Gurgling along.

My lungs sort of sound like Snap, Crackle, and Pop are in there trying to catch the herd of frogs that crawled in there to die. Stupid wheezing. 

Scooter had a much better day today than she did yesterday. Awhile ago, Hubster got Hopper and Scooter some used field jacket liners like the one he uses all the time, because they'd steal his and wouldn't want to give it back. They love them, but the liners look so much alike, they often grab the wrong one. So for a little Valentine's surprise, I took an old scrap of fabric and went all Laverne and Shirley on them.

I made a huge heart-shaped pocket on the right side, and then I cut out the initial of their first names and sewed them on the left breast. Hubster put the little heart shaped box of candy he'd bought them in the heart pockets, and tossed in a small box of conversation hearts. We left them on the couch, so the girls would see them first thing in the morning. They were thrilled with them, and Scooter wore hers most of the day.

Scooter was in a great mood all day and 'sang' and 'danced' all morning. Because Scooter is completely nonverbal, she doesn't actually sing, but don't tell her that! When she's panting in rhythm and tapping her foot, (especially while standing!), she's singing and dancing. And she was singing, dancing, and grinning from ear to ear most of her waking hours today, which was such a nice change after yesterday!

Hopper's day didn't go quite as smoothly. She had a bit of a meltdown, and we're not exactly sure why. She had a panic attack over Hubster changing from his thick wool long johns to a lighter weight pair. We have never figured out, (other than her OCD), why his long johns and running gear set off panic attacks and meltdowns, but it absolutely kills us that we can't seem to help her. Thankfully, medication does help some, but it still doesn't prevent it completely, and it breaks our hearts. Panic attacks and anxiety are hard enough to handle when you are capable of knowing what they are. They're doubly hard when you don't understand what's happening, and that they'll eventually go away. She was fine after Hubster left for work, but I'm sad she had to go through it at all.

I'm hoping the weekend is a bit more restful for all of us, since we're fighting off this crud. We need as much rest as we can get. Hopper seems to have already seen the worst of it and is on the mend, but Scooter and I have a ways to go. 

Hopefully, we can sing and dance our way through it.

The Continuing Saga Of The Blue Basket. Part 2.

A few weeks ago, I was perusing Craigslist and found a pair of matching end tables that I will eventually paint for each of the girls to use as night stands. They were in great shape. Solid oak. Probably around 80 years old and heavy duty enough to stand up to the use and abuse the girls will put them through. Each has a shallow drawer that runs the length and width of the table as well as a small cupboard on the top with doors that look like picture frames. They're going to be perfect for the girls, and I can't wait to get them painted. 


In the meantime, Scooter has been using hers since we brought it home. The drawer is perfect for her bracelets, headphones and mp3 player and her belts. She loves being able to pick out which bracelets she's going to wear for school, and she loves putting them away. But when Hopper scoops everything up and tosses it in The Blue Basket, they don't always get put away, and it makes for a very frustrating search, not to mention broken necklaces. They end up getting tangled in her strings, and when she tries to separate necklace from shoestring, the necklace almost always breaks.


Unfortunately, I've had to take a lot of her necklaces away, because they've broken, or to prevent such a fate for those that have somehow survived her clutches. Some necklaces went in the trash, and others were saved to be mended at some point when I had time.  


Yesterday, I had time.


I was working in the kitchen when I came across a small paper bag that I'd put some of the broken necklaces. I decided to mend them, and I had them all laid out on the couch for Scooter to see when she came home from school. She was absolutely thrilled! She wanted to wear all of them, but I told her that she could only wear 2, because we didn't want them to break. Then I explained that they needed to be hung up, so they didn't get tangled or broken. She would know exactly where they were when she got ready for school, and it would be easy for her to pick out the one she wanted to wear that day. 


She did really well with leaving the necklaces where she'd hung them for several hours. Right before before bed, she did try to take them down to put them in the drawer, but I explained again that I would have to take them away, if she took them down. I'm really hoping I finally got through to her.


