What next?

This is been an 'interesting' week with my hoarding mother.  And by interesting, I mean the same old crap at an increased intensity.  I am simply running out of band width to deal with her attention seeking behavior.

I had a funder meeting that took me out of the office for 2 1/2 days with subcommittees and the like, and things are really busy and stressful at the office.  Elderly kitty that had the stroke 2 weeks ago is hanging in there, but requires medication, medical management, and a more constant surveillance of her behavior and health than even before.  And she is very clingy, and the other cat's behavior is impacted too.  Each time I think that I am done with the impact of an elbow injury in mid February, it wants to flare again.  Life is life, but my hoarding mother knows that things are really, really challenging, including my insomnia is back with a vengeance.  What does she do?  Hype EVERYTHING into high drama.  

The final day of the meetings, she called.  Now, since I have been doing extremely low contact and 'grey rocking' her, she is calling about mundane things that she considers an emergency or needs an immediate response.  And she will blow up my cell phone (which I use for business and I am on call 24/7) and if I do not respond, she will call my office or the housing facility that my organization runs that has a 24 hour hotline.  She called Friday, and was ranting that 'someone' needed to take the hated neighbor out, he has been in her house, he has stolen the fuse box out of her detached garage (but the garage door opener and outside lights work) and he has done something in her house so only partial lighting in the central hallway works.  She is also allegedly:

1. Arguing with the cable company, so does not have a box that works so no TV.  If the electrical system is in the house is truly wonky...?
2. Arguing with the paper delivery folks as to how they roll the paper when they put it in her box.  She is cancelling it.
3. She has had to have the gas company out last week to shut off the hot water tank (so no gas in the house if that is true).
4. She had the water company out this week because the tub was leaking and she claims that she now does not have water.
5. She still states she has groundwater leaking in her basement.
6. She is churning, churning, churning the hoard.  She has found papers from 1989, and a computer, etc. from 2005/2006 that she has never used and keeps torturing me with questions about... "Can [this] be used?  What about [this]?  There is a disk for free internet from AOL!" ::Sigh::

So she is really in a Level 5 hoard.  Goat trails, stuff stacked to the ceiling,  no electricity in part of the house, no hot water, and now, no water.  Her furnace is not working, and her AC quit last summer.  She has C Diff, and is wearing adult continence diapers. I am sure she is 'bucket' flushing, but that will not work long term.  Sorry, I keep diverting.  The call on Friday... She was ranting that the neighbor has 'been in her house' and it is only 'a matter of time before he kills her' and he has 'put some listening device in her house so her can monitor her.'

I got off the phone and called Adult Protective Services.  I identified myself, her, gave a succinct background and cause for concern.  My hoarding mother's state is a 'duty to warn' state under Tarasoff, and I retain a social work license in that state.  I have been the petitioner to have clients, adult and child, involuntarily committed when they were a imminent, identifiable risk to self and others, and have the means and the lethality to do it.  They refused to help, even when I spoke to a director and also the Mental Hygiene lawmaster.  I called the police chief in her town, someone I went to high school with and is well acquainted with her.  He could have an officer do a wellness check, but since her property has locks on the gates, etc. he cannot trespass, and he will not put an officer at risk since she has a concealed carry, and several semi automatic weapons with clips and laser sights.  He understood and shared my concern.  

I struck out. Going there will do nothing, especially if she will not let me in, and I left one vulnerable cat that I almost lost in 2010 to deal with her manufactured drama, and I just cannot due to the cat, work, my health, and my mental health.  Her neighbor and the police chief warned the 'hated neighbor' and I have done all I can do.  She called later, and she was on an even keel again.  

This is not going to end well.  My concern is that she will confront and provoke an altercation with the neighbor, and shoot him under the 'stand your ground' law in her state.

I will keep pushing for intervention.  That is all I can do.  Thanks for reading.

My patience is wearing thin, my resilience thinner...

I am exhausted today. Lost a colleague and mentor who I thought very highly of yesterday, and my NM's narc sister (who is also a hoarder) has been calling and I have been ignoring her calls. She has not called for over a year (I think), and the day she called was the day I learned a friend in my circle of friends died unexpectedly, someone I had went out with as friends a couple of times (this was last week). As many know, I am on call all the time, and was sloppy in picking up the phone this one time, and she got me. She asked 'how are things with you?' and I replied 'been better, what can I help you with?' and that was the last thing I said until goodbye.

She is having a psychotic break again, and just returned from her 6th 302 (involuntary commitment). In this call, she informed me: She was attacked by my narc sister (who is also a hoarder- see a pattern here?) and her arms have had the tendons ripped from the bones but she has used things she learned in PT in the past to get them back, and she can barely hold a tea cup despite telling a story she had to wait holding over $200 in groceries for a cab to come because 'he' wrecked her car and tried to kill her and the DMV marked it as unsafe and has a salvage title. She has never said who 'he' is. She had been accusing a neighbor's son of playing music in her house and car before, and then suddenly was in love with him- I assume this is the person. She now says she has a more restrictive thing than a PFA that is forever (nothing like that exists in her state), that he was looking in her hospital window when she was committed and snatching cell phone connections from the air to transmit messages she can only hear, but now the hospital heard them too, and that she got a BB gun at Walmart and the guy at the counter told her how to shoot so the person would bleed to death. She claims to have boarded up her house, now has two dogs, and is threatening to 'kill him' if he comes in her house. She claims he is talking about how nasty her vagina is, and has turned people against her. She claims to now be paraplegic and that my 1/2 narc sister attacked her using a military move. She then said she is going to lose her house, etc. She then switched to how she has not seen me in a long time, and sort of asked me for money and/or to come stay with me.

NO and NO. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

I have blocked her number. I cannot take this level of craziness. She is just as dysfunctional as my mother, and she did nothing to protect her daughter from her pedophile father. Something she and my 1/2 sister have in common, not protecting their children from sexual predators, then disowning their kids when their trauma histories impact their choices as adults. I did make a wellness call to APS in her state without giving my information. This is not going to end well.

