Squalor Survivors

The Squalor Surviviors Community has closed, but you can still find a lot of support here:

http://takeonestepatatime.proboards80.com/index.cgi

Depression and Endangerment

I'm very down at present. I can barely move around my home at the current time. Every step is dangerous as things lie on top of each other and slip and slide as I stand on them. I keep making 'pathways', but they clog up with crap almost as fast as I make them.

One good thing recently though is that I cleaned both my cooker hob and my sink. Now if I can only clear a worktop as well I might actually be safe to cook something. To that end, I've bought fresh ingredients twice now, but still haven't made the planned meal. The lights in my kitchen are dead and I can't get a ladder into the room to fix them safely, so that is another reason it's a treacherous room right now.

Bin bags

I currently have 14 bin bags sat on my drive. I'm waiting for a friend to come and take them to the tip for me. Inside my home are three more bags. I haven't put themn out yet. MJy neighbour was complaining about the bags I've already put out.

Things are really bad in my home at present. I am knee-deep in flotsam and jetsam and can barely get through my front door. Walking is difficult and dangerous, as is attempting to climb the stairs or to cook.

I'm pretty low today about everything.

My rubbish is breeding; I'm convinced of it !

Things are well beyond cluttered here at present. It's dragging me down.

My counsellor recently advised: "How do you eat an elephant ? A bit at a time". But I guess I'm not hungry.

I can barely get through my front door, and everywhere else has to be done in long strides and careful placement of feet. This is the worst it's been in a very long time and right now I can't seem to handle it at all.

And Christmas sucks, because everyone is busying inviting people in to share good cheer, whilst I won't even contemplate admitting my most precious beloveds.

Collyers Mansion is where I live

Collyers Mansion information was the original trigger to my attempts to battle with my Squalor. Recently I came close to seriously injuring myself because of my squalor, in a situation reminiscent of Collyers Mansion. I had trailing wires in my main room; I caught my foot in a loop and went sprawling. I landed inches away from cutting my head open on the corner of a set of drawers.

My squalor scares me, not just because of the health and safety concerns, but literally it causes me nervous anxiety. I hate living in a dump, but I struggle to change it.

Climbing back out of the gutter

Today I have been back to Squalor Survivors (see my links). This remains one of the best sites on the internet for the support of messy misses like me, I feel.

I desperately need to 'get back with the programme'. My place is currently a tip and it is bothering me. I've printed off the 'Start on the House' page from Squalor Survivors and it's going home with me... NOT to be added to the piles of papers cluttering my home, but to be read and acted upon.

Squalor has been eating my bf too. The state of his home was making his depression worse, so he has taken action. I admire him for that. We haven't talked about it much, but we have acknowledged now that it's an issue we both suffer from and that's a start.

I did clear some space (though not the whole space) in my hall recently, to try and make sure my electricals in there stay safe and don't get damaged by disappearing under any 'piles'. Piles are a problem. Piles, stacks, collections, leanings towers of 'storage'... I have lots. They come about when I try to clear the clutter and end up keeping stuff instead, in a pile. Piles look better than mounds, but they are NOT the answer to clutter !

Mysterious Odour

I've had a smell this week. It started at the weekend. I thought at first it could be me, because I've been ill and off work and in the house with the windows shut. But then I decided it wasn't me, AND it started getting worse.

You start imagining all sorts of things, like forgotten food festering somewhere. Or dead vermin. I looked (as best I could)... Nothing obvious. I looked harder (as hard as I dared)... Still nothing. The smell continued.

I kept the windows open. I burnt joss sticks. Then I burnt proper incense...and more incense. Still the smell. By which time I was getting a bit frantic.

This morning I found it. It was just that I'd put food in a bin bag that was elsewhere than in the kitchen. Bag gone, smell gone. So glad it was nothing more unbearable !

Losses

I've lost something really important. It happens a lot when you live like I do.

Yesterday morning I was in my garage at 6am looking for what is lost. I don't really have any real hope of finding it, but it's an important 'something', so I have to look. And I worry.

Mess is a lovely big stick to hurt myself with. The whole time I'm counting losses I can tell myself all sorts of negative things...

