Just passing through to say....
ARGH! She just called me as I am working offsite at a coffee shop. She apparently discovered the joys of Miralax...
Yup. Despite all my boundaries, she called me during a business day, while I am in a public place... to talk about a laxative. To talk about her elimination... or lack there of...
GAH! I just hung up.
Seriously? What is with this woman's obsession with poo?
<Muttering to myself...>
Monday, January 27, 2014
Friday, January 24, 2014
She continues to get worse. How far is rock bottom for someone who hoards?
It used to be that with my hoarding mother, she would take a decline, then plateau.
She is no longer plateauing. She is steadily getting worse. I have said it before, but this continues to get worse and worse... and it will NOT end well. It simply cannot.
I have continued to keep contact to just a handful of times a week. This is not popular with her, and I am sure I am the scourge of her 'wonderful strangers' but it is what it is. I realized many, many years ago that you cannot help someone who will not let you, and you cannot let them take you with them to rock bottom.
Yesterday I was a glutton for punishment... I called her enroute to work. She was off and running, using every topic as an excuse to give folks that have been either out of her life or dead for 30 years hell. She has no ability to see anything outside a 'singular nature' so if you hit her crap list, she will go back and ruminate over every single interaction and reframe it from a place of malice and intent. So someone is either good, or totally evil/malevolent/stupid... there is little in between. As I approached work, she asked suddenly and apropos to absolutely NOTHING she had discussed up to that point... "What happened to you going to law school? I thought you were going to do that and you have not mentioned anything else about it and you have never started school."
SAY WHAT? Seriously? I laid out the deal for her.
She is no longer plateauing. She is steadily getting worse. I have said it before, but this continues to get worse and worse... and it will NOT end well. It simply cannot.
I have continued to keep contact to just a handful of times a week. This is not popular with her, and I am sure I am the scourge of her 'wonderful strangers' but it is what it is. I realized many, many years ago that you cannot help someone who will not let you, and you cannot let them take you with them to rock bottom.
Yesterday I was a glutton for punishment... I called her enroute to work. She was off and running, using every topic as an excuse to give folks that have been either out of her life or dead for 30 years hell. She has no ability to see anything outside a 'singular nature' so if you hit her crap list, she will go back and ruminate over every single interaction and reframe it from a place of malice and intent. So someone is either good, or totally evil/malevolent/stupid... there is little in between. As I approached work, she asked suddenly and apropos to absolutely NOTHING she had discussed up to that point... "What happened to you going to law school? I thought you were going to do that and you have not mentioned anything else about it and you have never started school."
SAY WHAT? Seriously? I laid out the deal for her.
- That was something I considered between 12-15 years ago. YEARS!!!! Not recently! I was in grad school from 2001-2003, and while I was picking my program, I contemplated various options, and selected Nonprofit Management. She continuously asks if it was 'worth it'. Ugh.
- At the point I was nearing graduation from grad school, I contemplated 3 options.
- A PhD in Social Work
- Getting my JD
- Getting a Masters in Nursing (for Admin)... And what happened was I applied to different programs, was accepted to various schools, and decided that the PhD route was the one I was going to go. I was supposed to start 6 days after I ended my final quad of my Master's Program. I simply was DONE, and pulled out.
- I simply do not have the time to be in school
- At the age of nearly 45, spending another 2-5 years in school is not something I consider a good ROI (return on investment).
- Student loans now SUCK... and I would have to finance whatever I would do heavily.
I told her pretty much like I have detailed it here. I got a weak 'Oh' in response, and then she started in on how much money I could make if I were an attorney... That is the base of it. She has no knowledge of my financial situation AT ALL, but she makes assumptions. And I am not measuring up. Her messages to me as an adult child are as conflicted and MESSED UP as they were when I was a child. And what it boils down to... I am not doing something she finds acceptable. TOO BAD! Last time I checked, she is not me... I got off the phone, and went to work. Before hanging up she insisted I call her that evening because she had something important to tell me. I grudgingly agreed.
Later that evening, I call her on my way home. She started with "well he has been in the house again! And while I was here!". 'He' is the neighbor in the turn, now her closest neighbor on that side.
