Yesterday was a very, very bad day for Bro and I.
I just have to write it down, it helps me process, no idea if I will hit the publish-button or just leave it unseen in blogger.
Our Mum was never the tidy type.
With the years passing and our Dad passing away, too, it got worse.
Bro and I thought it´s depression, we went to a counselor, we talked openly with our Mum, I wrote a hand-written letter but she refused any help from outside.
“Messie” came to mind, you call it Compulsive hoarding, but it didn´t come close enough to do research.
Maybe you just don´t want your Mother and that word/phrase in one sentence (I´ll refer to "messie" cause it's stuck in my mind).
There was one room in the old apartment we weren´t allowed to enter.
Ironically it was my room when I was a kid and later my Bro´s.
I had the coolest bed ever and sadly I never saw anything like it again.
It was a firetruck:
The rear hold the wardrobe/closet, the „door“ on the free side in the middle the linen cupboard.
From the driver´s bench on the other side you had storage. Instead of steering wheel and all you had a table to do your homework, storage in front. There was more storage under the engine hood.
On top was the bed with storage room for clock, glasses, books.
Sadly there is not one pic! It was cool and such a great concept!
Over the years the same dream came to me from time to time. I stand in front of the engine hood, open it and it is full – but I can not see of what.
Well. I must´ve entered that “forbidden” room once, years ago.
This part of the “bed” was still there, the engine hood. It lay on the side and was full of junk.
As was the rest of the room, I won´t go into details. I don´t need to, they´re burnt into my memory.
Some parts still make no sense to me. But I´ll hear eventually from Bro if he took over that truck. If so, it makes sense, if not we will never know how it got back there.
Anyhows, I was a mess this morning, couldn´t think at all, had trouble concentrating on the job and my stomach did hurt.
I start my job early, for over an hour I´m alone in the office, usually working up the stuff that came in late the day before.
I just couldn´t, so I decided to write Bro a mail, asking how he was today, what I found made no sense yesterday. My thoughts get structured better this way. If we´d seen each other I would very likely just have cried.
I wondered why she did this, was it a cry for help? But how if she didn´t want us in that room? Was it to make us feel guilty?
We´d also found so so many new stuff, still originally packed, unopened, it all made no sense.
So I concluded she´d bought that new stuff to make up for not meeting with the few friends she had left.
It were only few because she never made the first move, never invited anyone.
And maybe because they were new and shiny, the things she brought in.
...
Or she maybe was a “mild Messie” who can concentrate the illness on one room?
There are so many varieties in Autism, so why not in this illness?
I googled it (I have worked through many a lunch break, so I reckon this is ok)
A "mess" in German is “Unordnung”, disorder.
This German link helped me open my eyes.
The author describes
- In normal life you cannot see if a person is a messie. They´re well-dressed, clean.
- Some just cannot get rid of the stuff that comes in daily life and has to go to the bin (this is it, mainly)
- Other illnesses usually come along (depression, cancer)
- Messies act compulsively contrary “I did NOT!” (so true)
- In other areas in life they are perfect (again, so true, she was great in her job)
- The cause usually is excessively instructional strictness and violence in the first year of life (WW ll, escape from East Prussia to Germany)
- When the parents were not able to care for their kids due to war, sickness or else
- They often suffer of depression, but can be very accurate and successful in their job
- They don´t like being home, prefer to go shopping instead (true)
- As child as well as in the rest of their lives this behavior helps prevent bad feelings
So. It wasn´t our fault, it wasn´t her fault. If we see this as an illness, it´s nobody´s fault. I feel a bit better.
I´m no doctor, but now the brand new stuff and the way the apartment looks do make sense, just like the pic above, or this one:
Bro talked me into trying a Doner-Pizza. It was dang yummy, it absolutely makes sense to mix Doner and Pizza.
I visited Niece afterwards for about 45 minutes and she was so cute, she so helps through times like these.
She has a (pink!) mini-vacuum cleaner (so clichee, huh?) that really works and again and again I had to empty it and turn it on, together we looked for missing pieces. Then it was time for her dinner. With one hand she reached for her Mum, with the other for me, then decided for Daddy instead of Mum.
No idea if she could sense that Bro and I just went through something terrible together?
Certainly my colleagues saw something was wrong with me today. One even offered me licorice, he knows I don´t like sweets.
I´m really thankful I can work with these people. My “boss” and friend said I could go home if I want to.
And she wrote:
“From my point of view, your Mother was lead into death very safe and secure, with a lot of care and warmth through the two of you. That is a huge antipole.”