Because Hopper and I had another talk yesterday, she helped keep Scooter on track tonight instead of adding to the problem. When Scooter tried adding Hubster's shirt to her basket, Hopper took it in our bedroom for me, and Scooter was fine with it. Normally, she'd have gotten frustrated and retrieved the shirt for herself, so it was a step in the right direction.


I am so proud of both of them, and I'm incredibly hopeful that we finally have this under control. I will keep enlisting Hopper in the battle that lies ahead, and I will continue to let them know how proud of them I am that they are helping to keep their rooms clean and keep the mess out of the living room. 


After all, it was a lot easier to only carry The Blue Basket into the bedroom last night than it was to carry a quarter of the contents of her bedroom back in there.


Unfortunately, when we woke up this morning and got Scooter up to get ready for school, we saw that she had taken all of her scarves and necklaces back down and put them in her basket. I reminded her that she would not be able to wear either a scarf or a necklace to school today, and that I would be putting them up when she was gone. I'd told her before she went to bed last night what the consequence would be, and I do believe she understood. But she also has always loved to push the limits and see how serious I am about something. 


This morning she needed to know I was serious. 


When she got home, the first thing she did was sign that she was sorry. In fact, she did it most of the evening. She was wanting so badly to get her hands on her things. I explained that we'll try again tomorrow, but if she takes them down and puts them in her basket she will be grounded, and I will have to remove them again.


There's no doubt that it's going to be a battle. But it is a battle worth fighting, and it's a battle that can be won.

Several years ago, she would untie her shoes at least 20 times an hour. It was exhausting, but we finally broke her of the habit. It helped that I had the backing of her teachers and aides. And it helped when I realized that she had to have her shoe laces tied perfectly. She needed the bows to be symmetrical and they needed to be triple tied. She counted. Every. Single. Time. She still does, and if you don't do it right, she sticks her foot out for you to try it again. 

It took quite awhile to get her to relax enough with her shoe laces that she could allow asymmetry or only double knots from time to time. She doesn't seem to have much of a problem with it anymore, so we have hope that we can break this habit eventually, too. 


It's going to take work, but with Hopper actually helping instead of 'helping', I know we can do this. Scooter needs to be comfortable with just being able to see that the necklaces and scarves are there and that she doesn't have to have them with her all the time.


It's going to be an uphill battle for sure, but we've got our figurative hiking boots on.

Coming clean.

Almost 2 years ago, I walked around the house in a bit of a panicked daze taking pictures of how things looked before we started the dehoarding process. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done. It brought me face to face with my hoarding problem, and it made me sick to my stomach. 

But it also motivated me. As a result, the levels of hoarding throughout the house have decreased. In some rooms, the decrease has been substantial.

Our bedroom probably started at about a 3 on the Clutter Image Rating on the International OCD Foundation site I mentioned the other day. Today, our bedroom pretty much stays at a 1, although the night stands climb to a 2 from time to time. Both Hubster and I find that we can't seem to allow it to go over a 2 before we go nuts and clean things out again. It's been pretty nice knowing it's always our little refuge from life.

There has been a much more drastic change in the girls' rooms. 

A year before we realized we had a hoarding problem, the basement flooded due to a burst pipe. A lot of stuff was ruined as a result of the flooding, and what survived was stuffed into storage pods on the driveway. Even though she'd only been staying in the room for about a year before the mess, Hopper's room had been freshly painted, and it was the only dehoarded room in the house. But it became a dumping area for everything that wouldn't fit in the storage pods on the driveway, and we had to start over from scratch in her room.

With all that had been stored in Hopper's room, it would have easily rated a 7 on the visual scale. Mom helped me get it done when she was down here last year. We worked really hard for several days, but it was so worth it. Hopper's room has been at a level 1 for the most part since we finished. From time to time, it gets to a 2, and I'm quite happy with that. The best part is that it will never get really bad again. Ever.