I will spare you the long version, but she asserted the following:
- That she knew he had been in there because she put 'something' in a specific place AND IT WAS MOVED!
- She found footprints in the snow in her yard and on her porch... and they were men's footprints, and went that way.
- She called the sheriff and they would not come out, but she told them he was driving on a suspended, and the whole crazy story.... ugh...
- She talked to this said deputy about getting a double lock cylinder deadbolt and having it put at the top of the door frame. Like over her head. WTH? He tried to talk her out of it, and she will not listen to reason. She crowed "I asked him what did it matter if I could not get out quickly in an emergency if he can come in and kill me in my own home? He did not have an answer for that!" I advised her that I would take my chances with an intruder before I would do something like that which would almost guarantee she would not get out in a fire. She immediately began to argue that she does not get shaken up, yadda, yadda and it would not be a problem.
- She is now accusing the hated neighbor of being an arsonist- she is basing this on:
- A neighbor's trailer burning in 1974
- Two storage sheds burning in the late 70's early 80's time span
- The neighbor's house burning 1 or 2 years ago
SERIOUSLY? In 40 years 4 fires, all investigated by the Fire Marshall, and one was electrical, one was paint and gasoline left in the building improperly stored in a record heat wave, one was undetermined, and the neighbor's house was electrical. Oh yes... and an apartment that the hated neighbor resided in caught on fire. He and his infant daughter and wife just made it out in the middle of winter in bare feet, and it was after a bad motorcycle accident that nearly robbed him of his ability to walk twenty, thirty years ago. A neighbor upstairs fell asleep with a cigarette. <Sigh> That is quite a damning pattern around him, eh?
She started whispering that she found cigarette butts in cut grass that was 'piled' against the house.
She is absolutely toxic in her bitterness, rumination, and paranoia.
Hoarding... no one wins.
Thanks for reading... Stay warm and safe if you are in the path of the 'polar vortices' and inclement weather.
Sunday, January 12, 2014
Yep. It is that time. It is 'From the Mouth of a Hoarder' Time!
Happy 2014 to all! Been a bit intense lately, so I thought I would do another installment of FTMOAH.
Those who read my last blog know that my hoarding mother called me at work to essentially insult me. That seems to be her new attempt at a strategy since the others are not getting her any traction. She seems to be trying to take this strategy to another level and trying to be subtle in the most passive aggressive, narcissistic way possible is her new angle on trying to get under my skin. Honestly... all I can do is laugh after I end the call.
_________________________________
This group of statements are all things she and I have discussed many times over the past days, weeks, months... years... you get the picture. Of course, when I say it, she refuses to understand, get it, and asks the same question 401,204 times. She hears it from someone in a waiting room, at Walmart, on Dr. Oz, etc. and it is the new gospel that she needs to educate me on! Ai yi yi...
"Did you know that they do not routinely remove appendixes anymore during abdominal surgery? Apparently they do have a function and are not useless like I thought! I thought they just did that, but they don't! You might still have yours..." (I do.)
"Dr. Oz says artificial sweeteners actually cause weight gain even though they have no calories! And they can be harmful! That is so scary!" (Never mind Aspartame gives me thunderclap migraines and Splenda put me into stage 2 renal failure...)
"Did you know that the stuff they put on fruits and vegetables is so harmful?" (No. That is why I buy locally grown, organic vegetables and fruits...)
"Do you know that hearing aids don't cure all hearing loss? Supposedly if you have not heard a certain level or consonants for a number of years your brain 'forgets' how to hook that all together. Think that is why I have such a hard time hearing people? But young people and women TALK SO FAST!"
There are many more, but you get the idea. And she is just flabbergasted when I apprise her this is not a news flash. And that we have discussed these things before.
_______________________________________
She also continues to walk down the aisle of "I cannot see anything other than my own weird assumptions and my own perspective". Things of late that have been conversation stoppers...
"I cannot understand with having a military pension and being retired from the police they do not have any money."