Work is extremely stressful, and as folks may remember I have had major surgery in mid August, and am on the cusp of figuring out what will most likely be a chronic, autoimmune and autonomic disorder. Someone close to me has attempted suicide and I am trying to provide support while he untangles that and the legal charges he is now facing because of that attempt, and I am just feeling like much of my resilience is being sucked out of me, and my NM is SSDD, and is escalating in her paranoia and nastiness, and she is on the extreme LC plan with me.

Thank goodness for my sweet kitties. I am just feeling really frustrated, have tons of medical bills, and the holidays are coming and I still have not shopped for my family of choice... My friends. I am hoping that 2018 is a better year for us all.

Hoarding, and the co-occurring mental illness. No one wins. Thanks for reading, and have a good week.

More paranoia... Ai yi yi

Forgot some of the other fodder for the most recent "From the Mouth of a Hoarder' in the last entry.  How could I forget these things?  Because she is continuing to go off the delusional rails to use a train wreck analogy.

The things I forgot to mention in my previous post include:

• Her insisting that someone hit her 24 year old import station wagon.  Of course there was no evidence of this, other than her passenger side rear wheel liner fell.  The car is OLD.  And having worked in dealerships and auto body in my past life, there are many organic reasons they fall.  She went off the deep end, called the police, demanded the 'cameras' in the parking lot be reviewed, and otherwise made an absolute nuisance of herself.  She stopped by a garage that a stranger recommended since she was regaling a doctor's office with this last bit of indignity, and as I suspected.  It took a couple of washers, a couple of larger bore screws and it was fixed.  The garage did not charge her.  She was almost sulky that it was so easily remedied and is still angry at the store and at the police for not looking at the video surveillance.  
• Despite her neighbor giving me the heads up that she let my mother know that the 'hated neighbor in the turn' has his house advertised on a social media group and that my mother demanding she come show her on (the neighbor's) phone, my stated the neighbor 'rushed over to show her' and got angry when I indicated that I did not care if the house was for sale, for how much, and what it looked like- that I would not join this group and look at it, and I kept shutting down the conversation in which she accused him of damaging all but one storm door in what she says, is an effort to kill her.  She accuses him of setting at least 4 fires over the past 40 years, so therefore he is going to burn her up in her house after he kicks in the final storm door.  Nevermind that all three 'exits' are already blocked by a stage 5 hoard.  
• She still says he is 'coming in the house'... References putting 'snake poop' in her basement, loosening the bulb over the washer, stealing her stalking log, and picking her locks so all her door knobs are scratched.  Oh, and cutting her 20 year old screens on her screened in porch.
• She disconnected her landline, and tried to port her number over to a basic flip phone.  She cancelled that phone after 3 days 'because they cannot do anything right' and could not add a second line to the cell phone.  Um... Google Talk anyone?
• She is going to the competitor today to get the phone...
• She also has a cat that is only peeing a small amount, so she has decided since the kitty is inactive, 12 years old, and obese, she will have her put to sleep.  I was absolutely livid, but who knows what is true.

So, that is most of the forgotten FTMOAH.  

Um... Enjoy?  And not once has she asked how I am doing or feeling, and I am actually glad.

I am leaving for my friend's -who just was released from the hospital yesterday- tomorrow, and I will be inaccessible to her for at least 3-4 days.  Thank goodness.

Thank you for reading.  Hoarding... No one wins.  No one.

An update and a bit of 'From the Mouth of a Hoarder' (FTMOAH)

What a busy few days it has been!  Full of the fun things, and the 'WTF' things...

Had a lovely weekend of shopping and fun.  Spent Sunday at the pool, did a spot of swimming and got some sun.  Enroute to a large urban area about 90 minutes from home with a friend, I starting getting text messages from my hoarding mother's neighbor.  Long story short(er), my hoarding mother called her up to the fence and she surreptitiously got a couple of pictures of her.  Now my mother is ANTI-PHOTOGRAPH.  Even in my wedding she did not allow herself to be photographed, and did all she could to create drama at my reception by hiding in the bathroom and in the kitchen.  So...  The woman who:

• Tirelessly appearance shames others in every conversation, talking about how much weight they have gained, how wrinkled they are, how much gray hair they have, and the like...
• Complains about how frail she is, how she has to use a cane everywhere she goes, at the grocery or other stores she gets a cart to use as a walker, talks about all the 'wonderful strangers' that offer her help to get things, carry things, and wonder why she has no one that helps her...

Was photographed purposefully striding across the yard, unaided by any cane.  She is far heavier than I have ever seen her, and she is extremely gray now, as one would expect someone of 80 years old to be.  She is also very wrinkled, and the expression on her face, which I thought little of because that is her normal expression, is grim.  

This is not to appearance shame her.  She does not look her age, at all.  But, she is telling me that she is losing weight because she is unable to shop and cook for herself, and that she is not 'white headed' like everyone she sees and clucks over like it is a character flaw, and talks about how wrinkled and old they look.  She gives me hell on a regular basis about my appearance and weight, how short my hair is, how wrinkled around the eyes I am, and that I have been obese in my life, and I am not under 100 pounds anymore like I was when I was so sick in 2013.  I am going to have a hard time not rolling my eyes so hard they get stuck in the back of my head the next time she starts her crap.  She was going on about how swollen her legs were and how she could wear nothing but flip flops (that she calls TONGS)  and that is not true either.  So as I suspected, 90-99% of what she tells me is utter bull pucky, and I suspect this is one of the reasons she has avoided my overtures to see her in 2015 and 2016.  A bit hard to frame my perception when her reality is so very different.

