Leave the Freak Out of It

           

           I’m a control-freak. I want control. I must have it. But does it mean I am abnormal? The term “freak” carries a stigma the way rice carries the color white. But what if my compelling need to be in control were simply another trait—as common as my brown hair or my pale skin? Or my tendency to laugh when others laugh? Why does the acknowledgement of a preference (being in control) trigger the socially unacceptable aspect (being a freak)? What if the two are mutually exclusive? What if the word “freak” is only a construct of a society taught to conform? And what if I release myself from the “freak”ishness and hold fast to the idea that order trumps chaos for me because of my life experiences and how I have learned to respond to those experiences? I would like to give myself permission to strive for order and let go of demeaning labels. It takes a lot to offend me, but they say the mind is a powerful thing, so come on, mind, move me towards organization gains.

            The truth is, clutter annoys the $*@% out of me. I know I’m not the only one who feels the suffocating effects of too much stuff. And I’m probably not the only one who had a messy childhood. Perhaps being the child of a parent with mental illness is what made me rely on the hope of harmony to survive. However, psychologists agree that our surroundings impact our emotional and mental health. So, if our surroundings are ugly, harsh, chaotic, and undesired, we may be at risk for ugly, harsh, chaotic, and undesired thoughts, including lack of motivation and productivity. I have many friends who tell me they can’t do thoughtful, meaningful work at home if clutter lines their counters because the mess is disruptive and distracting. To these friends, I say, “Thank you.” These people are my people. These people get me.

            So why, if clutter is so utterly annoying do I still have difficulty clearing it from my life? One would think that I would be clutter-free since I detest it so much. But I am so disorganized I can feel the millions of things—receipts and lip glosses and spare change and books and bills to file and God knows what else—jangling in the drawer of my mind.

            My aunt lived in a tiny one-bedroom apartment, and she had too many things. Her living room and bedroom walls were stacked ceiling-high with cardboard moving boxes filled with her belongings that didn’t fit in the hall cupboards, dresser drawers, kitchen cabinets, or closet. Her apartment was a living space and a storage unit. And she didn’t know the contents of those boxes. My mother had boxes, too. In fact, our belongings spent most of their lifetime in storage. We were in and out of places, living everywhere only temporarily. And my mom, it became more and more clear, had a mental illness that prevented her from holding down a job or a boyfriend or anything requiring responsibility and consistency, for that matter.

            And so I learned to equate boxes of stuff with mental illness. I despise boxes and belongings that have no home. And if I gave my boxes a great big heave-ho, discarding them without looking inside, I might never regret the decision. But. But! I have to look. I have to see everything because my belongings are all I have, and if I let them go, I destroy a part of who I am or who I was or who I might become if I put those belongings to good use.

            I’ve been thinking a lot about the current climate of America. Children are dying at the hands of unstable gunmen. That’s only one of the issues that keep me awake at night. It must be a sad, bereft, and lonely human being that turns a weapon of annihilation on his classmates. And where was the helpline, the support, the hope that might have held this person and his overwhelming boxes of stuff at bay? The factors that trigger these terrorists’ killing mechanisms are likely manifold, but certainly, these troubled individuals started collecting traumas from a very early age. And instead of finding courage in order, they unleashed their pain in a whirlwind of chaos that matched the disorder in their minds.

            I suspect my brain learned an aversion to piles of stuff and chaos when I was young. And my adult brain can’t unlearn it easily, especially since my young brain also learned to fill the void of lack. So my stuff now represents the fact that I am not poor or transient. I have bloomed where I was planted, and my belongings are a sign of all that I’ve attained, received, purchased, and appreciated. I regularly donate unwanted or unused items to the Goodwill. But I still have more than I need and more than I can use. Unless I have yet to understand the secret value of more than thirty bottles of nail polish sitting somewhere other than along the wall of a nail salon.

            Now, I am confronted with the possibility that this fear, this paralysis and clinging to material items with little or no value, must be a mental illness. Does the DSM have a chapter on hoarding? Yes. Am I a hoarder? No. Yes. Maybe. I don’t know, and this is what scares me. 

           “Freak” implies “aberration” or “oddity,” and it implies "crack," "snap," and "go crazy." I think we resorted to labeling at some point in order to discourage people from straying from the norm. Because if there is some element of undesirability or ugliness to our behaviors, we will rationally be deterred from performing those behaviors, right? But what if we don't have the strength of mind to alter our path of self-destruction? What if that road is as hard-wired as the need for sleep? Feeling out of control in some way or another isn’t as uncommon as we might think. 