"Do they still not bury people when it is so cold? When I was a little girl the neighbor girl died and they brought the coffin home and it sat in their living room until warmer weather. It started to smell really bad..."
"When the bank sends something to someone ON THE INTERNET [emphasis mine... but she says it the same dramatic way each time] can everyone see it? Or just the person the send it to?"
"[Asking about one of my friends abruptly] does that job pay well? They always seem to be travelling or doing SOMETHING."
"There were people next door stomping around. I think they are going to bring a trailer in. A TRAILER! Like we need that to bring down property values here!" (Um... actually, living next to YOU will bring down their property value...)
"I have been reusing my newspaper bags/sleeves. I cover my feet in lotion and put the bags on to sleep. It is working! My feet are no longer sharp and cut my socks with the crust around my heels." (Retching... sorry... if I get to hear it, I feel I must share the joy!)
_______________________________________
There is much more. I need to use my voice memo to keep track of it all, as this kind of stuff has become so commonplace that it is hard to keep track of. And she is getting worse. All I can do is keep to my plan of keeping contact short and only a few times a week.
Hoarding... no one wins. NO ONE. Have a good evening and thanks for reading.
Those who read my last blog know that my hoarding mother called me at work to essentially insult me. That seems to be her new attempt at a strategy since the others are not getting her any traction. She seems to be trying to take this strategy to another level and trying to be subtle in the most passive aggressive, narcissistic way possible is her new angle on trying to get under my skin. Honestly... all I can do is laugh after I end the call.
_________________________________
This group of statements are all things she and I have discussed many times over the past days, weeks, months... years... you get the picture. Of course, when I say it, she refuses to understand, get it, and asks the same question 401,204 times. She hears it from someone in a waiting room, at Walmart, on Dr. Oz, etc. and it is the new gospel that she needs to educate me on! Ai yi yi...
"Did you know that they do not routinely remove appendixes anymore during abdominal surgery? Apparently they do have a function and are not useless like I thought! I thought they just did that, but they don't! You might still have yours..." (I do.)
"Dr. Oz says artificial sweeteners actually cause weight gain even though they have no calories! And they can be harmful! That is so scary!" (Never mind Aspartame gives me thunderclap migraines and Splenda put me into stage 2 renal failure...)
"Did you know that the stuff they put on fruits and vegetables is so harmful?" (No. That is why I buy locally grown, organic vegetables and fruits...)
"Do you know that hearing aids don't cure all hearing loss? Supposedly if you have not heard a certain level or consonants for a number of years your brain 'forgets' how to hook that all together. Think that is why I have such a hard time hearing people? But young people and women TALK SO FAST!"
There are many more, but you get the idea. And she is just flabbergasted when I apprise her this is not a news flash. And that we have discussed these things before.
_______________________________________
She also continues to walk down the aisle of "I cannot see anything other than my own weird assumptions and my own perspective". Things of late that have been conversation stoppers...
"I cannot understand with having a military pension and being retired from the police they do not have any money."
"Do they still not bury people when it is so cold? When I was a little girl the neighbor girl died and they brought the coffin home and it sat in their living room until warmer weather. It started to smell really bad..."
"When the bank sends something to someone ON THE INTERNET [emphasis mine... but she says it the same dramatic way each time] can everyone see it? Or just the person the send it to?"
"[Asking about one of my friends abruptly] does that job pay well? They always seem to be travelling or doing SOMETHING."
"There were people next door stomping around. I think they are going to bring a trailer in. A TRAILER! Like we need that to bring down property values here!" (Um... actually, living next to YOU will bring down their property value...)
"I have been reusing my newspaper bags/sleeves. I cover my feet in lotion and put the bags on to sleep. It is working! My feet are no longer sharp and cut my socks with the crust around my heels." (Retching... sorry... if I get to hear it, I feel I must share the joy!)
_______________________________________
There is much more. I need to use my voice memo to keep track of it all, as this kind of stuff has become so commonplace that it is hard to keep track of. And she is getting worse. All I can do is keep to my plan of keeping contact short and only a few times a week.
Hoarding... no one wins. NO ONE. Have a good evening and thanks for reading.
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