insight through poop

That's my best blog title ever right there. Draws you right in, doesn't it?

So! D and I were watching Hoarders again last night. That's my Monday night at 10pm appointment viewing it seems. I can't help it. It's fascinating.***

And one of the cases was a 66 or 68 year old woman, retired tech writer (so obviously at one point fairly bright and well-educated), who almost smothered to death in her own trash when she fell out of the chair she had tied herself into to sleep, because there was literally no clear area in her house where she could even lie down. She had been without running water for two years which means she couldn't use her toilet which means she had just been wearing adult diapers. And then leaving the used ones on the floor. Her house was filled with feces. Human feces. She almost lost both her legs when she was admitted to the hospital because she had infected leg sores. From living in feces.

She had a daughter who lived across the country from her and apparently did not know anything about her mother's living conditions (though she knew she was a hoarder and always had been) until she was hospitalized. And her daughter was tearfully asking her *why* she hadn't told her she had no running water for two years or that things had gotten that bad, why she hadn't asked for help. The woman said, "Oh, you had your own life to lead. I didn't want to be a bother."

Now, obviously, the woman is deeply mentally ill. She was living in *feces*. But I heard her say that and I thought, yeah. I can relate. I've told you all the story about how when D had the really good therapist for the year after he was in the hospital, this therapist, who had probably had a total of 15 minutes worth of conversation with me, most of which was twenty seconds at a time of "Oh, hi. How are you?", said one day, "Andrea, you don't like to ask people for help, do you?" And how I opened my mouth to deny it, and started laughing, because, god, he nailed me. He was good.

I won't ever ask anyone for help, at least not anyone who isn't being actually paid to help me. Not ever. No matter how much I could use the help, no matter how close a friend. I can't ever "be a bother." I can (usually) gracefully accept help if it is offered, but if it isn't offered, I won't ask. It's a combination of feeling like I am a failure if I can't handle every single thing on my own and the conviction that no one would really care enough to want to help me, so if I were to ask and they accepted, it would be grudgingly. I would be putting them out, and god knows I don't want to put anyone out.

So I'm watching this woman on Hoarders and I think, yeah. What will I do when I'm old and alone, as I will be, and my pipes break and I can't afford to fix them? Would I end up just using diapers because I couldn't bother anyone to help me? (I kind of see myself as being willing to actually throw them in the garbage, not live amongst them, but hey, who knows how crazy I'll be by then?) It's sorta like when I watched Grey Gardens and was freaking out about me and D ending up living with feral cats and raccoons in the living room, except, because I am not crazed with anxiety at the moment, the Hoarders thang didn't make me freak. It's more like bemusement--you think *no one* could end up like that, but then you realize people who have no help and can't reach out for help, when they're not healthy enough mentally or physically to help themselves...who knows in what situation they could end up?

That's my poop insight. I don't know the answer to it. (But I'm thinking it involves very attentive and caring step-grandchildren. Find me some, stat!)

xoxo

***So, they introduce one of the psychologists on the show as "an expert in hoarding and anxiety disorders" and D says, after a minute, "How would you pick that?" I misunderstood and thought he was asking why someone's anxiety disorder would manifest as hoarding. But, no. He wanted to know why or how someone would pick that as a specialty if they were a psychologist. I said I didn't know, but maybe they just thought it was the most fascinating subject ever. And then I had to add "...like me!" Ha!