Dirty Secret (11 page)

My mother may have a touch of bibliomania (book hoarding),
but she does actually read most of her books—she just can't get rid of them afterward. “I think this is a first edition,” she'll sometimes say about a ripped-up hardcover that I can tell in an instant isn't. But it's the nonsensical items, the possessions she hangs on to for no discernible reason—the unopened Savers bags with unknown contents, the childsized inflatable furniture, the decades-old cases of hand lotion—that concern me. Without those things, it would almost be possible to think of her problem as simply having a surplus of books; without those inexplicable items I could rationalize that she's just an enthusiastic collector.

Sometimes I even allow myself to indulge in this disingenuousness for a few seconds. But then my fantasy-vision expands outward, past the piles of books to the rest of the house—the floors covered in
things,
with just a narrow pathway to get through, every available dresser, table, desk covered by her potential treasures—and I'm forced to face the fact, yet again, that she's much more than a collector.

ON MY THIRD
day of cleaning, I'm standing in the hallway shoveling—literally, with a shovel—old magazines, newspapers, dirty rags, and junk mail into garbage bags, while my mother sits on a chair in the doorway to the kitchen, watching. Almost by accident I finally ask if she believes she's a hoarder. I've wanted to ask her for a while, but using the word has seemed somehow too disrespectful. And I was afraid of offending her to the point where she'd refuse to let me keep cleaning. But it just slips out.

“A hoarder?” Her accent makes the word sound like hoa-da. “Of course I know I'm a hoarder.”

“You do?” I stop midshovel, wiping the sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand.

“I'll tell you exactly when I knew,” she says, her voice drifting off. She's always like this when she tells a story, saying “Let's see, where should I start” at least a couple times; starting, stopping, starting over; and including unimportant details that get her so sidetracked she ends up in a completely different narrative. It's common among hoarders. It's as if they're as unable to edit their words as they are their belongings. “Let me think,” she says now. “Okay . . . it was that time . . . that time you and Dave cleaned. When I saw all of those things out on the lawn, I just couldn't believe they were all mine. I said to myself, ‘I have a real problem.'”

I'm impressed. Surprised, and impressed. I decide to dig further. “Here's something I've always wondered: What does it feel like when you purchase something?”

She looks around the hallway at the various piles of things I've readied for shoveling and leans over to pluck an old dog toy—a dingy, stuffed yellow chick—from the mess. She brushes it off.

“It's . . . it's ridiculous.” My mother actually sounds embarrassed. Normally, nothing embarrasses my mother.

“What is it?”

“Okay,” she says, holding the yellow chick on her lap. “It's like I tell myself that whatever the object is, it's going to change my life.”

“But I can tell that rationally you don't believe it, or you wouldn't be embarrassed by it.”

“Oh, I know that it won't
really
change my life, but there's another part of me that thinks it will. I can't really explain it. But it's a thrill. It's exciting.”

I've been to Savers with her before and she really does look at home there, happy and serene. If she were a zoo animal, that would probably be the habitat the zookeepers would create for her.

“And then there's this reinforcement thing, too,” she continues, “because I think, well, I found a deal once, so I have to look for another one.”

“But that deal didn't change your life.”

She shakes her head, laughs. “I know! It doesn't make sense. See, Jessie, there's something psychological about hoarding, I know that for sure. But there's also something primal.”

“I think you're right, Mom.” I'm astounded at her levelheadedness and want to seize the moment. “Would you consider seeing someone about this? A professional?”

“You mean like a therapist? Oh, no. I tried that. You remember how awful she was.”

“But what if I found one who specializes in hoarding? And a different kind of therapy than just talking.”

“I don't need that. I just need time to clean. And now that I'm unemployed, I have it! I'm starting to think that getting fired was the best thing that could have happened to me.”

“You really think it's just a matter of not having enough time to clean? What about what you were just saying about the feeling you get when you buy things?”

“But the real problem is that I don't have enough time. That's it. And now I will.”

And just like that, the rational mother is gone. As I pick up the shovel, my arms are heavy with disappointment. Her problem isn't a lack of time to clean, and deep down she knows that.