She also ran into her sister's daughter, who is also a narcissist.  She, and her sister disowned this young woman in the early 80's for living a lifestyle they did not approve of, writing bad checks, living with men, and the ultimate piece was her dating <gasp> a black man, bless their little bigoted hearts.  Now this woman who is now in her middle 50's is living back in the area, but in the time after her estrangement, stole my mothers estate from the nursing home and absconded with the funds, and stole quite a bit of jewelry when she left our house for the last time.  So now my mother is rehashing all that ancient history all over again.  LET IT GO.  She cannot.  So there is that.

She had a tree fall from the neighbor's yard and come down on her garage, allegedly.  Of course she went scorched earth on that, the neighbor, and everyone else.  She is going to sue him now, for this tree and the 3 others that have fallen over the past 4 years.  But that is not the FTMOAH part.  

Ready for it?  FTMOAH...

She has been making obtuse yet dramatic references about 'what she has been going through' and 'what has happened here' that I have ignored, and after she managed to turn a discussion about me buying chocolate candy for the office to herself and that she has no air conditioning and has not...  She has decided that the hated neighbor 'in the turn' jumped her locked fence, pried up the 'outside unit' of her heat pump, removed the good works, and replaced the old works with junk and closed it back up.  

SAY WHAT?  This is even more paranoid than the gas can incident several weeks ago.  She has not called the police because she wants to get estimates for the damage and to back her up because they will not believe her.  

Uh huh.  They are not the only ones.  She also will not leave if she sees 'he' is home unless she has a doctor's visit.  She cannot leave the house empty or 'he' will come in.  (Reference to the 'snake poop' incident, the loosening the light bulb over her washer incident, and the stealing her stalking log incident...)

She then goes on to tell me that she is sure something awful was done to the little brown cat that she essentially stole from a neighbor.  She states that it has the largest butthole that she has ever seen, and she is sure that someone.... 

At that point I ended that verbal vomit from being spewed on me.  REALLY?  UGH!

There is much more, but I think you get the idea...

So, final piece.  My doctor's visit on July 5th.  We have a plan.  I will be having surgery soon.  I should get the call to schedule this week.  The plan is to try to get the softball sized mass and the ovary out laparoscopically, and if they cannot due to endometriosis or scar tissue they will reopen my hysterectomy incision and go in that way to avoid disturbing my mesh midline incision repair.  They will have a general surgeon and an oncological gynecologist on standby, and if I get in early, and it is laparoscopic,  I will go home the same day.  If anything more, I could be in one to 4 days.  My doctor reviewed my past mammograms and wants me to have another to ensure the mass on my chest wall they have been watching has not changed, and she wants that done as part of my pre op.  Um... YAY.  I am sure it is fine.  But okay.  

Lot of moving parts happening right now.  But it all will work out.  My mother asks about my surgery, then immediately launches into a story about her medical issues.  I think that it may be time to go from very low contact to EXTREMELY low contact.  I cannot stand it.  She is miserable, and I refuse to let her make me feel miserable.

Hope everyone is having a good week.  Thank you for reading, and the support.  

Hoarding, no one wins.  No one.  

Time is passing, but some things seem not to change

I simply cannot believe it is the holiday season.  I am back from my visit to Florida, and a lovely one it was at that.  I spent Thanksgiving with friends who are like family, and spent the days in 80+ degree heat (F) and roaming the lakesides and orange groves with my friend in his new convertible sports car.  I went for lovely long runs in the sunshine, and we had our celebrations next to the pool or the fire pit.  And lots of Bloody Marys and cocktails.  I am invited back at the end of January, and I am seriously considering going.  

The kitties did well during my vacation, and as I attempt to type this I have 'help' by our newest feline family member.  It increases the challenge to write when you are receiving enthusiastic and bellowing head-butts and alternately the butt hello.  Cats.  

Anyway... From my last blog, my hoarding mother's hospitalization ended anti climatically and her cats weathered her hospitalization okay.  It was as I suspected, it was serious enough that they needed to surgically open her hand and clean out the infection, but no where near the high level of risk the 2010 cat bite was.  She was angry she was awake for her surgery, and in the two weeks post has been miserable, griping, and making everything all about her.  I am continuing to keep her on the low contact plan, and she is getting angry that when she tries to 'hype' something - often by asking alarming-yet-rhetorical questions, I respond one of three ways... I will:

1. Not answer at all, and she will eventually go on with 'conversation'
2. Tell her to ask her doctor, and not engage any further
3. Tell her I am at my location and have to go

I realize she gets some perverse gain out of having a problem for every solution, so I am working to not give her any gain or reward for her behavior.  It is baffling her, and making her very, very angry.  She is continuing to report off-the-charts, intentionally cruel and scorched-earth interactions with most anyone she encounters, and I simply maintain silence.  

While I was in Florida and had a restful week of no contact, she kidnapped the two neighbor cats that the neighbors adopted, then turned outside.  They moved away a couple of weeks ago, but late last week their teenage daughter asked my mother if she had seen the cats, and my mother cheerfully lied to the young girl and let her think 'something probably happened to them as they have not been [at my mother's] to eat for several days'.  

She is an intentionally awful person.  I personally prefer that cats be kept inside for their wellbeing and safety, but my mother was despicable... If what she tells me is even true.  The neighbor that lives behind her was in Florida when she was in the hospital, and returned after I did.  I am not sure if she has any additional information, or even knows my mother was in the hospital.

I am in a weird place, one of impending transition.  I am looking to the future.  I have no intention of leaving my current home or position anytime soon, but it will happen in the nearer-yet-somewhat-remote future.  I plan on going where it is warm.  Little to no snow so I can enjoy the outdoor activities I participate in comfortably all year long.  I am also looking at where I am in my career, and what is next.  I would like to have space for hobbies, more relationships, and possibly, a romantic relationship if the right person enters my life and shares what is important.  None of which can happen now, and it is not a complaint, it is just the way it is.  For now.  

