emmy
New Member
Joined: January 2014
Posts: 23 
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Post by emmy on Mar 24, 2014 0:12:28 GMT -5
Hi, everyone.
I'm 24 years old, living at home with my parents, and I'm living in squalor. I'm pretty sure I'm a level 3-4 right now.
I've been lurking around on these forums for a while and it seems like a really nice place, but I've been too scared to post, because I'm just scared of actually admitting my problem. But I'm completely fed up with living like this, to the point where I'm actually really angry about my mess.
I'm messy. I don't keep "items" or things that can be used, I hoard garbage. Just normal disgusting garbage. I've always had squalor tendencies since I was in middle school up until now. I am very overweight and was bullied to the point where I developed Social Anxiety Disorder. It doesn't help that my mother also has mental disease. As the years went on, I developed small piles of trash in my room that when my mother found them she screamed at me and cleaned them up. She always told me things like "How can you live like this?", and "This is so disgusting." I always got in a lot of trouble from my parents when they found my messes. I got screamed at and punished (not physically).
Over the last few years I started working from home so I spend most of the time in my bedroom. Over these last few years my parents have never came into the room, I lied and told them I have been keeping it clean (which I feel terrible and disgusted about because they trust me so much). Things are now extremely out of hand and this is where my anxiety and fears kick in.
My room is destroyed by garbage. Nearly 100% of the floor is covered, I can barely make it to my bed (clean) without stepping on something or pushing garbage out of the way. In most areas the garbage is piled halfway up the walls. It's mostly empty plastic containers and some storage containers with rotting food along with random things. I have random spurts of paranoia and fill a few huge garbage bags of trash. But it seems like even when I fill a few huge bags, it barely makes a dent in my mess, so I get extremely discouraged and overwhelmed and just give up. It's now to the point that whenever I leave my bedroom I lock the door, to make sure my parents don't try to get inside and see the kind of person their daughter really is. I CAN'T imagine them finding out. I just can't.
We have mice. I HATE mice. They really scare me, which is part of why I'm scared to clean. My parents know because they hear them in the walls. They've gotten bait to control it, but whenever we hear the noises or see one running around, I spiral into depression and extreme anxiety because I KNOW they're there because of me and my mess. I feel HORRIBLE because this is my parents home. They've worked so hard in their life to buy a home, and look what I'm doing to it.
I am SO overwhelmed because of the mess and the fear that my parents can just walk right upstairs and all my secrets will be found out. I would be more okay with them finding bags of trash than a whole room stacked with piles and piles of pure trash. Once I have everything in bags I think I'll start to feel much better about everything. But the first steps getting there are terrifying.
I feel like I have NO way out right now.
I feel SO alone.
I feel SO disgusted with myself.
I'm TIRED of living in squalor.
I'm here because I want to change. I want to be clean. I want to walk around my bedroom and sit at the desk, or go to the vanity. I want to invite my friends over. I want to leave my bedroom door wide open so everyone can see how neat and tidy it is.
But right now I feel like it will NEVER happen.
That's why I'm here. I don't know what to expect or do, but I just feel so desperate for help. You all seem to be so positive about things and I just can't see myself being like that, which is why I'm here. I want to be positive. I want to clean. Most times I feel like I don't even belong here...because I wonder if I'm just a *** slob and that's why I have mountains of garbage. Maybe I'm just a dirty person, and not like the rest of you wonderful people.
I'm looking into therapy services right now to deal with my personal issues. But I know nothing will help until I get my mess under control.
Thanks for anyone reading this. I just needed to say something.
