dollangel
Member
- Jul 23, 2025
- 9
no one really knows what squalor is. when people talk about "living in squalor" they mean their room is messy. they have dirty dishes or trash piled in a corner. they can still navigate the room with little to no difficulty. they don't know what 3rd degree squalor is like, or what that term even means, and they cannot comprehend it. they can see their floors, they don't have fly specks on everything they own, they don't have to pick bugs out of their food, they don't see spots in their vision and know it's a 50/50 chance of it being a bug crawling on them or a hallucination. they don't deal with everything being soaked in excrement and the smell haunting everything, headache-inducing, nauseating. they don't have trouble walking around and have to wear shoes inside or their soles get caked black with dirt, they don't fall and bang into things and hurt themselves all the time, they have working appliances, they can have people in to fix things if they need to, they don't know. they don't know. it's not like I want them to ever learn.
it's not "mess." it's not even "filthy." it's the kind of thing you see on "Hoarders." the kind of thing people just call grotesque, inhumane, tragic. I remember my mom obsessively watching that show when I was little, and crying because our house looked like that. it still does. it's not for human beings. humans don't live like this. anyone who does live like this must not be human.
every day I wake up to this house and think "i can't do this anymore," nothing makes me want to kill myself more than waking up to this every day and knowing i have to keep doing it and that i will never get to live like a real human being or person. I will always just be an animal. I cry when I look at pictures of clean houses and seeing clear floors. I just want to live like a person. I just want to live like a human being
I have all these little habits ingrained into me. never open the door too much, block the gap with your body, because if someone sees inside the house they'll call the cops. can't ask for help because that'll get my mother involuntarily committed. "sent away." I remember being threatened as a kid that I couldn't ever let anyone know what my home life or house was like because if I did then CPS would take me away from her. and I don't want to be taken to a foster home, do I? I don't want to be taken away from mommy, do I? I was too young and scared of that to recognize it as a threat. it was just a kind warning. mommy just didn't want me to get hurt, that's all, after all, we were all each other had, all we have, isn't that right, that's why she'll kill herself if I ever leave
I've known others throughout my life who live in hoarder homes and every one of them is a child of a hoarder that hates their living situation more than anything, but even people who are otherwise compassionate view you as subhuman, can never look at you the same way again if they learn that you live - or even lived, past-tense - in squalor. mental illness is fine, but filth? being unhygienic? that's a sin like nothing else. you're no better than a dog, then. it shows in everything from how scornfully and judgmentally they talk about people with dirty cars or rooms, to those stupid "damn bitch you live like this?" memes. I hate it. I get so paranoid that I look dirty when I go out. that going out with her clearly unwashed and smelling reflects on me, that I'm dirty by extension, worrying about my ratty clothes. I hate it. I hate feeling dirty. I hate never feeling clean enough. I hate stressing about the smell carrying on my body or my clothes, somehow.
I can't do this. I can't do this. I can't do this. so often I think about calling 911 or something. I wish I'd never ever listened to a single person who told me to just tough it out until I was 18, survive until I was a legal adult, because that would give me more """power""" over myself, my situation, my agency. I resent and despise every single one of them. it didn't mean shit. it just means that now no one gives a shit about me anymore. at least if I'd called the cops when I was a kid I could've gotten out of here on grounds of child abuse. someone would've cared, it would've been a bad thing that happened to me. now I'm an adult and if anything at all I'm complicit. as if anyone would ever hear me out or act like I had a story at all. there aren't resources for me anymore. now I just have to do everything alone and no one will help me anymore. I'm not a person. I'm just a freak and a spectacle and a disgusting horror story that no one ever wants to be. that everyone thinks of as "at least I'm not that."
I can't even get out because I need a driver's license and I'm too stupid to study and too terrified of cars and driving to get behind a wheel without having a panic attack. I couldn't remotely afford it if I got into an accident. too stupid to study and cry every time I try and never make any progress but I have to have a GED if I'm going to get a job and I have to have a job because I need money if I'm going to ever get out of here but I'm disabled anyway and can't even stand up for more than a few minutes so what fucking job can I do anyway but I have no choice. I have no choice. I have no choice. and at the end of it all I'm STILL IN THIS FUCKING HOUSE. I still would have to come home to it every day still open the door when I get back and get hit with the wave of stench and want to kill myself. I have to live in this house while I do all of that and it would take god knows how long and it's so much. there's nowhere I can go. there's nothing I can do. and I've read stories from others, there's a forum for squalor survivors and people trying to get out of it, and these people post and then years after they come back like "well, it happened again" and I want to kill myself thinking about having to live in this cycle forever, how inevitable it is that this will stick with me for my entire life and I'll never be rid of it. I'll ruin every space I ever try to live in. I hate the idea of being nose-blind to bad smells for the rest of my life. I hate the idea that my space will never not smell like urine and I'll never know because I'll be the only one who can't smell it.
even though I know I can be better than this. my bedroom is the only room in the house that I have entirely to myself, that no one else can touch and that can actually have a closed door. and subsequently it is the only room in the house that doesn't smell, that looks like a human being lives in it. I'm not like her. I'm not like her with her room full of piss bottles and bed she lives in full of dishes and dog shit. I have to tell myself I'm better than her and I have to be better than her. sometimes I think this is definitely cause for at least a good chunk of my OCD ahahahahahaha
I remember when quarantine was still happening and people were describing how depressed and miserable the isolation was making them for even just a few months, and I thought about how absolutely nothing changed for me, this house was still my cage, I was still alone, still not speaking to anyone my age or anyone at all outside of appointments for a decade, and I realized, oh, anyone else in my situation would've killed themselves already. they're saying as much themselves. and that's with being stuck in their nice, clean, healthy safe homes. not stuck in this. and I feel so. so. so miserable.