I need to see what shakes out at the federal, state and local level for my organization and the social justice and civil rights movements I hold dear.  I need to figure out my health issues and the best way to address those challenges once I have a diagnosis and a plan.  I need to get back into my training plan for a marathon and hopefully, an ultra marathon.  I also need to continue my internal work of healing from nearly a lifetime of abuse.  Right now I am straddling two worlds, the one I occupy now and the one I wish to inhabit soon.  

I was at a friend's home and her lovely mother did a Tarot reading for each of us.  I do not believe in such things, but did it for entertainment value and to have a different perspective to think about.  From the reading my inability to allow failure, my trauma and turning away from family, my surrogate family of my best friend, and my contemplation of my next chapter in life were all discussed.  And any of those cards and interpretations could lend themselves to any person, but I continued to think about the work I am doing, the toll it is taking on my health and my life, and that I am already deep in the exploration and planning process for the next steps.  

Just some things to think about.  Now, back to work, and this week is a long and busy one.  I do not foresee a slow down until mid to later January, but that is the holiday season.  The holidays are hard for me in many ways, but I am lucky to have the people I do in my life.  I need to stop allowing work to co-opt precious time with them.  I also need to consciously spend less time with, or avoid those who drain me.  

Have a great week, and just in case I am not back before whatever holiday you celebrate, if you choose to celebrate any of them, I will wish you the best.

Another episode of... From The Mouth Of A Hoarder!

Sharing a recent bit of craziness.  My hoarding mother has a mobile phone.  Not that it does her much good, as she refuses to give the number out, keep it on, keep it with her...  You know, somehow be part of her own solution.

So I called to check in.  And she starts off with her normal "I am so mad I could just KILL" bull crap.  She informs me that she was curious after having a mobile since 1995 or so, as to what her voice mail greeting sounds like.  So she called it.  And promptly went off the deep end.  It is a standard US major carrier that says something to the the effect of "You have reached..<insert my hoarding mother's name in her own voice> please leave a message."

Oh.  The. Horror.  Her name is out there for everyone to hear!  The mobile provider did this!  She called and spent hours on the phone arguing with random people who all told her the same thing I did.  No one did that 'to her' or 'for her'.  She did it.  She was furious at the 'smart asses' that 'were more interested in telling me I was wrong' than fixing it.  A person did tell her how to change her outgoing message, but that one said her phone number!!!  Jesus wept.  She finally found the option to do a personal greeting, and said that the phone now says "You have reached SALLY..." 

I explained to her that likely that she set that up in 1994 or 1995 and forgot, but I hear that message in occasion, and it is indeed her voice.  I got a lot of huffing, puffing and harrumphing type of noises, and she changed the subject and got off the phone quickly.

Before she got off the phone she wanted to know if she should buy a new spare since hers has been in her car since it was new (1994) and she wanted to know what she should do about getting her hearing aid serviced since they are in the same office as a doctor that discharged her from the practice, and according to her, she is not to be on their property even thought she did nothing to cause it.  (I remember the incident that likely resulted in that refusal of service, and it was earned... revisionist history much?)

Ai yi yi.  I have to laugh, or I would scream.  Thanks for reading...

A week away, and my... She has been busy...

So... I did it.  I went and had a lovely, relaxing vacation.  Seven days in the Caribbean with my best friend and his wife.  Seven days of being unplugged from everything, including my hoarding mother.  

I got back and decided to give her a quick call so she did not start stalking my workplace or her neighbor to determine if I had returned (via social media, as the neighbor made the fatal error of telling her I friended her).  I also remember her slipping and telling me that she called AAA and several travel agents when I took a cruise in 2004 in an attempt to get a way to contact me.  She failed.  Thankfully.

So...  This would be almost amusing if it were not so stinking sad.  During the week I was gone she:

• Declared war on the neighbors, especially the ones who had actually brought her food on the holidays and had been neighborly.  They paved part of the dirt road that she lives on, and she refused to pay for any of it, so they paved part of it and she is claiming that it has a drop off of over 8 inches near her driveway and she cannot get her car out.  She has called the county commissioners, the codes office, everyone at the courthouse.  She finally called the contractor who did the paving, and was miffed that the owner was out of town and unavailable until Monday, and despite it being only Saturday that he had not dropped everything and called her.  She also had phone and face to face altercations with the nice folks across the street, and went all 'scorched earth' on them.  She is now criticizing them in intentionally cruel ways, and was not happy when I called her on it and shut it down.
• She had been referred to an eye specialist who she had a negative experience with about 10 years ago.  The morning of her appointment the practice called, stated they were canceling her appointment due to her past interaction, and they were declining her as a patient.  When she went back to her primary care physician that referred her, she stated he was distant, late for the appointment, and would not make eye contact.  I apprised her to have the conversation with him, but she prefers to find another doctor.  Another wonderful stranger just fell off the pedestal.  She also started freaking out that the place she got her hearing aid is in the same building as the practice who declined her, and was going to worst case scenario there.  She then proceeded to tell me that in 2005 she had not acted inappropriately or in a batshit crazy way in the doctor's office, when I remember that bit off-the-charts ugliness. Revisionist history anyone?
• For some strange reason she happened to be discussing me and my car with a perfect stranger. Talking about how I had owned more cars in the past few years than she has owned in her life, and was going on about me trading my last car in on this car, and admitted that she asked this person how much the type of Volvo I have cost.  WHAT. THE. SERIOUS. HELL?  WHY?!?!?  I cannot fathom why she would be discussing me or the car I drive to anyone...  I suspect she was 'dragging her cross' and telling this new/wonderful stranger in training about her CEO (of a tiny nonprofit) daughter who just traded a Lexus (which was over nine years old) on a new Volvo (that was a retired loaner car and will soon be 4 years old) who is on a cruise (my first vacation in 9 years) but I cannot be bothered to come see her, etc.  I usually do not speculate, but in this case, she has done this enough that it is the rule and not the exception.  Some of her comments indicated this, and she presented them as 'oh how funny'.  GAH!  