            I encourage the disuse of the word “freak.” Am I a freak for having a hard time whittling down my belongings or for failing to keep order like the abused wife (played by Julia Roberts) in the thriller Sleeping with the Enemy. On some level, we all feel our mental disabilities knocking on the door of our own awareness. Everyone has a past that’s responsible for their present, and everyone works out their own issues at their own pace. I’m clearing out my home office so I can work more efficiently. I’m finding new homes for files and stacks of things I think I need. And I’m throwing out the messes that do me no good. I have faith that I can decide which is which. Because if I can’t, I may end up buried underneath it all. And buried girls have no use for painted nails.

            I’m too compassionate, I think, when I feel something akin to sympathy for those society likes to call “freaks” or “monsters.” Isn’t there another way? But when I hear that another gunman has lost his or her life as a result of their violence, I thank God. God is my people. He gets me. Or does He? A God that truly gets me wouldn’t have to sacrifice so many innocent lives. He is trying to tell us something. Are these killings just another attempt by the suffocating to discard the clutter? The world is loud, too loud. And for some, the only way to quiet the rage is to hit rock bottom. May we as a society try harder to catch each other before we get there.

           

Excerpt from My Memoir

When I Was Her Daughter:

A Memoir

by Leslie Ferguson

            A knock shook the door. I put my eye to the peephole, and my heart rocked.

            “Leslie, is that you?”

            I opened the door.

            Standing before me was this woman I used to know a very long time ago. I almost reached out to touch her because she might have been a bad dream, or a good one, or the surest indication of my fall from mental stability.   

            It had been more than ten years since I’d last seen her, more than twenty since she’d stood on the opposite side of a door that protected me from her.

            In my youth, I hoped for a scene like this where the person who loved me first in the world showed up for me, transformed into a rehabilitated survivor competent enough to seek me out and initiate a new world for us both—a world that might allow us to put our mutual pasts in a grave and start fresh.  

             “Hello?” I said.

            “Oh, Leslie,” she cried. “I thought I’d never find you.”

            A brown suitcase sat at her feet.

            “How did you get this address?”

            “Aren’t you going to invite me in?” She laughed. “After all these years?” Her voice rattled. She held one hand out towards me as if maybe she also doubted what was real.

             I opened the door wider and stood back to let her in. Could this be my chance to get closure? Or was I making a mistake? Should I move her back, shut the door in her face, call the cops? But what could it hurt? I should at least hear what she had to say.

            I hugged her. Why should I fear her? I was a complete adult now. And I’d had enough therapy to rehabilitate an institution full of broken souls. She couldn’t hurt me anymore. And by the looks of it, I was bigger and stronger; I could fight her off or run past her, out of the apartment, and to my car before she’d make it down the stairs after me. I scanned the counter for my keys just in case.

            “Have a seat,” I said and gestured to the couch. The sun hung low in the sky and sent warmth into the apartment through the slider. “I’ll make us some coffee.” Coffee always calmed me, and holding a mug gave me something to do with my hands—and it provided a buffer between me and her.

            “Ah,” she said as she plopped herself down. “What’s been going on all these years?” She asked the question so casually, anyone might have mistaken us for long-lost girlfriends.

            I gave vague statements about my credentials and victories. I sipped my coffee.

            “What about you?”

            “Oh, you know,” she said. 

            She blinked her ice-blue eyes at me.

            “I know William lives far, but I’m going to visit him. I just need to get the money.”

            I stared at her cheek, her mouth, her jaw, as it moved, shook, spoke such outdated and untimely things. I shook my head.

            She put her mouth on her mug and clamped her teeth down on the rim.

            “Maybe a phone call would be better,” I said.

            “You two will always be my babies.”

            “I know.” I cried the words. I grabbed some Kleenex. Her glossy, bright, blue, almond-shaped eyes flashed—how I used to love those eyes, used to see hope and laughter in them, when light flickered there. I used to see my birthstone in them, opal flecked with sparkle and the colors of the rainbow. But I also learned fear through my mother’s eyes.

            “I’m so sorry. I am. But things can never go back. Nobody can relive the past.”

            She rubbed her left side. I imagined she was relieving the pain from her gunshot wound over thirty years ago. I recalled the time she moved my fingers over her scar with a mother’s determination to teach her children about consequences.

            “Are you okay?”

            “No, Leslie. I haven’t been okay for a very long time.”

            I set my coffee mug on the table and moved closer to hug her. She cried into my hair.

            But that’s not how the story goes.