I don't know. I wish I was a human being. I'm sick of excrement smell. I want to die. I'd rather be dead than live like this but the thought of my dead body being found in a place like this makes me even more miserable. I don't know i don't know i dont know.
it's not "mess." it's not even "filthy." it's the kind of thing you see on "Hoarders." the kind of thing people just call grotesque, inhumane, tragic. I remember my mom obsessively watching that show when I was little, and crying because our house looked like that. it still does. it's not for human beings. humans don't live like this. anyone who does live like this must not be human.
every day I wake up to this house and think "i can't do this anymore," nothing makes me want to kill myself more than waking up to this every day and knowing i have to keep doing it and that i will never get to live like a real human being or person. I will always just be an animal. I cry when I look at pictures of clean houses and seeing clear floors. I just want to live like a person. I just want to live like a human being
I have all these little habits ingrained into me. never open the door too much, block the gap with your body, because if someone sees inside the house they'll call the cops. can't ask for help because that'll get my mother involuntarily committed. "sent away." I remember being threatened as a kid that I couldn't ever let anyone know what my home life or house was like because if I did then CPS would take me away from her. and I don't want to be taken to a foster home, do I? I don't want to be taken away from mommy, do I? I was too young and scared of that to recognize it as a threat. it was just a kind warning. mommy just didn't want me to get hurt, that's all, after all, we were all each other had, all we have, isn't that right, that's why she'll kill herself if I ever leave
I've known others throughout my life who live in hoarder homes and every one of them is a child of a hoarder that hates their living situation more than anything, but even people who are otherwise compassionate view you as subhuman, can never look at you the same way again if they learn that you live - or even lived, past-tense - in squalor. mental illness is fine, but filth? being unhygienic? that's a sin like nothing else. you're no better than a dog, then. it shows in everything from how scornfully and judgmentally they talk about people with dirty cars or rooms, to those stupid "damn bitch you live like this?" memes. I hate it. I get so paranoid that I look dirty when I go out. that going out with her clearly unwashed and smelling reflects on me, that I'm dirty by extension, worrying about my ratty clothes. I hate it. I hate feeling dirty. I hate never feeling clean enough. I hate stressing about the smell carrying on my body or my clothes, somehow.
I can't do this. I can't do this. I can't do this. so often I think about calling 911 or something. I wish I'd never ever listened to a single person who told me to just tough it out until I was 18, survive until I was a legal adult, because that would give me more """power""" over myself, my situation, my agency. I resent and despise every single one of them. it didn't mean shit. it just means that now no one gives a shit about me anymore. at least if I'd called the cops when I was a kid I could've gotten out of here on grounds of child abuse. someone would've cared, it would've been a bad thing that happened to me. now I'm an adult and if anything at all I'm complicit. as if anyone would ever hear me out or act like I had a story at all. there aren't resources for me anymore. now I just have to do everything alone and no one will help me anymore. I'm not a person. I'm just a freak and a spectacle and a disgusting horror story that no one ever wants to be. that everyone thinks of as "at least I'm not that."
I can't even get out because I need a driver's license and I'm too stupid to study and too terrified of cars and driving to get behind a wheel without having a panic attack. I couldn't remotely afford it if I got into an accident. too stupid to study and cry every time I try and never make any progress but I have to have a GED if I'm going to get a job and I have to have a job because I need money if I'm going to ever get out of here but I'm disabled anyway and can't even stand up for more than a few minutes so what fucking job can I do anyway but I have no choice. I have no choice. I have no choice. and at the end of it all I'm STILL IN THIS FUCKING HOUSE. I still would have to come home to it every day still open the door when I get back and get hit with the wave of stench and want to kill myself. I have to live in this house while I do all of that and it would take god knows how long and it's so much. there's nowhere I can go. there's nothing I can do. and I've read stories from others, there's a forum for squalor survivors and people trying to get out of it, and these people post and then years after they come back like "well, it happened again" and I want to kill myself thinking about having to live in this cycle forever, how inevitable it is that this will stick with me for my entire life and I'll never be rid of it. I'll ruin every space I ever try to live in. I hate the idea of being nose-blind to bad smells for the rest of my life. I hate the idea that my space will never not smell like urine and I'll never know because I'll be the only one who can't smell it.
even though I know I can be better than this. my bedroom is the only room in the house that I have entirely to myself, that no one else can touch and that can actually have a closed door. and subsequently it is the only room in the house that doesn't smell, that looks like a human being lives in it. I'm not like her. I'm not like her with her room full of piss bottles and bed she lives in full of dishes and dog shit. I have to tell myself I'm better than her and I have to be better than her. sometimes I think this is definitely cause for at least a good chunk of my OCD ahahahahahaha
I remember when quarantine was still happening and people were describing how depressed and miserable the isolation was making them for even just a few months, and I thought about how absolutely nothing changed for me, this house was still my cage, I was still alone, still not speaking to anyone my age or anyone at all outside of appointments for a decade, and I realized, oh, anyone else in my situation would've killed themselves already. they're saying as much themselves. and that's with being stuck in their nice, clean, healthy safe homes. not stuck in this. and I feel so. so. so miserable.
I don't know. I wish I was a human being. I'm sick of excrement smell. I want to die. I'd rather be dead than live like this but the thought of my dead body being found in a place like this makes me even more miserable. I don't know i don't know i dont know.
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