She is simply determined to make life as difficult as possible by her behavior and her unwillingness to deal with her mental illness.  She is caught in the small, lonely and threatening world of her own making, and I am again reminded that you cannot want something more for someone than they want it for themselves, and you cannot help someone in spite of themselves.

I am lucky to be spending the holiday this week with friends.  I continue to be grateful for all that is good in my life, and also I am grateful for the lessons that I have learned from what is challenging.  I have friends that are my family, and two beloved kitties that are my furry family.  Life has its ups and downs, but it is very good, and peaceful.  And I work to keep it positive, and to keep it that way.  And it is WORK.  But it is worth the effort.  I either succeed or I learn. Either way I win.  I think that is a better stance than 'opportunity lost'.

Hoarding.  No one wins.  No one.  Have a great week everyone.

The Hoarding and Narcissistic Family Tree

Egads.  I am still processing my relationship with my NPD, hoarding mother and am low to no contact with other relatives... Or so I thought.

One day post 46th birthday I was rushing home from a lovely Ethiopian late lunch with a friend and had to change into 'professional CEO lady' clothing to attend an evening dinner event.  I rushed home, and was getting out of the car when my mobile rang.  I had been talking to my staff about a shelter issue, so I answered without looking.

HUGE MISTAKE.  

It was 'narcis-sister'.  My 1/2 sister who was given up at birth and found us when I was 26.  The thing that terrifies me is she is proof that there is a strong genetic link to this thing, with the narcissism, hoarding, and she is also struggles with Oxycontin addiction.  I got the "Hey little sister, sorry I missed your birthday by not sending a card, so happy birthday, and by the way, [your mother's sister] went insane and is seeing bugs and lizards in her house, stayed over here with with me and called the police on me today for domestic abuse..."  I explained that I thought that was unfortunate, but I needed to get dressed for a work event and ended the call.  She asked me to call her back... Hope she is not holding her breath on that.  She kept repeating she wanted to give me a heads up that I "will be getting a call" from my aunt.

Fast forward a couple of weeks.  I had just left a dinner date with a gentleman I have seen a couple of times now, and had just left my polling place and went to the grocery store.  I had just pulled in when my mobile rang.  It was my aunt, who also scares me on the genetic link piece.  She also is on the hoarding scale and is also demonstrates the clinical indicators of narcissistic personality disorder.  I selected ignore on my phone, removed it from the holder on my dash, dropped it in my leather handbag, and entered the grocery store.

Now, there are a couple of things that could have happened... Perhaps I did not lock my iPhone, and the leather from my handbag was enough of a contact with the touchscreen to 'buttdial' my aunt back.  I think the more likely scenario was she called, I hit ignore, she left the demanding voicemail that I retrieved later, and she immediately called back and my handbag 'answered'.  Either way, I hear her shrill and demanding voice screaming my name.  I knew if I disconnected her she would then continue to call my phone, and if I blocked her, would go to neighbors, etc.  So I answered.  

For over 40 minutes, other than my initial 'hello' and 'I have to go, I need to cash out my groceries' I said nothing.  I did not have to... It was a solid monologue of made up drama.  The short version is...  She was hospitalized with her back, and she claims that some meds they gave her made her see dead people and dead bodies in her yard.  She asserts the lizards, the rats, and the men talking under her windows at her home and at my sister's home was real.  She states that she was in the mental health unit for 5 days, but she has papers proving she has nothing wrong with her, that it was the medicine, and she has most of the blankets and towels off the windows now.  She states she is DONE with my sister, and told the story regarding the events that culminated in her calling 9-1-1.  She also is angry at the 'wonderful strangers' that she has included in her will chose to leave when she started having 'problems' and have not been accessible since.

Ugh.  Double ugh.

I think I have enough of this with my hoarding mother.  I simply cannot, or will not, deal with 2 others, and I will not allow myself to be triangulated into their pettiness.  

Hoarding.  No one wins.  No one.

Okay folks, it is time for From the Mouth of a Hoarder!

Today's FTMOAH is a doozy... 

In the US many high schools and universities put out cards that have a local contact that is part of the Alumni contact, but is basically a multi-class directory that is then sold to folks.  I had thought those had gone by the wayside like many publications of that sort, displaced by social networking media and the internet.

Nope.  I received three, one for my high school, one for the university I attended for undergraduate and one for my graduate school.  The cards immediately went into shred folder, not because I am secretive, but because folks who know me are already connected via social networking sites, and I am wise to how this particular scenario plays out.  Nothing bad, and for some, quite enjoyable.  

My hoarding mother got one.  And she went simply ballistic... Calling the 1-800 number and demanding to 'be removed from the list NOW!' and telling the hapless call center person her dramatic and sad story...  A story that I have heard nearly 5 million times that includes:

• She was not allowed to go to parties or to socialize so why would she now?
• All she did was go to class and then go to work.  
• She did not have any friends in school, so she does not know or care about 'those people'.
• A long, drawn out story about someone who came into her cake and candy supply shop in the basement of her home in the early 80s who told her they told the reunion committee for her class her address and she went absolutely batsh^t crazy on that person, screaming 'Why?  WHY? I do not want anything from them!' and similar sentiments.
• How she has never attended a reunion and does not intend to start now.

She planned to go into the local Alumni contact's office, who happens to be our former insurance agent, and she loathes him.  She planned to go in and demanding that her information not be included, and telling him what she thinks...

You get the idea.  Another person I should send flowers to when she is gone.  It is just so sad.  Granted, I took the 'geographical solution' and 'poofed' on many folks from high school, and I own that behavior, and I know I have hurt many folks I did not mean to, I just needed to be able to live and do so from outside the shadow of the hoard, or her toxicity.

I feel I had little choice... but the friendships, both consistently maintained and rediscovered are precious.  It saddens me that my mother makes the choices she does.  And as we all know, choices wreak consequences, both positive and negative, as well as natural and contrived.