Over the years, my mother has had a few different diagnoses: generalized anxiety disorder, depression, and depression with rumination (obsessive thoughts). Another diagnosis, this one
self-identified, occurred a few years ago. She called me and said, “Guess what. I've got borderline personality disorder!”

“Why do you sound like that's good news?” I asked.

“It is good news—now there's a name for what I have.”

I read up on borderline personality disorder, and the descriptions really did sound like her. Characterized by instability in moods, black-and-white thinking, and a tendency to see oneself as a victim and blame others for their problems, borderline personality disorder gets its name from the early belief that people suffering from the condition were at the brink, or “borderline” of psychosis.

When I read in Christine Ann Lawson's
Understanding the Borderline Mother,
“Fear of abandonment is the most common symptom of borderline personality disorder and is shared by all borderlines,” and later, that some borderline mothers “may physically or verbally attack their children in the middle of the night,” I picked up the phone and called my mom.

“I think you're right,” I said. “I think you do have borderline personality disorder.”

She didn't say anything. “Mom?”

“Actually, I hate to tell you this, but now I think I have Asperger syndrome.”

That sent me on another research chase. And again, she did seem to fit some of the descriptions, especially those of long-winded and one-sided conversations, an apparent lack of empathy (she likes to use her nursing expertise if someone is injured, but she's utterly uninterested any time I have a cold or the flu), and a focus on parts of an object or experience rather than on the whole.

Whether my mother has borderline personality disorder or Asperger syndrome remains to be seen, though I'm inclined to believe that the depression she takes medication for and compulsive
hoarding aren't her only problems. And she's not unique: Most hoarders have an additional psychiatric condition. Some of the most prevalent are depression, social phobia, generalized anxiety disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Personality disorders and eating disorders, as well as impulse control disorders such as kleptomania, compulsive gambling, and trichotillomania (the irresistible urge to pull out one's own hair) aren't unheard of either.

The high rate of additional conditions is one reason successful treatment for hoarding remains elusive. One approach that shows some promise is cognitive-behavioral therapy; as the name implies, it consists of examining and changing problematic thought patterns along with behaviors. For compulsive hoarders, the sessions take place either at the therapist's office, in the patient's home, or wherever the person excessively acquires objects—which could be a store, but it could also be a Dumpster. For my mother this would entail a therapist accompanying her to Savers and talking her through whether or not she really needed that twenty-first pair of sneaker-clogs.

Unfortunately, every time I've asked my mother if she'd be willing to try something like that she makes some excuse. She seems more interested in diagnosing her problems than actually
doing
anything about them.

“Oh, Jessie,” my mom says now, clapping her hands over the dingy yellow chick. “Once my house is clean, maybe I could get a little dog! A sheltie, like the kind Roger and I had!”

“Mom, no,” I say, my voice firm. I scoop up another shovelful of flyers and junk mail and dust balls. I can't let her start thinking about getting a dog. She wouldn't take care of it and it couldn't possibly have a good life in her possession-packed house. Besides, if she got one, she might end up getting another, and another. And then I'd have to call The Humane Society on
my own mother. “Please promise me that you won't get a dog.”

“I know.” She sighs. “I can't.”

Relief floods through me, then sadness for her. What's wrong with wanting a dog? It's a normal desire. I have my own little dog waiting for me back in New York; it doesn't seem fair that I can have one and she can't.

“But Jessie,” she says. “Maybe someday I could have one?”

“Definitely. Someday. Let's just get your house in shape and get rid of your cancer first, okay?”

“You're right.”

I would love to see my mother get a little sheltie. I'd love to see her in a clean house, lying on a comfortable couch, reading a book with the dog snuggled up next to her, a cozy quilt tossed over them for warmth. It's easy to picture. I'm just not sure it'll ever happen.

THE FIRST TIME
I noticed my mother's unusual relationship to possessions, I was five years old. It was before my parents separated, during the two years we lived in the big house in the suburbs. One morning before school, my mother asked me to tell my kindergarten teacher to keep me longer that day because she wanted to go thrift-store shopping. “Just take the afternoon bus home instead,” my mom said.

We were sitting in the U-shaped booth in the kitchen, my mother feeding my brother warm cereal from a bowl as I chewed on a piece of toast.