"You should keep track of important stuff !"
"You're stupid !"
"You're a slob."
"Look at the way you live ! It's not fit for a pig, even."
"You must be a pig, or worse, to be living this way."
" 'Normal people' don't have this problem."

Our own negative messages keep us trapped.

Life continues amidst the shambollic wreckage

I'm still here. Been very busy, so haven't had time to blog.

I was speaking to a friend (who has visited my home) recently. She was telling me how her other friend (who also has squalor) recently decided to move house to escape her mess. My friend reported how lovely her mate's new home is and how she had told her not to mess it up. No good telling us though.

As a side bar, this other person with squalor didn't get anything packed or sorted right up to the arrival of the movers. No wonder her new home is great, she probably left her life behind at her old address for someone else to work through.

Moving is an option I consider from time to time. But then you still have to throw out and sort out. I don't know why I can't do it. I want to do it. I try to do it. I get overwhelmed by it and stop, usually at the point where it's all become much worse rather than better because I'm only half way through the process - everything has been dragged out of hiding but nothing has gone to the bin. Then I just get more depressed and feel so much more shitty about myself (themes of self harm going on there, of course, as is uncomfortably routine for me).

Still Here

I'm alive and kicking still, but mad busy with Life and work presently. I'll get back to my various blogs shortly.

Still Here

Perfection and the Art of Self-Defence

I cleaned my bathroom today. Not a 100% job, but then I am trying to learn to cut myself some slack as regards 'perfection'. Being afraid of not doing a good enough job is a barrier to doing anything at all, and berating myself for my shortcomings is harmful to my health, so I am going to give myself a credit for doing what I did. My bathroom is currently cleaner than another (public) bathroom I loathe and regularly desire to complain about, so I did good enough for today.

Still wrecked

My lounge is still a wreck presently. Mostly it's clothes. I didn't have chance to get stuff to the laundry last week, so now it's all over the show !

My head is a bit the same way really. Now there's no surprise !

Wreckage

The house was a complete wreck by Friday of last week. It's still pretty bad.

I've had a weekend away, and travelling always results in piles of clothes and other belongings as I desperately try to work out what to take with me and what to leave at home. Surprisingly, I am capable of being quite systematic when it comes to making decisions about what I depart with, since I prefer to travel light and am nearly always using public transport.

I had a great weekend though.

Too many things

It feels like I have too many things in my head and heart as well as my home at present. I'm meeting myself coming back, and it is really hard not to be over critical of myself for not getting round to doing it all.

I'd really like to bake a cake. Not a big deal, right ? It is when your kitchen is one of those places stuff accumulates, a tidal pool where junk washes up on shore. It's one of those places where thing go to die, too. I used to have a mixing bowl, but it slid off a pile and smashed and I never replaced it. I used to have some cake tins, but they rusted from neglect (I didn't replace those, they are still somewhere in my kitchen). I had flour once, but I struggle to get into my kitchen to use it, so the flour grew legs one day and had to be binned. (At least it got to the bin before it was able to carry itself there).

A lot of what I would like to do falls into a similar pattern when I start looking to do it... I'm sure there's a message in there for me somewhere.

Fallen off the bin wagon

I've not stuck with the strategies which were helping me previously. I suppose there are reasons, most of them emotional. I'd like to think the holiday that's coming up will give me time and energy to get stuck in again, but I don't have much optimism right now.

Special thanks go to those who know me and love me, despite my junk and my weaknesses. You know who you are and you know I adore you. *BIG HUGS*

Have a good holidays everyone. See you on the other side.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder

Apologies that I haven't made any fresh entries to my blogs recently. I'm experiencing a busy time in my life and can't fit everything in that I'd like to. Since blogging is a hobby and not an essential, it's suffering. Back on board as soon as I can. Thinking of you.

Keep on moving

The dance goes on. I definitely feel like my health and welfare has improved over the last month, so that has helped me stay positive about the processes involved in reclaiming and maintaining.

I need to gear up for another push soon. Not sure where I am going to target. I'd like it to be the kitchen.