Scooter and Hopper shared what is now Scooter's room for many years. When the basement flooded, they had to share it again, and it was so incredibly frustrating. I would work for a week or more on the room and would never seem to be able to get it under a 3. Within a week of having it clean, the girls would undo everything I'd have gotten done, and it would be back up to a 5. The clutter would creep back up to a 6 or 7 within a couple of weeks. The girls still slept in their beds every night, but there would be piles of stuff that Hopper had stacked as high as 4.5 or 5 ft at the heads of their beds. I could never seem to get the room clean and keep it that way.

Because of the magnitude of the clutter in Scooter's room, I focused on it early on in my journey. Mom helped me get started on it when she came down for Bugster and Bubster's first wedding when they got married at the courthouse. I finished it after she went back home, but it wasn't easy. I know that I had to have gotten rid of enough toys in the bedroom to fill a 'grand' van from top to bottom, front to back, and side to side. That doesn't even count the amount of stuff that went to the trash and the clothes that found their way to the laundry room to be washed, sorted and donated. 

Since I finished cleaning Scooter's room, it's stayed clean. It would get messy from time to time before we got Hopper into her own room, but overall it has stayed clean. For the most part, Scooter's room remains at a 1, occasionally climbing to 2, but it has only gotten to a 3 once in the almost 2 years since it's been clean, and that was with Hopper's 'help'.

The bedrooms are definitely the biggest success stories, but I think they should be. The rest of the house hasn't fared quite as well. 

The laundry room, was probably a 7 or 8 on the visual scale at its peak. It was bad. Once we finished clearing out the laundry room, it stayed at a 1 or 2 for the longest time, but it's crept back up to a 3 with the hospitalizations this year and the stress from the guardianship. I'm working on getting it back together. Hopefully, I can get it down to a 1 and keep it there!

The living room and dining room/kitchen have never been too bad, so there hasn't been significant improvement like the other rooms. They've crept up to a 4 for short periods of time over the years, but they probably averaged a 3 before I started this dehoarding process. Since then they stay between a 2 and 3 on average. They get down to a 0 or a 1 from time to time, but they don't seem to want to stay there without help. 

There's also a large baker's rack in the living room that is a 7 all by itself. I don't count it as part of the rest of the room, because it's so out of place. I filled it up with paperwork when I was sorting through boxes back in October. I'll get it done eventually, but it might be awhile.

The study is bad again. It's always been a catchall, but it has the remnants of the paperwork I didn't get all the way through when I was sorting boxes. It's on the list. Not sure when I'll get it crossed off. I'd say it's currently a 5. I want to get it back down to the 1 it was years ago. It'll happen.

The garage had been really bad, too. Hubster thinks it was a 9 at its worst, but I think it was closer to an 8. Not that there's a huge difference between the 2. It's probably at about a 4, maybe a 5, since we worked in it about 18 months ago. We have plans to knock it out this Spring or Summer and get it under control. And the back porch? It easily started out as an 8, but it's probably at a 4 right now. It's also on the master list to finish up once the weather warms up.

The bathrooms have never been too bad - usually a 2 at the most, but we're in the process of remodeling a couple of them, so we just don't use them at all. They're not being used due to the remodel, not hoarding, so I'm okay with them.

That leaves the big room and workout room downstairs. They're the ones that were flooded, and we've worked so hard on. They were probably at an 8 or 9 before the flood 3 years ago. I'd say they're still at a 5, but that's because I still have to unpack and sort the boxes that had been in the pod on the driveway. I got through well over half of them, but I still have plenty to keep me busy.

So there it is. I've laid it all out there. 

We still have a lot to do, but we've made incredible progress over the last 2 years. I still can't believe it's already been 2 years, but it has. 

The really neat thing? In 2 more years, we should be at no more than a 2 in any room in the house. 

You can mark my words!

Where do you weigh in?

I know that I always wondered how bad a hoarding problem I had. I mean, I knew I had a problem, and I knew it would just continue to grow, had I not realized I had a problem with hoarding. But I still wondered exactly how I stacked up. How bad off am I?