- Emmy
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Post by papermoon on Mar 24, 2014 0:40:56 GMT -5
Welcome, Emmy. You are not alone.  Many of us have been there. I went through a long period in my 20s when I was too ashamed to open my door and risk having anyone see the dirty clothes, dirty dishes, and fast-food debris all over my floor and my bed. I slept in garbage. I remember how wretched and hopeless I felt. I crept around the edges of my life like a rat. Way back then, there was no forum like this. So take heart, Emmy. You are in a safe haven now. You said you want to be positive but can't see yourself ever being like that. But I see a LOT of positivity in your post... you've shown great courage to step forward and speak up. You have a vision of how you'd like your room to be, clean and inviting, comfortable and easy to move around in, and to have your friends come over. That's a beautiful goal and it is attainable. Keep reading through the forum, and ideas will begin to click for you. Jump in with questions or thoughts whenever you like, on whatever threads resonate with you. Take a look at the "40 bags" thread. You already know how to fill a trash bag, so I'd say that's a positive strength: Go for it! Fill a bag, and then come and tell us about it so we can cheer you on, okay? Yeah! takeonestepatatime.proboards.com/thread/23739/40-bags-days-challenge |
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Post by razy on Mar 24, 2014 1:17:09 GMT -5
I agree with everything Papermoon has said. Being angry at your at your mess is a great place to be, your anger will give you energy! Don't be discouraged if it takes a while until you can see progress. You didn't get the place messed up in 5 minutes so you won't get it cleaned up that quick either. You could start by picking an area an working on that until it is clean - like a bedside table or your desk then expand out from there. Don't underestimate the power of therapy, often working on yourself and getting some things sorted there will allow you to work on your surroundings. Go fill up some bags and let us know how it feels  |
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Post by Serendipity on Mar 24, 2014 2:25:18 GMT -5
Hi emmy. You say you will feel better when everything is in bags rather than in piles. There are lots of ways to approach this but a simple one is work for two minutes. Five minutes or ten minutes. Get some bags ,I use small grocery bags as they are easy to carry about and you can tie the tops with the handles. I took out about six today! Then I put these along with bigger items into black garbvge bags. One way to look at it is that you have no decisions to make. It is just garbage and before you know it that pile will be shrinking noticeably. You just have to be brave about the mice. Just think how scared they must be of you! The best thing to do is keep going! Right now you can join in the forty bags challenge. I am finding it really helpful. You are among friends here so keep on reading and posting. The more you do the better you will feel!
Ps. I don't always feel positive. But I know that some action however small helps me feel better
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Post by Arid on Mar 24, 2014 3:48:36 GMT -5
I think that it is important to stress that it is not enough merely to *fill* bags with trash. You need to come up with a plan to **dispose** of those bags!
Some people prefer to take their trash out at times when no one else is likely to see them. Some people like to take one small plastic grocery bag filled with trash out of the house every time that they go somewhere. Some people wait until the day before their scheduled trash pick-up, and they work to fill up a large garbage bag then.
A lot of folks find it helpful to put one or more waste baskets in a given room. For example, you might want to have one by your bed. (Yes; I realize that right now that means having it sitting on top of trash!) Some folks hang a plastic grocery bag from the door knob. Anything that is going to make it easier for you to put trash *INTO* an appropriate container, rather than just throwing it onto the floor, is a good thing!
Welcome to the board!
Arid
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Post by messymimi on Mar 24, 2014 6:50:40 GMT -5
Welcome, Emmy.
Did the people bullying you make you feel like trash, so you started living in trash because your subconscious believed it? If that's what happened, you need to relearn that you are a worthy and worthwhile person.
The perfectionist in us says it has to be done perfectly, and finished yesterday. That's why getting a bit out and not seeing where it made a dent makes you want to give up. You didn't do it perfectly. That's another thing we have to retrain in ourselves, to believe that if we've got it to good enough, it's enough.
If you were to get one bag of trash out per day, and not let any more accumulate, eventually it would be gone. No, it wouldn't be overnight. It's rather like losing weight, though. If a person who has to loose 100 lbs and a person who has to lose 10 lbs each lose 5 lbs, does it show? On the person with less to lose, sure. On the person with more to lose, maybe not, not yet. They both did the same amount of work, though, to lose 5 lbs. So you won't have a dramatic change in a day or two. It's okay, you have a bit further to go. Just don't stop.
Another trap to avoid as you clean the stuff out is the "I can't see a difference so what's the use" trap. Take that same person who needs to lose 100 lbs. After losing a couple of pounds a week, and getting to 50 lbs lost, he or she might not see a huge difference because of looking in the mirror each day, and the change is slow. A friend who hasn't seen that person in a year would notice right away! Also, a complete stranger might look at the person and only see that s/he is overweight. That person wouldn't have a "before" to which to compare, so might only see the excess weight.
We are too hard on ourselves in some ways, too soft in others. You can clean this up. One bag at a time out, and no more accumulated, and it can even be small bags, and eventually you will not have to lock your door in fear.