I spoke to my counsellor this week about what's been going on and how I do feel quite encouraged and empowered by how things have been going. He suggested that I do the kitchen one item at a time, and that may be how it has to go. The place is a bit like a tidal backwash - the things that end up in there I am either avoiding or I don't know where else to put them. Maintaining is a lot harder to do in the kitchen too, for some reason.

I need to get my washing put away and to tidy up some more yet from having a visitor to stay at weekend. I am lucky to have people who love me enough to still be able and willing to be in my home when it is such squalor here !

It's hard to have visitors. I feel bad because I wonder if they feel I don't love them enough to tidy up before they come. That's not at all the truth of it, though; usually I have tidied up, it just doesn't look that way because what for me is 'better' is still pretty awful to anyone else. I love them all the more because they don't judge me or demean me for being the person I am right now, and are willing to know and to trust that sometimes I can and will be a more organised and tidy version of who I am.

Small Steps 2

I'm delighted to say that the area of living room I reclaimed has held ! It takes vigilance not to fall into old habits, though.

Tonight I cleared the first surface in my kitchen. This is a real landmark, as my kitchen has lots of emotional baggage associated with it. The only thing is that the newly reclaimed surface is now 'showing up' the rest of the room, making it seem even more unsightly than before, even though I have part-cleared some of the other surfaces as well.

I seem to have a lot of crockery, and I don't know where to store it all. Mostly it is glasses and microwave cookware. Very few of the glasses match, and the whole thing about needing a range of glasses for different purposes is causing me to find it hard to throw any out. For some reason these items feel quite scary, though. Odd to be 'afraid' of crockery !

There's clearly some underlying significance I am attaching to the idea of not having so many of those sorts of pots. I think it might be tied into my stick-carrying - the pots may be there as a stick, reminding me that I am not very good at dealing with cooking and getting the food I eat 'right'.

Small Steps 1

Well, I've been on holiday for a week now, and feel I have made a deal of progress ! I have cleared four or five large bin bags worth of stuff into the trash. I also took a similar number of carrier bags of books to various charity shops over the course of this week, though they didn't seem too grateful for them.

My attempt to clear the top of my chest of drawers didn't hold - it's re-cluttering already, but I do now have three drawers out of four which actually contain clothing, and the clothing is folded and in some sort of order, with spare space in a couple of those drawers even ! The washing bags got emptied within two days of the wash this time, never even making it into the kitchen. I cleared the upper shelf of my airing cupboard and sorted out all the linen currently in use.


'Appropriate home ?' has been a question I have had to answer a lot whilst I've been clearing this week. I really do have a lot of stuff that I have obviously attempted to leave 'on the surface' simply because it either doesn't have a home or I couldn't get it to the place it should be at because of other 'stuff' being in the way of getting it there.

One of the amusing things is that whilst I've been clearing I discovered I already own Julie Morgenstern's book and didn't know it - it appeared from inside a cupboard earlier today ! Glad now that I didn't buy it earlier this week when I went to Borders; in fact I was very good when I went to Borders and didn't in the end buy anything. I was probably there about two and a half hours, though, first browsing and then talking myself out of the large number of titles I had pulled down with a view to buying them.


I spent most of last night and today working on increasing my living space. I tackled one of my largest and most enduring piles, and it had a knock-on effect that kept me at it most of today. A lot of stuff from that pile is now in a sorted box or in a cupboard, which in turn had been housing stuff that should have been in the kitchen. The stuff from the cupboard in the lounge is now where it should be, in the kitchen cupboard, or in the bin.

I actually read quite a bit of Julie's book whilst I was in Borders thinking about buying it (for what would have been the second time), and that has helped me a lot over this week. I haven't followed her plan religiously, but for instance when it came to doing my kitchen cupboard I felt better placed for completing the task that I ever have before.

I do still have some of the original lounge pile left - though right now it's more of a layer, spread across the lounge floor for reassigning. I figure, though, that you can have too much of a good thing - I know from past exerience the danger of a burnout at this stage, but also now have the experience of finding a space to prompt me to complete the job. Fingers crossed that I really am making the improvement in mental health that I think I am and that the job will get finished, hopefully either later tonight or tomorrow morning.