littleoc
MyPTSD Pro
Hello,
Does anyone have experience with hoarding cleanup?
My father was a hoarder, and did not allow us to clean his messes. However, he was legally removed in 2009. Since then, we've been trying to clean up the house. None of us (my two brothers, my mother, my service dog, and I -- all adults) are comfortable with the house. It's not our mess, but it keeps getting worse. I don't know about the rest of my family, but I have OCD and get more obsessive than ever when in this house. And more sensitive. The smallest cussing from my mom will set me off here. I feel like I can't escape from anything.
In 2011 my sister tried to help me clean it, but accidentally traumatized us so much that despite major improvements, the house became way worse than it ever had been. I do not want to get into what happened right now unless it's required for understanding something.
Background aside now, I've been planning to clean this house once and for all. I have six months, about -- but I also have serious stuff to do. I need to do job applications, take the GRE to get into grad school (I'm excited for this in a way!!), take my undergrad university's comprehensive exam, learn to drive, and other personal projects. No one is going to help me with this house.
I spoke to my therapist about this months ago, telling her that I plan to start in January 2018 with the goal of making this house livable and safe. She suggested I start with my room, and do a little at a time. But there's just too much stuff in here. It's awful. Most of it isn't mine -- my sister used my room for storage in 2011 and it quickly became a way to judge me as being crazy.
My personal plan had been to hire a hoarding cleanup team to clean up this house with me and and mother. That way, it could just be clean, and any mess could be manageable. Currently, everything is so messy that we can't clean one surface. The messiness bleeds into everything I do. I can't even get work done.
But my therapist has said that this would be expensive, and that she's not sure it would help long term. However, I don't feel that this is a classic case of hoarding.
If you have experience, can you please add your opinions? It's okay if not -- typing it out helps a bit to organize the problem. It's just so much...
Thanks :)
Does anyone have experience with hoarding cleanup?
My father was a hoarder, and did not allow us to clean his messes. However, he was legally removed in 2009. Since then, we've been trying to clean up the house. None of us (my two brothers, my mother, my service dog, and I -- all adults) are comfortable with the house. It's not our mess, but it keeps getting worse. I don't know about the rest of my family, but I have OCD and get more obsessive than ever when in this house. And more sensitive. The smallest cussing from my mom will set me off here. I feel like I can't escape from anything.
In 2011 my sister tried to help me clean it, but accidentally traumatized us so much that despite major improvements, the house became way worse than it ever had been. I do not want to get into what happened right now unless it's required for understanding something.
Background aside now, I've been planning to clean this house once and for all. I have six months, about -- but I also have serious stuff to do. I need to do job applications, take the GRE to get into grad school (I'm excited for this in a way!!), take my undergrad university's comprehensive exam, learn to drive, and other personal projects. No one is going to help me with this house.
I spoke to my therapist about this months ago, telling her that I plan to start in January 2018 with the goal of making this house livable and safe. She suggested I start with my room, and do a little at a time. But there's just too much stuff in here. It's awful. Most of it isn't mine -- my sister used my room for storage in 2011 and it quickly became a way to judge me as being crazy.
My personal plan had been to hire a hoarding cleanup team to clean up this house with me and and mother. That way, it could just be clean, and any mess could be manageable. Currently, everything is so messy that we can't clean one surface. The messiness bleeds into everything I do. I can't even get work done.
But my therapist has said that this would be expensive, and that she's not sure it would help long term. However, I don't feel that this is a classic case of hoarding.
If you have experience, can you please add your opinions? It's okay if not -- typing it out helps a bit to organize the problem. It's just so much...
Thanks :)