It's good to have you here.
messymimi
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Post by dtesposito on Mar 24, 2014 9:05:16 GMT -5
Hi Emmy, since you say you don't know how to start, I'll make some suggestions--first of all, it sounds like you really need someone to work alongside on the site--so if you know you work well in chat, check out the chat room. If you don't like chat rooms (several of us here don't like them because they move too quickly) look under Listzilla for Working in Threes, or read around to find another thread where people are posting frequently. You can report your accomplishments, and know that someone is going to be reading and responding to you.
The next suggestion is to try one of the counting games we use here--you can count bags of trash, or items picked up. If you're afraid to touch anything because of the mice, tell yourself you're going to pick up 50 or 100 items of trash from the TOP of the piles, not digging down deep. Mice are afraid of people, they won't be at the top of the piles--if they're there, they'll be at the bottom. After 50 pieces, stop and do something pleasant for 5-10 minutes, then do another 50. If you work at the top of the piles, you'll be reducing the piles and if there are mice there they'll go deeper in, or to another room as you get to the bottom of the piles. Each time you pick up one bag, or 50 pieces, or do a series of 50 pieces, come back here and report!
Do your parents work outside the house? If not, do they go out on a regular basis? Because you can also make a game of getting the garbage out. Wait until they're not home, and then take out what you've collected. Even if they're home a lot, you can fill small grocery size bags and hide them in a huge plastic tote bag or something, and still take them out.
If you're still afraid of the mice, take a broom or a stick and kind of hit the side of the piles before starting--that will really scare away any that might be there. And buy a box of plastic gloves (they have them in the pharmacy aisles of the grocery store), you'll feel more protected and you won't get any rotten food on your hands as you're cleaning.
Don't look at the whole project at once. Break it down into time (work for 10 minutes and take a short break, etc.) or pieces picked up, or bags out. Cleaning your whole room is overwhelming--filling one bag is not.
And the most important thing is to keep posting here. There are occasional quiet times when very few people are posting, but there's usually someone online who can work with you and encourage you to keep going!
Good luck, and I will be watching to read about your progress!
Diane
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Post by Script on Mar 24, 2014 9:36:00 GMT -5
Maybe I'm just a dirty person, and not like the rest of you wonderful people. Yes, you are absolutely right about PART B of your comment above: we are wonderful people. Creative. Kind. Brilliant. And every single solitary member here has been touched in some profound way by dirt. Squalor. Mess. Financial disaster. Chaos. I have had HUGE problems in my life with self-care (as in having enough baths and wearing clean clothes). So what if I HAVE BEEN a dirty (sloppy, messy) person? I can change. I have changed. And so can you. luv and welcome from Script PS: what is the absolute worst thing that can happen if someone finds out about your mess? Even your parents? Yes, people can laugh, and point fingers, and make terrible comments. None of these "horrible" things will kill you. But self-neglect, depression, remorse, and self-hatred can make YOUR LIFE worse than a living death. Please keep on posting here. You are among friends. |
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Deleted
Joined: January 1970
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Mar 24, 2014 10:08:06 GMT -5
Emmy, I'm so glad you're here. You're among friends who are all at different points on this journey called freeing ourselves from squalor. I used to go to Celebrate Recovery, and I hear this phrase there: We seek out help/work towards making a change/etc when our pain becomes greater than our fear. I don't know if you've checked out Squalor Survivors, but ohmygosh as I read my way through the site I found myself crying, saying "This is SO me", and smiling because reading about other people's experiences gave me hope. Maybe you'd find it helpful, too. Ditto to everything all the other beautiful posters have said. You are beautiful, strong, and valuable, even if you don't feel that way right now. Welcome welcome.  |
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Post by charis on Mar 24, 2014 13:38:20 GMT -5
Emmy, I read your post with optimism because I see you have so many strengths and assets:
You have friends
You are hiding, but you don't want to hide. you want to be open and hospitable.
You have a job--you have some money, you have the health and stamina to work consistently, you have the focus and brains to do that
You want to change for yourself and you are exploring different ways to make it happen including therapy and being here on SooS
I feel badly for you about the mice. That would scare me too! When we pick berries we have a snake stick. That is a long cane sized stick that we beat the bushes with before we pass through them or step in. This lets any critters know that we are there and they flee. Maybe using a broomstick you could bang and stir around in any area right before you pick things up to reassure yourself that nothing is in there.
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Deleted
Joined: January 1970
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Mar 24, 2014 13:44:31 GMT -5
poor boo! It will be ok!!!!