The International Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Foundation has tests you can take to determine whether or not you have a hoarding problem. You can find them here, if you're interested in checking into it.

I tend to be a pretty visual person, so the thing that spoke the loudest to me was the Clutter Image Rating. Just scroll down a bit, and you'll find it.

The thing I found interesting was that there wasn't an image 6. Can't tell I have OCD, can you? Ever since I visited the site the first time, I have been thinking about whether or not they purposely left that picture out, or if it was a simple human mistake, and the pictures were numbered incorrectly. I go back and forth between wondering that and wondering, if it's a test. You know. To see, if people pick up on it, and then how many of them obsess over it.

Regardless of my warped thoughts on the whole #6 picture, it gives a really good visual idea of where a person's hoarding might fall on the scale. 

OCD. What's it all mean?

It seems I've always, always struggled with paperwork. Over the years, I have found that doing nothing often alleviates the distress of not knowing what to do, so I do nothing. As a result, I've ended up with a study full of boxes of paperwork that I will eventually need to sort.

I can't get all the boxes in the frame of the camera. There's another stack to the right, and there's another layer under the bottom layer of boxes showing in the picture. The 2 stacks in the right of the picture are 3 boxes deep. The other stacks are 2 boxes deep. And they pretty much all go to the ceiling and take up half the study. I definitely have my work cut out for me, but I shall prevail!

Hubster said he often feels frozen in a pattern of checking to see, if he locked the door, has his wallet in his pocket, has his keys in hand, and has everything else he may need before he can pull away from the house. He checks multiple times before he puts his vehicle in gear.

Hopper can't handle the stress of being without her strings long enough for them to go in the wash, so I have to wash them when she's away from the house, or she's totally out of sorts. Her palms get clammy, she gets red in the face, she has a minor meltdown, and nothing helps except getting the strings back in her hands.

Scooter can't sit still, if she sees anything tipped over on it's side. She can't keep herself from stopping whatever she's doing to upright whatever it is that has fallen. She also can't get out of bed without having all of her bracelets and necklaces on for the day, even when it means we have to remove them for her shower. 

While only Hopper has officially been diagnosed with having OCD, Hubster and I realize that all 4 of us have tendencies toward it. 

Back when we tried the pharmaceutical route for Hopper, we spoke with the psychiatrist she was seeing about it. I asked him about her strings. Over the years, she's had several grocery bags of shoestrings that she's used as a way to comfort herself, and if one is lost, or if they're in the wash, we see a totally undone little girl. She can't function. She can think of absolutely nothing else but the strings, and she's a total stressed out mess emotionally until she can pull them through her fingers once again. 

The psychiatrist said that what she's experiencing is classic OCD. That she has an obsession with the strings, and that she has a compulsion to drag them through her fingers. She cannot stop thinking of the strings and the comfort it brings her to pull them through her fingers, and is compelled to get them as quickly as possible. The longer she's away from them the more stressed out she becomes. The stress continues to escalate until she gets hold of the strings and can draw strength and relief from them. It is instantaneous.

Her doctor explained that she has an almost physical need to hold the strings. It sounded much like someone being addicted to alcohol, drugs, or cigarettes. The sooner the object of the addiction is used by the person addicted, the sooner their relief from the symptoms of withdrawal. 

I came across this interesting article on OCD and hoarding on Everyday Health. A series of hoarding experts tackle all sorts of questions about how OCD and hoarding are connected. I can really identify with a lot of what is discussed. So much of it is familiar to me, both from personal experience and observation of our girls and my husband. 

The most important thing is that my husband and I have acknowledged that we struggle with these tendencies, and as a result, we're becoming better able to stop the madness and change our ways. I've also noticed that the greater the stress I'm under the more difficult it is to fight the urge to hang tight to every single piece of paper that comes into the house. With the stress of the last several weeks, I haven't had the clarity of mind to do much beyond surviving.


I'm looking forward to the stress subsiding a bit, so I can get back to dehoarding the house. 


It's almost becoming an obsession....