Me and my hangups.

When the court visitor was here last week and looked in Scooter's closet, she said, "Wow. OCD much?" She thought Scooter had arranged the closet, but I told her I had. I explained that it just made things so much easier for Scooter to find what she needed at a glance. I had all of her clothes sorted and hung neatly. Starting at the left were the long-sleeved blouses followed by short-sleeved blouses, short-sleeved t-shirts, long-sleeved t-shirts, pants, dresses and skirts, and each section was arranged by color. To me, it just looked nice and neat. It makes things much easier for Scooter to see what's available in her closet and to pick out what she's going to wear for the day. 


I was thinking that her closet was the only one that looked like that, when I realized all of them do. Hopper's closet has one of those wire closet organizers installed, so it's organized a bit differently but even the coats in the coat closet are organized by who wears them with the winter coats to the left and lightweight coats to the right. And the linen closet looks amazing, if I do say so, myself. Everything is folded neatly and in its place, and looks great. Best of all, things are very easy to find. 


When any of the closets start to get messy and disorganized, I find my anxiety level goes up. It's just disconcerting. Maybe it's because they're the only truly finished areas in the house. All I know, is that I have to have them looking neat and organized as much as possible.


It can be a real hangup for me. 


Almost 2 years ago, I wrote about the struggle I was having with my hangers. I had so many different types  of hangers that I was compelled to sort them every time I passed them by. I had to have a different color for each person in the house, and it drove me absolutely nuts when the colors were mixed up in the closets. I wasted so much time and energy on them.


At the time, I realized that the best thing for me to do for myself in regard to the hangers was to start over from scratch, and I gave myself permission to buy all new hangers for our tops. It was hard for me to justify the expense, but I'm so glad I felt I was worth the small cost. It has helped tremendously. 


At the time, I thought I could get away without doing anything about the pants and skirt hangers. Well, that's not entirely true. I did get rid of a hodgepodge of pants hangers (at least 4 different styles and 4 different colors), but I still had 3 different colors and 2 different styles left. I've found that it's still too many choices for me.


In the last 2 years, we've had black, opaque and clear hangers that had the pinch things on them that opened like a clothespin to hang the pants or skirts. The clearest ones were supposed to only be used for Scooter's clothes, because her pants and skirts are the lightest weight, and they'd be least likely to break the hangers. Then the black pinch ones were Hoppers, and the opaque pinch ones were Scooter's. Hubster's hangers were black, but instead of pinching open and closed, there was a little part that went over the clothing and then a silver piece slid down over the plastic to hold the fabric in the hangers.


It's bothered me over the last 2 years, but it hasn't bothered me enough to do anything about it. 


Until today. 


This past week, I realized I've been wasting a lot of time and emotional strength and energy on these stupid hangers. It was frustrating when one of Hopper's was used to hang my clothes, because none of mine were available, or when some of Hubster's clothes were hung on Scooter's hangers and were heavy enough they snapped the hanger in two. Never mind the amount of time waste looking for the 'right' one to use when I had something to hang. 


I've tried for years to make the hangers work. But now that I've come to the conclusion that they aren't working for me, I've decided to do something about it. I realized that it was worth it to buy pants hangers in bulk on eBay, so I'm not obsessing over the mismatched hangers anymore. I will donate the old mismatched ones. The new ones will take the stress over who is using whose hangers away completely, and they'll cut down on the time looking for the right hanger to nothing. The choice will be gone. 


I'm already looking forward to their arrival next week. It will just be one less hangup for me to deal with on a daily basis.


I can deal with that.

Maintaining. My grip on reality.

Ha. 


Like I've had any real grip on reality lately. 


My anxiety meds had to be upped, because my stomach decided to do the roller coaster thing and not turn off once again. I've had to take the faster acting anxiety meds more frequently than I would like, so I'm hoping the full effect of the higher dose kicks in soon. I hate feeling like this.


I recognized one of the major factors to my anxiety the other day that, for whatever reason, I couldn't see before. Adding to the stresses of the guardianship situation, is the big unknown that begins in January. 


Since Hopper is 21, she is aging out of the school system, and she graduates next week. At this point, she's been on a waiting list for services since she turned 14. Unfortunately, she may still be waiting another 5 years. Granted, the wait could be over in 6 months, but we won't know until we know. You know? So it means that she will drop from going to her day program 5 days a week through the school to going only once a week through private pay. 


I'm afraid it's going to be hard on her. She loves going to 'work', and even though we're trying to prepare her for what it's going to be like, I don't think it will really sink in until she's stuck at home most of the week. My stomach turns when I even think about it, because I don't want it to be hard on her. After 18 years in the school system, there's bound to be an adjustment. Who knows? Maybe she'll handle it better than we're imagining.


In the meantime, I've been trying to keep my mind off things and trying to keep busy. I've got some deep cleaning to do for the holidays, and we've still got to decorate and put up the tree, but I've been struggling with it all. I need to get back on my Vitamin D again, since  don't have regular exposure to the sun this time of the year and I'm feeling the effects of SAD. Hopefully, the D will kick in and help me kick this thing.


I helped Scooter clean her bedroom last week. It wasn't too bad compared to what it used to be like, but it was the worst it's been since I got it dug out at the beginning of this journey. So we cleaned it from top to bottom. Dusted. Vacuumed. Swept the floor. Rearranged the toys. 


It took less than 2 hours total. That was exciting and encouraging. It used to take the better part of a week to get it clean, and it would quickly revert back to chaos within a week or two. To know that her bedroom has been maintained since last May is amazing to me. I spent so many hours over the years trying to get to this point that it still seems a bit unreal that I'm 'here'. 


It's probably because I'm not 'here' everywhere else in the house. Still, I'll take what I can get.


Yesterday, I got her winter clothes out of the plastic boxes in the closet and put her summer clothes away. Then we went through her closet and dehoarded. Once again, I was surprised at being done within 2 hours of starting the job. I bagged up a kitchen trash bag full of clothes that will be picked up tomorrow. 


The bag included several clothes that Scooter no longer wears, but the best thing is that I was ready to get rid of some clothes from my childhood. I wore some of them when I was in junior high and others when I was in high school, but I no longer feel it necessary to keep them around. I realized that Scooter will never wear them, but best of all, I realized they no longer had a hold on me.


After Scooter left for school today, I did go back into her closet and got rid of 5 more things that I know she'll never miss. She had chosen to keep them, but she hasn't worn any of them in over a year or had outgrown. I know she will never even know. I could have probably taken even more out without her knowing, but I only took the things I knew for sure she would never wear again.


One was a Winnie the Pooh sweatshirt that she wore to school at least once a week about 5 years ago, and she wore it around the house all. the. time. She loved it , but she only wore it on one occasion last year, and I know that it was time for it to go. There was a little tutu looking skirt that she's outgrown in the last few months, but she has another one that fits, so it won't be like she even notices it's gone. There were 2 long sleeved t-shirts she wore under other clothes to add an extra layer when it was cold, but we just got her several light weight long sleeved thermal shirts a few weeks ago, so she doesn't need them. And lastly there was a little black shirt that had been Bugster's when she was much younger. Scooter's worn it less than a handful of times in the last few years. 


Time to pitch it!


We'll go through the clothes again when I put her winter clothes away and get her summer clothes back out of storage in a few months. Hopefully, we'll be able to get rid of a few more of her unused clothes then. 


I'm hoping to get the house ready for decorating this weekend and maybe even get the tree up. 


I'm thinking little bit of Christmas should chase the SAD away...