Have a good one, and thank you for reading.  And please keep our former insurance agent in your positive thoughts.  He may need them!  

Hoarding... No one wins.  NO ONE.

I wonder if we can do a Hoarding Show that is a spoof of the Twilight Zone?

My conversation with my hoarding mother was a hodge-podge of all her usual strategies and manufactured drama, but she has some new scenarios but same old modus operandi.  The highlights of this conversation included:

She finally had the test she was scheduled for the day she hit the deer.  Or according to her, the day the deer hit HER.  Anyway, apparently she needs a stress test as it appears she has a blockage.  She has been complaining of symptoms that appear vascular in nature for years... edema, more pronounced in the left leg, shortness of breath, the list goes on... But she has successfully blocked any opportunity to diagnose the source of her concerns.  It also hit me that after all the drama she hyped about temporal arteritis, she has not mentioned it for weeks, and I believe she never did have the test.  She was started on treatment, but I am not clear if she is still taking the antibiotics.  It is only her eyesight, cognition, etc. that is at risk!  So with this potential heart blockage, it is hard to tell what the deal truly is.  She has a significant family history of it, and already the denial is beginning.  She states that she does not understand how this is possible since she 'does not eat junk' and 'never adds table salt.  

Seriously?  Most everything this woman eats comes through a drive through window or is some highly processed crap from a box or a can.  I am just gobsmacked.  And not to make this about me, but it also hit me that with my father dying of heart disease as most if not all of his family has, and with her potentially having heart disease, I will need to continue to work to eat healthy and to exercise as I am post menopausal, and this also has impact for my estranged 1/2 sister.  But I digress...  

Her conversation moves on to a two women with several foster kids moving into the large house across the street.  She is continuing her assault on at least 3 other neighbors who have the misfortune of living near her/moving near her, and now she has another person or family to antagonize and obsess over.  Another group of folks to add to the list to send flowers to!  

She is also obsessing about being on an antiretroviral medication to help avoid another outbreak of the shingles, and is less than thrilled that it is a medication that is advertised heavily on TV to treat herpes simplex infections.  God forbid anyone think she had herpes!  The horror!  I gleefully advised her that shingles, chicken pox, etc. was a form of the herpes virus.  I just gave her something to think about...

There is much more, but I will save that for the next episode of 'From the Mouth of a Hoarder'... Coming soon!

As always, thanks for reading. 

Yep. I just had to call this morning. Update to yesterday's post.

Oh. Dear. God.

For a moment there, I apparently forgot that the universe revolves around my hoarding mother.  How dare I forget that!

In my 9/1/2014 post I blogged about her inability to get out of her own way to deal with a minor car accident involving a deer.

Also, this weekend was a holiday, a 3 day weekend for me since it was Labor Day.  A lovely weekend spent with friends, good food, and running/training for a half marathon.  I ran a total of 21 1/2 miles in three days, and 9.5 of that was yesterday.  Where this is relevant is my iPhone 5 picked mile 7.5 to die.  And it really died, not just ran out of battery power.  I took a slightly shorter way home, and found it would not charge.  After a quick shower I took the phone to the phone carrier's store in the local mall, and they confirmed that it was done for. 

"He's dead, Jim!"  <Sorry for the Star Trek reference.>

Anyway, I was incommunicado from 12 noon until after 6:30pm, and I broke out my little back up TracPhone.  No data, no hotspot, and since it is a flip phone, I am NOT texting.  My new phone arrives Wednesday.

So this morning I checked my iPhone VM remotely.  I had a rather pissy sounding message from my mother just dripping with condescension.  "Lisabeth, I know you have company this weekend but I need 5 minutes of your time- I have a question that needs an immediate answer.  Call me when you get this."  She called at 6:20pm, and I retrieved it at 7am when I came back in from my run/workout.  

I called her on my way in to work.  She was PISSED when she answered the phone.  I explained my phone was dead, and asked her what she needed.  She began to go off on how she will never ask the acquaintance with a husband with late stage Alzheimer's for anything again, and she is not helping her again, and how the neighbor down back (the one I spoke to on Friday who did not know about the deer strike) told her that she was busy and was leaving to go out of town that weekend (when she talked to her and DID NOT TELL HER she did not have her car).  So we are firmly within the halls of petty grudges and overblown misunderstandings.  They are supposed to READ HER MIND and understand that she might want them to drop everything at an inconvenient time and take her to the rental car place on a holiday weekend.

I switched the conversation back to what she needed, and heard the whole chapter and verse about how worthless her insurance company and the rental car place is, how she is calling the insurance commissioner to make a complaint, how she is finding new car insurance immediately, how she has a call into the regional manager of the rental car place and wants all involved fired, yadda yadda yadda.

Oy vey.  

She simply cannot get out of her own way to be part of her own solution, and her lack of empathy/inability to see any perspective other than her own is absolutely GOBSMACKING.

This is not going to end well.  Right now she is heralding the body shop owner as the hero, and the person is on a pretty high pedestal.  I suspect that fall will be hard and dramatic when mother goes to pick up her car and discovers that there is no way to make the repairs invisible on a 20 year old, three stage metallic paint job on an old Honda.

Thank you for reading!

It has been too long since the last episode of ... FROM THE MOUTH OF A HOARDER!!!!

Been a bit too serious for a bit too long... don't you think?  Just in the last 2 conversations I have gathered the following 'gems' for you.  Without further delay... this installment of FTMOAH!

I had not spoken to my hoarding mother in a few days, so I gave her a call in the later afternoon after leaving a board meeting.  I have returned to work part time this week from medical leave, and thought since she was having her car serviced that morning (a boot on the axle needed replaced) that I would just check in.  

When I called two things were immediately clear.  She thought I was calling back because she had called my office (which is a NO-NO/boundary I have set with her) and she was in high drama mode.  Low, dramatic voice.

