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Post by dirtybooks on May 25, 2008 22:14:22 GMT -5
My room is a huge mess.
I have a shrink, but still my room is a mess.
I live with my parents, but still my room is filthy.
I am 31 years old, and I still manage to have silverfish, bookworms, booklice, baby cockroaches, and some other kind of horrible, squirming bug that I can always swear I hear SCREAMING and squealing as it scuttles off bumblingly, its legs wheeling in the air at really rough patches of my beige wall-to-wall.
I grew up in a be-cleaning-ladied world, and still the shame of squalor sleeps inside my room, having moved with the family, ferocious, and knowing that I will always be there to feed him, almost smiling and slinking like the yellow fog in Eliot's Wasteland.
I know What Is Wrong With DirtyBooks, and yet the endless nonheroic Saga of the Squal-or continues, longer and more depressing than any old Icelandic yarn (and by the way that's another thing: yarn everywhere, wasted when I want to crochet it).
I have ADHD, but my youthful pep is fast becoming incurable and noxious adult anger.
I have OCD, but there is little time for the spirituality in my religion that that has brought me: Instead my rituals are those of self-sabotage, of stalling and of systematically destroying the precious few precious things I might own.
I want to make a difference in the world, want my words to be Coin of the Realm. But that gold piece has, over several years and several homes, lost a little of its awesome brightness every time I look at one of my Shame Rooms. And every time I give my word that It Shall Be Cleaned Up, it loses its currency with Mom, who I never imagined would still be ruling my life and world at my age.
I feel like I will never finish.
Squalor the Beast has consumed and left unfinished six different college careers, five novels for which I no longer had enthusiasm or energy, a great deal of my poetic urge, and a majority of my sense of humor about myself.
My Squalor Mentality led me to accept a GHB-laced drink of water and a ride home from a man who stole my virginity. I cannot remember the event except for one or two hazy flashes. My Squalor Mentality led me to a philosophy, years before the event, that said that it wasn't rape if you were being friendly with him outside your home. Now I know the difference, but my virtue and my dignity are still somewhere under that pile in my head, and until I sort out my room, scrape the bath-pudding off my bathroom wainscotting, stop picking at my truly-relatively-nice body whenever it develops a pimple (and there are lots of those because of my room's terrible lack of sanitation), my head will never recover fully.
There's a lot more, so watch this thread.
I feel among family in this online comunity in a way I haven't with my own flesh and blood since I failed out of the first college. We are more like family to one another, I suspect, than we are to our own parents'/guardians' household occupants, at least with regard to the Squalor Mentality.
For now, thank you for existing and making me feel like there's someone besides my psychiatrist (who said that a group of peers ought to help me become more adult about my living space, a long time ago) I can go to, someone to whom I can tell the whole sordid truth of how I scrapped my life by turning away from the trash I let into it and leaving it inside my room and letting it inside my heart.
Once again, more later.
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Post by dirtybooks on May 25, 2008 22:20:34 GMT -5
03-24-2008, 4:14 AM
DirtyBooks is not online. Last active: 5/22/2008 7:37:50 AM DirtyBooks
Not Ranked
Joined on 02-19-2008
Posts 4
Re: My Shame Rooms of Death
Reply Quote Edit
Okay. I'm back. I hid for a while in my political causes (they're easier than relationships and they always meet not at anyone's home -- People think I'm brave standing up to people, but really I'm just yelling at people just loud enough to drown out --
There's this ad for a stain remover right now here in the USA. In the ad, this young guy with a stain about the size of a newborn baby's palm on his shirt is interviewing for a job. But his Stain keeps talking to the interviewer far louder than the young man. I feel like that guy when I go off and do politics. If I'm Being Political, I'm not thinking about what's really wrong in my world. Which is my feeling terrible about myself.
I did make a pretty major breakthrough this week. Even though my family is Jewish, my mom has always bought Easter candy and chocolate bunnies. The candy is not a religious thing. My mom pretends that she saw the Spring Chickadee hopping by our doors laying jellybeans and Cadbury Creme, Mini, and Caramel Eggs. There are always medium-sized chocolate bunnies, too. This year and last they were Lindt & Sprüngli Milk Chocolate. They're the kind in gold foil with red crinkly ribbons around their necks. This year, I managed to eat the head the Friday before Easter, and wait till the rest of the family had eaten their bunny heads and were preparing to eat the bodies on Sunday before eating the rest. This self-control is, I think, a testament to my finally regaining a bit of my self-esteem. I loved being able to eat fruit and healthful snacks for a couple of days -- Thank you Weight Watchers Giant Chocolate Fudge Bar!!!
I also stopped usig my nails to open my blemishes. I went to Sephora and got the evil-looking Acne Extractor Plus Lancet. It has a tiny, sharpened spearhead at one end and a deep-pore zit-pusher-outer on the other. I actually made soe of my pimples go away before they got huge.
I also threw away my old Fortean Times magazines. It felt good. Holy Everlasting Lord it felt good. I hope the Christians here will not be offended, but I felt like I, myself, was rolling away the stone of my tomb after several eons (rather than three days) of death.
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Post by crazycatlady on May 26, 2008 15:54:49 GMT -5
Welcome, DirtyBooks! I'm glad to hear that you have made some bits of progress! That is kind of how it worked for me, a little here, a little there (some back-sliding along the way), and before you knew it I could see a bit of progress.