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Post by Arid on Mar 24, 2014 13:50:32 GMT -5
Believe it or not, emmy, but there most likely are lurkers here who *envy* you! "How or why on earth would/could that be?" you might ask!!! It's because you can acknowledge that the stuff cluttering up your room really, truly *IS* pure "garbage!!" It is what we refer to as "no-brainer" stuff. You *know* that it all needs to go out of the house. It is easily identified by you.
So many of the good folks here (myself included!) struggle with the decision-making that is required for most decluttering.
I won't be surprised if you find--underneath all that genuine "garbage"--that *you* have some difficult decluttering decisions to make, too! That's all right, though. By the time that you work your way down to that "stuff," you will be better able to address it.
Yes; you can work your way out of your situation *EXACTLY* the same way that I overcame "dirty dish mountain." Take care of each new day's accumulation; then, take care of an item or two of "old" stuff. It takes a while, but it works! More importantly, it helps you to form a new habit that will stand you in good stead for the rest of your life!
We all are cheering for you! You already *ARE* making progress--you've come here!
Arid
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Post by papermoon on Mar 24, 2014 19:22:33 GMT -5
How are you feeling today, Emmy?
I had a couple of ideas, in case it's really difficult for you to sneak a lot of trash out past your parents....
1. When your parents are asleep or gone from the house, stash your filled trash bags in the trunk of your car. Then drive them somewhere to drop in a dumpster. If your trunk is stuffed full of garbage as well, start there. The important thing is to just get started and keep the ball rolling.
2. Buy a small "normal" size wastebasket for your room (you might want to get something pretty, maybe from the Container Store or wherever). Or perhaps the kind with a tight-fitting lid and a step-on foot pedal, to keep the mice out. Just fill it up and empty it once a day every day in the family trash bin... nothing suspicious about that. Yeah I know, you're probably thinking that wouldn't make a dent at all... but remember... little drops of water CAN erode mighty mountains.
Have you ever seen the movie "Shawshank Redemption"? Tim Robbins manages to dig a tunnel out of his prison cell without any suspicion from the guards... he digs a little every day, then fills his pockets with the daily diggings, and shakes them out as he walks around the exercise yard. Nobody suspects, and he finally digs his way to freedom.
Day by day, you can dig your way to freedom, too.
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Post by papermoon on Mar 24, 2014 19:36:15 GMT -5
As for the mice....
I have a few friends who've been super successful at getting rid of mice by using peppermint. Mice hate the smell! So...
Step 1. Go to a health food store and ask for peppermint "essential oil"... that's the real thing and the most potent. Dab a few drops on lots of cotton balls and place them strategically all around your room.
Step 2. Concentrate on clearing out anything with food residue on it... make that your primary focus for the first round of trash bags, and get those bags out of the house.
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LilMamaWho
New Member
Joined: March 2014
Posts: 19
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Post by LilMamaWho on Mar 24, 2014 23:45:28 GMT -5
((I have yet to read all the comments so people may have said what I'm about to say, so I'll just reiterate it)) Honey! You ARE in the right place! I am JUST like you!! I posted some pics on the pictures folder of my home. I had trash EV-ER-Y-WHERE!!!!!!!!!!!! It's not perfect yet by a mile but it's getting there. You CAN do this! What you need is positivity. NOT negativity. I was told by some of the really helpful, beautiful people on here last night to look at it this way. Would you ever tell someone who is learning to play the piano 'How on EARTH can you play like that??' or 'You suck at playing' and then expect them to keep going at it? H*ll no! They'd more than likely just give it up entirely. Which it sounds like you've done. And what I've done. But if you fill yourself with a sense of 'You know what? I can do this. I KNOW I can.' you will find a strength in you you never knew you had.
Regarding the shame, DON'T be! I have two little boys and have already had CPS called on me for living in squalor... Luckily we were able to get the place cleaned up enough to not have our children taken away, but our place is still a horrid mess. Today we spent 6 hours working on it and we managed to get the livingroom and hallway cleaned. And our apartment is TINY! We just got really l@zy... But after cleaning it, looking around it's like 'Holy crap, this place actually looks really good when it's cleaned!' It's not fun to get started but once you finish, man it's AWESOME. And once you do get started you'll probably find momentum to keep going... My suggestion? Start from one end of the room and work your way to the other side... You'll be able to look behind you and see what you've done.
We love you here, we don't want to see you down on yourself. So STAHP it! And know you ARE worth it. You are a beautiful person and just the fact you came here demonstrates that!
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