"Oh... I did not expect you to call back this soon.  The woman who answered said you were in a meeting and would not be back at the office until Monday... Anyway... I have a MESS HERE AND I NEED HELP!"

To make a long story short?  Her 'mess'?  She took her 21 year old Honda station wagon to the dealer, and they offered to take her home since it would be a couple of hours.  This was at 9 or 10am.  It was now 2:30pm, and she had worked herself into a dither and called, and was told that due to the age of the car, that there was a bit of rust, etc. and it was not as easy as flagged, and it would take a bit more time, and they would call when it was done.  

She was flipping out.  Speculating all kinds of crazy scenarios, such as they had damaged her car and were trying to cover it up, and going on how she will never leave it again... I stopped her and laid it out.  I worked in a dealership for a few years prior to my nonprofit career, and explained that since she was no longer waiting, her car was not the scheduling priority and nothing was wrong, she would most likely hear from them any moment.  Explained they did nothing wrong, and to chill out.  And shocker, they beeped in and informed her that her car was done, and they were coming to pick her up.  She seemed somewhat mollified.  

Next call- checked in the next day to see if I needed to intervene on the 'final act of Carmen' in regards to the Honda service.  She seemed satisfied with that, but she returned home and her neighbor had leaned plywood up against her 40-something year old fence, and she walked over and with her cane, pushed each sheet over onto the ground.  She positively crowed with glee when she talked about it.  That should do a lot to improve relations with this neighbor, who she has called the police on already and had an argument because he used weed killer to kill all the crap growing on the fence. <Headdesk>... Lather, rinse, repeat.

The third was relayed in a martyred whisper.  "I am so tired of being tired all the time.  I do not know what causes it... any time I sit down I go to sleep.  I am not going to say anything to the doctor, before you say it, because they take your license for that kind of thing, and it only happens at home.  I guess it could not be gas or poison gas because the cats are fine and they are so much smaller..."

What do you say to that level of crazy?  Ai yi yi.  Hoarding.  No one wins.  No one.  This is not going to end well.  It just is not.

Thank you for reading! 

Mean as a snake...

Wow.  For those who have not read previous blogs on NotMyHoardingMother, in addition to her compulsive hoarding and mental illness, my mother is quite mean spirited and has no issue with going from 0 to scorched earth in under 10 seconds.  

The other day she went shopping at Walmart, an experience that she complains about sourly each time she goes.  "Where do they get these people that work there?  The idiot farm?"  "You should have seen this HUGE woman, easily 400 pounds and..." You get the idea.

She went to Walmart, and has a handicapped placard for her car (that she keeps in her hoardy purse until she is parked, which is technically the correct way to do it) and for the past 2 years has walked with a cane.  She found a handicap accessible space, and started to swing in as a young mother was approaching her car.  She had the cart either near, or somewhat in, the handicapped space my mother was getting ready to turn into.  According to my mother, she took her time, was talking to her child, having her child hand her things, placing things carefully in the car, and in my mother's vernacular, "just pissing around, taking her sweet time."  Again, according to my mother, at one point she looks up, and sees the traffic backing up behind my mother's 20 year old Honda, and motions for her to roll down her window, and informs her that she is holding up traffic.

My mother's reaction?  She went ballistic.  Screaming and yelling at her, and called her "FAT-ASS" and proudly/smugly stated that she "probably did not like being called a name, but she [sic] did not care since it was true, and besides that tub of lard knew better to open her fat mouth because she [sic] knew that I would get out and hit her."  Then she proudly recounts the other drivers looking at her, and felt their stares were those of approval and support.  

She says this to her formally FAT daughter.  Who has struggled with my weight since I was in my mid twenties, and I am now 45.  She knows I do not tolerate body or fat shaming.  So it should not have been a surprise when I told her that I did not want to hear this story, she was simply cruel and it was totally unnecessary.  She immediately started pontificating about how this 'cow' with her child inconvenienced her and the others...  And she most definitely did not appreciate my commentary on how she could have resolved that differently...

1. Politely asked the woman to re-position her cart so she was comfortable pulling in.
2. Waited a moment or two more and go about her business.
3. Drive past, and find another handicapped space, (there are usually MANY to be had at that particular store) or run one of her other errands in the same plaza and come back in a few minutes.

And my questions were even more annoying to her...

1. Did you have your turn indicator on? If she asked you to roll down your window and said that it appears that she was unaware that you intended to turn in.  She got all huffy, but I have seen her turn her signal off and sit, stewing, looking straight ahead in such situations in the past.
2. What potential positive impact did you think being intentionally cruel was going to have in this particular situation?  Even if this woman was being inconsiderate or slow, what does her body type or size have to do with anything other than your own bias?
3. What makes you think you know someone is a 'greedy, lazy, slob' from their weight?  Oh- that is right ... YOU DON'T.  

She most generally uses cruelty as her go-to response when she is irritated, annoyed, embarrassed, etc.  She is intentionally condescending and hurtful.  I know this comes from her mental illness, but she is very calculated in it, and has an awareness that she is doing it.  

It makes me sick.  Not only is her home toxic, and is she toxic to anyone that attempts to have any sort of friendship or relationship with her, but she is absolutely vile to everyone else, unless she perceives there to be transactional, not a reciprocal, benefit to her.

That poor woman.  She did not deserve what she got from my mother.  And I also realize that there may be much more to this story than I was told, if it happened at all.  But... this says volumes about her character.

This week I have seen two articles on the death of hoarders.  One was a woman in CA that was found dead in her hoarded back yard of her hoarded home with a kitten in a carrier on her lap, and she was a cat hoarder as well.  The second was in Columbus (Ohio) where a person hoarded their house to the point the floor joists gave away, and they died in the crush of the hoard.  And the comments were a mix, but plenty of blame for the awful family that abandoned the poor person to squalor.  You cannot help someone that does not want it, and you cannot want something more than someone wants it for themselves.  I am sure when my mother passes, if I outlive her, that I will be blamed in similar fashion.  I am already by many in her neighborhood and in her town.  That is unfortunate, but she has actively and deliberately chosen, ratified, and reaffirmed on many occasions that this is what she wants, and she has chosen her illness over everything, including me.  Especially me.  

