates would give anybody pause. ("Impairment" is their euphemism for being drunks and drug addicts. Most estimates I've seen put the figure around 10%.)
Questioning authority is a healthy thing to do anyway. When the stakes can go as high as we've seen them go in this group, with evictions and child custody in the mix, we _should_ question the entry and participation of anyone who is NOT a natural member of this community. That's no more than looking out the windows when someone knocks on the door at midnight.
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Post by 60isolderthanithot on Sept 16, 2009 7:43:03 GMT -5
Limegreen, I am laughing at the image of ending up with a lap full of popcorn and trashy bits of programme! You have a great attitude about it all. Sometimes things just happen.
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Post by 60isolderthanithot on Sept 16, 2009 7:49:41 GMT -5
Moggy, I don't share many of the risks that I've seen expressed in the board. No kids to take away, no landlord to throw me out of a rental if he peeks over the fence and sees that my living room is one big pile of boxes and old newspapers. But I sympathize with them. My heart has broken for everybody who's been hurt when Authorities move in. We've all read about the humiliation and fear that attends such incidents. We point it out to one another when there are newspaper articles. There is something to fear. It's not just For Our Own Good that we are punished by the exercise of legal force. It's also because we are perceived as beyond the pale and our children need protection from our dysfunction. It's logical to be wary of the powerful forces that are set into motion by media attention.
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Post by moggyfan on Sept 16, 2009 9:00:51 GMT -5
What you say about "credentialing" resonated very strongly with me. I think "pro"s of many stripes are all about the $$$ and much less about the results.
I know this is a bit off-topic but I noticed a thread has begun on Feng Shui. Now there's a group of "pro"s for ya! Penn & Teller had (have?) a Showtime program called "Bulls^&t"; on one memorable episode, they staged three very pricey "Feng Shui" consultations in the same home. They set up hidden cameras & paid handsomely for three different "FS" practitioners to visit and assess the rooms/furniture etc.
Well, of course they got three wildly opposing "readings" on the exact same floor plan & furniture (the couch is perfect, the couch is facing the wrong way, the couch is sucking up energy, the couch needs to go, the couch should be facing the door, the couch should not be facing the door, the couch should be straight, the couch should be at an angle, etc. etc.) . Even worse, when the supposed client left them alone in a room, a couple of the "experts" who had assistants in tow made sarcastic & disparaging remarks about the tackiness & bad taste of the fabrics and the decor.
Anyhow, the point of this long-winded rant is that I hate to see people forking over large amounts of hard-earned cash to so-called experts who don't know any more than they do.
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Post by 60isolderthanithot on Sept 16, 2009 9:22:31 GMT -5
I am less concerned about money than about the autonomy issues. When you let some stranger tell you who/what/how, etc., about who you are and how you live and what your life is like, they and the relationship they propose should be viewed with the same level of interest you'd show if you were thinking of having any other kind of intimate relationship with someone. It's legitimate, even wise, to find out about THEM, who they are, where they came from, what they do for a living....
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Post by howardsgirlfriend on Sept 16, 2009 9:38:14 GMT -5
As someone in the medical community, who believes strongly in the power of science to explain everything, I have my own biases, so I don't want to tread too deeply in the "experts" portion of this thread. I will acknowledge that medical "experts" make mistakes, too, especially when they don't have all the information they need, for whatever reason.
I sure appreciate your responses. My axiomatic belief that hoarding and squalor are always linked (particularily in my own case) has been challenged, first by "Hoarders," and now by your responses. I'll be contempleting what this means for my future for quite awhile.
I'm especially interested in your personal stories about this issue, and I'll share my own, when I have more time.
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pammybear
New Member
Joined: August 2009
Posts: 71
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Post by pammybear on Sept 16, 2009 10:27:59 GMT -5
Hi 60! Very nicely said. I do agree with you, and even if I didn't I wouldn't dream of challenging you. We're all allowed to have our own thoughts and feelings.