I didn't like the idea. It seemed too unorganized, too haphazard. My dad had already left for work, so I couldn't ask him to intervene.

“Can't you just be home in time?” I pleaded.

“Just tell the teacher you're staying for both the morning and
afternoon sessions today. Don't worry so much. Kids do it all the time.”

Did they? I had no idea. I was so shy I could barely say a word to my teacher, so I couldn't imagine approaching her about this. But my mother kept insisting. That entire morning at school, I tried to get up my nerve to tell the teacher about my mother's plan, but I couldn't do it. Such an easy thing to do, but I couldn't do it.

I shuffled out the door at the usual time and rode the school bus as always, hoping that by some miracle my mom would be home when I got there. I walked up the long snowy driveway, looking through the big picture window for signs of life inside. I tried the door. Locked. I rang the bell. Nothing. It was a typical Minnesota winter day: freezing and windy and snowy. I stuffed myself between the heavy door of the house and the screen door, trying to protect myself from the wind. I stayed like that for a long time, occasionally pulling off my mittens to blow on my fingers in an attempt to thaw them. When my mother finally came home, her arms were loaded with purchases. My brother, his face wrapped in a scarf, lagged behind her lugging the bags she couldn't carry. I knew what was in them: salt and pepper shakers, sweaters, patterns for clothes she'd never sew.

“What are you doing here?” my mother demanded when she saw me. “I told you to tell your teacher—”

“You could have given me a note,” I said, running inside as soon as she unlocked the door. “You could have called!”

I had a feeling that's what other mothers would have done. Still, no matter how angry I was with her, I was angrier at myself. I shouldn't have been so shy. But as I began to warm up, I looked around at all of her new acquisitions and thought about how she'd chosen these
things
over me, and I grew angry at her once again.

Sometimes I wonder if my mother felt strange, being Jewish, tiny, with dark eyes and hair and her strong Boston accent in a land of blond, Nordic giants. She's shy and self-isolating, and was then, too. Maybe she coped with her loneliness by shopping. Maybe that's how it all started. The problem is she never stopped.

WHEN I'M FINISHED
cleaning for the day, my mother insists on taking me, my dad, and Sandy to her favorite Thai restaurant for dinner. My eight-year-old cousin, Billy, who lives next door to my dad and Sandy, joins us. Billy's favorite thing to do is go out to eat. He keeps up on all the local restaurant news. Once I asked him what he thought of a new café in the neighborhood and he said, “The lunches are okay, but the entrées at dinner are fabulous.” For Christmas he asked for and got a sushi maker. What I'm saying is that he's a sophisticated kid.

Still, it isn't quite appropriate, when, on the way to the Thai place, my mother starts talking about dying and how she's ready for it, and how she's STILL an atheist in the proverbial foxhole. My mother, Billy, and I are in the backseat. My dad and Sandy are in the front, trying to work out the best way to get to the restaurant. My mother seems prepared to hold forth on death for the entire ride, but then I notice that Billy's gotten quiet and is frowning. I ask her to stop.

“Okay,” she says, unbothered. It turns out she's got another subject all lined up: the waitress at the Thai place we're headed toward and how extremely hard she works. “You just wouldn't believe how hard . . . it's incredible.” My mother actually chokes up as she says the words.

It's a Wonderful Stranger. Family members often notice hoarders fixating on one person who is
absolutely perfect,
usually
someone who doesn't know the hoarder well—a doctor, a clerk at the bank, a hairdresser—though sometimes it's a new friend. That person is lavished with praise to the point of worship. In my mother's case, that person becomes the center of her world and pretty much all she'll talk about.
So-and-so is just so wonderful, you wouldn't believe
. . .” that is, until the person does something that disappoints my mother. When that happens, the Wonderful Stranger is quickly discarded. (It turns out the Wonderful Stranger concept is identical to a feature of borderline personality disorder called “splitting,” in which a person is idealized and then suddenly despised and rejected.) I've seen my mother do it again and again. One friend got a face-lift. One didn't hire my mother for a nursing job the woman didn't even know she wanted. And in many cases, I never found out the exact crime.