Keep posting. I think much of what made it possible for me was posting at Squalor Survivors. When I was inclined to say "I only washed one load of laundry, but there is so much I didn't do", someone would always cheer me on for the bit I got done.
Glad that you are here at the new site!
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Post by creativechaos on May 30, 2008 11:07:49 GMT -5
welcome dirtybooks. keep posting and waxing poetic!
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rhall
New Member
Joined: June 2008
Posts: 18
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Post by rhall on Jun 1, 2008 14:59:29 GMT -5
I'm glad to find this thread renewed.
I've been where you are at, Dirtybooks. I finally hung around the old SS long enough to try a few things and in microscopic moves, things changed. The hardest thing to get rid of was shame. At some point in the piling up, I was so ashamed of it, I couldn't ask for help any more and it was too much to handle alone.
That's the trap that's hardest to break free from - you are too ashamed to call for help or accept it when it's offered. Your life starts to revolve around the clutter and it intrudes into every attempt to find motivation to clean up.
All I can say it to read a lot of threads and pick out a few things that might be doable. Feel free to take the core of the idea and change it until it fits your situation. The biggest early breakthrough for me was when I realized that even if I couldn't do 15 minutes of cleaning, I could do 30 seconds. That started everything else going.
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Post by dirtybooks on Jun 2, 2008 20:51:10 GMT -5
Gah! I HATE it when my mom does that slightly-phleghmy sigh (It sounds like the "ch" in the Scottish word, "loch," followed by "ehhhhhhh"), and gives me a list of things that [glow=red,2,300]must be done NOW!!![/glow] I want a better relationship with her because she's amazing (apart from the fact that she panics a lot and refuses to see it as panic -- it's just "normal worries that any mother would have if her child were [and then her voice trails off]..."
Further peeves during and related to cleaning process:
"You always make a lot of noise when you clean, so you MAY NOT clean after ten P.M."
(or anything with "You always" at the beginning, as how can I change if I am tied, forever, in her mind, with a habit or behavior?)
When I am nerving myself to go up and detrash, Mom stands in the doorway of the den, with her best glaring-game face on, leaning against the doorjamb, arms folded like a Mafia thug, and stares silently until I either explode of run off to pretend to clean because I am seriously worn out from the exhausting task of trying to endure The Look of Fear.
The arbitrary rules she says she's making to help me, which may indeed be true, but it's hard to think that way when she's half-yelling and half-preaching...
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DG
New Member
Joined: May 2008
Posts: 86
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Post by DG on Jun 3, 2008 5:07:14 GMT -5
Hi Dirtybooks,
I'm glad that you've found this group to help you along the way.
It must be hard having to abide by your mother's wishes instead of doing things when you feel able to. Don't let that stop you building a routine that you can cope with too.
I look forward to reading your progress on the forum,
DiamondGal.
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Post by dirtybooks on Jun 3, 2008 16:27:10 GMT -5
I just filled two Contractor-sized bags in thirty minutes. All the way full, to the brim, with CRAPPPP I don't need. My mother was so happy she's getting the takeout menus and we're celebrating. I'm sort of getting the hang of what it means to "take inventory" (one of my family's friends is a recovering alcoholic and I am remembering all sorts of things he used to say in conversation that are very helpful). I love myself when I make myself get rid of the Two-Ton Gorilla on my back. [glow=red,2,300]King Klutter is DYING! BWAHAHAHAHAH!!!![/glow]   |
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Post by crazycatlady on Jun 7, 2008 21:27:14 GMT -5
Excellent work, DiryBooks!
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Post by dirtybooks on Jul 11, 2008 4:07:38 GMT -5
going at my papers RIGHT NOW. Been up all night worrying and fretting about stalling. Gotta go to it RIGHT NOW!
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Post by dirtybooks on Jul 11, 2008 4:41:35 GMT -5
going at my papers RIGHT NOW. Been up all night worrying and fretting about stalling. Gotta go to it RIGHT NOW! got about 85% of my papers into one of those big Ziplocs with handles they have now. The rest go in after my nap. Bag em now, get a second bag and a garbage bag, go through 'em a handful at a time, let God have most of 'em. The rest can go be kindling for some skinny person's fireplace. |
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Post by pegasus48 on Jul 11, 2008 19:58:55 GMT -5
Hey, dirtybooks, it's good to see you!! I am glad you are battling the clutter monster, and it sounds like you are having some success!! That's great!  Keep posting and letting us know how you are doing. |
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Post by Platypus on Jul 13, 2008 8:18:36 GMT -5
Do you realise that you are a really good writer?
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Post by dirtybooks on Jul 24, 2008 20:55:17 GMT -5
Tossed more books today. Found a cache of old empty juice boxes. Frickin' hoarding. Threw them away. A few weeks ago I found the last hair combings from my dear departed kitty, Cecil ("Woo" or "Woo-Cat" to his beloveds). I made myself throw them away. Tomorrow I'll clear the two years worth of leaves away from his memorial garden-stone in the backyard.
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Post by anonymoose on Jul 25, 2008 10:05:09 GMT -5
You've made wonderful progress - that's great! And you have a real way with words.
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