My particular take on hoarding experts is that if they have something helpful to say, then great. I've been researching and reading every book I can find. Most of them aren't helpful to me, but I've found many useful tips here and there. Worth the effort to do the research. But of course, this board here had FOR ME been worth far more - I've learned so much.
My hoarding expert scepticism also comes from the treatments my mother had over the years - she was your classic goat-trails depression kid hoarder. She tried to get help, other people tried to get help for her, but the "experts" brought in were awful. None of them helped. And it was all very expensive.
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Post by CourageouslyLion SeeksSerenity on Sept 16, 2009 10:45:11 GMT -5
- ... you've seen that NSGCD scale, right? What we, on this board, call "squalor" is covered on the hoarding scale that professional organizers and psychologists use. The NSGCD scale provides parameters that help the pros by supplying a common language. Umm ... I think that MiSC was simply trying to say that the NSGCD (National Study Group for Chronic Disorganization) calls all of these related conditions "hoarding". They don't seem to differentiate between "squalor" and "hoarding" on their scale. MiSC was pointing this out to clarify that SOME professionals lump it all together. It seems to me, that in such discussions, different people have different types of terminology. It doesn't necessarily make one group's terminology better than another group's terminology. It's just helpful to be aware of the fact that different people use different words to describe us. And, for ease of communication, it helps to know which "set of descriptors" someone is using for their part in a discussion. In Australia, the professional community has often used the term "domestic squalor" for everything (both hoarding and squalor). Especially as used by researchers - John Snowdon of Sydney Australia,
- and by Graeme Halliday who did research in both London England and in Sydney Australia.
www.nationalsqualorconference.com.au/presenters_1.phpwww.nationalsqualorconference.com.au/presenters_12.phpThere are other links that I found from the 1990's from Australia that refer to "domestic squalor". Here is an interesting article from Snowdon and Graeme about why they choose to use the word "squalor". www.sbgg.org.br/profissional/artigos/pdf/Severe.pdfNote that Snowdon and Graeme say in that article "squalor is a confronting word" -- which is the same thing that Pigpen says on the front page of SqualorSurvivors.com Our community was founded based on ideas from squalorsurvivors.com Squalor Survivors was inspired by Kimmy's original thread at juliemorgenstern.com tinyurl.com/jfk8yKimmy lived in Australia. Her therapist used the word "squalor" -- back in the year 2000. Bottom line: - In USA, many professionals use the word "hoarding" for everything.
- In Australia, many professionals use the word "squalor" for everything.
- Here on "Stepping Out of Squalor", some of us lump the two things together, and others of us differentiate.
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Post by breakingfree on Sept 16, 2009 12:46:47 GMT -5
Bizzy, I laughed so hard when you were describing the bumping into things, dropping the mail, etc., because you were describing me! I get squashed by elevator doors. The vending machine tried to eat my hand. I have fallen down the stairs several times (the last time was scary--I went head first instead of falling on my buttocks). What seems to be so easy and routine for others would become an ordeal for me. The writers for Two And A Half Men would have a field day writing scripts about my misadventures! Or, if someone were to keep a camera handy, perhaps I could win the ten grand on America's Funnies Videos BF
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MiSC
Banned
Joined: May 2008
Posts: 1,611
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Post by MiSC on Sept 16, 2009 14:33:59 GMT -5
- ... you've seen that NSGCD scale, right? What we, on this board, call "squalor" is covered on the hoarding scale that professional organizers and psychologists use. The NSGCD scale provides parameters that help the pros by supplying a common language. Umm ... I think that MiSC was simply trying to say that the NSGCD (National Study Group for Chronic Disorganization) calls all of these related conditions "hoarding". They don't seem to differentiate between "squalor" and "hoarding" on their scale. MiSC was pointing this out to clarify that SOME professionals lump it all together. It seems to me, that in such discussions, different people have different types of terminology. It doesn't necessarily make one group's terminology better than another group's terminology. It's just helpful to be aware of the fact that different people use different words to describe us. And, for ease of communication, it helps to know which "set of descriptors" someone is using for their part in a discussion. Yup.
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