Hoarding... no one wins, NO ONE.  Thank you for reading. 

Update on medical.... well, not really....

The craziness continues with the temporal arteritis concern with my hoarding mother.  In the post previous to the last, my mother's doctors suspect TA, not a mastoid bone infection, is the reason for her issues.  If that is the case, time is of the essence... but my mother is dragging her feet and doing her normal routine of being controlling, oppositional, and unable to get out of her own way to be part of the solution.

The stakes are high if this is the case.  Blindness, strokes, all kinds of things can happen.  Her response?  Dragging her feet.  Engaging in scorched earth and inappropriate behavior with those trying to help her.  She went to her specialist, who was going to schedule a biopsy with the one doctor by the end of the week last week.  She heard from their office on Thursday, after deciding the doctor was 'mad' and all kinds of inappropriate and unfounded assumptions.

Her response?  She went to the library, had the librarian Google the biopsy, and has decided to NOT do it.  She has the prescription for the steroids she would need to take for a number of years, and she does not want to take those either.... (And what a lovely impact they will have on her mental health...) 

I am not advising, commenting, or giving her any reaction or reinforcement one way or the other.  

Maybe I should develop a drinking game to play when on the phone with her?  

Have a great week.  Thank you for reading.

Yeesh... Everything but what is truly important. Is this the path to self destruction?

She utterly baffles me and simultaneously breaks my heart.  It makes me sad to say that, and not in a mother-daughter way, but the feeling I would have elicited by any client I have worked with over the years.  

As I keep telling my staff, there are two overarching tenets to case management/social services.  

1. You cannot want 'it' more than the person themselves does...
2. You cannot assist someone in spite of themselves.

With those two touchstone observations as the perspective in which I am dealing with this, onward to the latest installment of utterly CRAZY.  

For those new to this blog, as with many folks who engage in compulsive hoarding at this level, the stuff is a side effect of the power and control issues, her addictive behaviors, and her narcissistic/borderline personality disordered behavior.  It is so hard to filter through what she says, since she makes minor or inconsequential things HUGE things, and important things are often not shared until way past critical mass.

So- the latest installment of 'cannot get out of my own way to be my own solution to save my life...'

Since February or early March my mother has been complaining of headaches, and had a siege where her jaw hurt so badly that she could not open her mouth wider than 1/2-3/4 inch.  She was passed back and forth from her primary care doctor to her dentist and referred to her ear specialist.  Long story short, partially due to her refusal to follow process and allow electronic referrals, records to be sent, etc. she made what was really poor follow up and communication come to a complete standstill.  I also realize that the recollection of events I am getting are what she chooses to share with me, so again, who really knows what is actually based in reality.  I do not think she receives the greatest of health care in her small Appalachian state, and her mental health and behavior are definitely a barrier, and the fact that she is an isolated, elderly woman with Medicare.  I have offered to come pick her up, put her up in a hotel nearby, and take her to John Hopkins Medical Center in the past.  She flatly refuses.  

During this nearly 3 month ordeal, she has made things more difficult by:

• Refusing to give all her providers similar information
• Refuses to allow electronic referrals or prescriptions to be sent
• Refuses to allow the doctor's offices or medical facilities to transmit records, she picks them up, reviews them and picks through them
• When she calls a medical provider, if she gets voice mail she most often refuses to leave a message
• She has never set up her voicemail on her land line, and has her answering machine disabled so she only knows who calls by caller ID, and she does not want anyone to know she has caller ID
• She refuses to give out her cell phone number to anyone, and does not keep the phone on or check the voicemail
• If a provider does not respond in the manner she deems appropriate and quickly enough, she launches a scorched earth response
• Yesterday she called her ear specialist, and in a very condescending and sarcastic manner, cancelled her appointment that her PCP had moved up 5 weeks for her as he thought she had an infection in her mastoid bone at the very least
• She scheduled with an 'older doctor that knows something' for today (which is the day she was supposed to go to see the ear specialist)
• She arrived at her PCP today unannounced an hour before an appointment that would take a half hour to drive to, demanding copies of medical records, and stormed out when the office person informed her that she was busy and that (mother) would have to wait
• Her gums started to spontaneously bleed and she said nothing

I could write a book on this... and it feels as if I have.  The older doctor told her that he did not feel he had time for a biopsy, but she had 13 of the 20 symptoms of Temporal Arteritis so he was starting treatment with massive cortisone doses.  Upon researching this a bit, and having a bit of background working in medical case management with folks with TA, her assertions from today do not line up.  But with TA there is a real threat of blindness or stroke if untreated.  She has an appointment with the doctor she sees in a nearby city to manage her rheumatoid arthritis and lupus.  

She mentioned it in the 'I am so mistreated and shat upon' way that she does, then she was off to complaining about her neighbors, attempting to gossip, and her normal negativity.  She then mentioned suing all the doctors involved to this point.  Ugh.  

Do I know firsthand that medical malpractice and terrible errors happen with the most consistent and reliable of patients?  Yes.  And medical providers are human too, and they make errors.  I also know that her combative and paranoid behavior makes treatment a crap shoot at best.  No one wins.  And she refuses to see any other perception than the one she stubbornly clings to, even in the face of facts.

I am not sure how this will play out, and it may be one of her 'Chicken Little' episodes that will be anticlimactic as she moves through the process.  Time will tell, but this is a situation that she may have made much, much worse.  

I know she will not allow anyone, including me, to do anything meaningful for her.  Whatever happens, if anything does, it will be partially consequences of her choices.  Choices that include piling her home floor to ceiling with crap, and forcing anyone out of her life that would be willing to help her... including me.  

Hoarding... no one wins.  NO ONE.  Thank you for reading.