SOS Short: I Had An Anxiety Attack!

JLJ, the Super Organizer talks openly about a recent event and how he came thru it! alottofhelp.com

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
I had an anxiety teck the other day over someone's clutter. Hi.
This is an SOS short from the SOOS Show or
James I Junior. I'm James I Jr. And every Monday
I have new episodes. I have some guests lined up,
just like happening this money. I like to leave the
mondays open. Therefore, you know these Mondays are far this show,
so I put out shorts in between at short interviews.

(00:26):
So they were doing this year and our tenth season
of the show, getting close to five hundred episodes. So
I want to share something with you recently because I
try to be very human on here and then let
you know what's going on. And I know for me
it was very tough to go to my mother's house,

(00:47):
who's a hoarder, and and see how things have progressed.
This happened recently for me and as I had for
a long time. I always say she was my first client,
so to speak with my first clients. I was cleaning
up her house when she was married and and it
was bad. Wasn't as bad then, and I was helping

(01:07):
her straighten up, and she was paying me, and it
was a whole thing. Then we had them. Things changed later,
and so I wasn't. I have not been doing anything
with their house right last five years or so, so
with the onset of first her husband and her with
their illnesses and he passed away, subsequently we had I've seen,

(01:28):
we've had to make room for things, and there's only
even occasionally. So my mom fell the day and almost
fell out, and she fell on me, and I was like, okay,
we got to get this. I mean, every room is cluttered, right,
which is not uncommon. It happens to a lot of people,
and so it's overwhelming, right, so I usually can handle

(01:50):
for most parts. I think I also was tied. Also,
I'm one of her caregivers. I'm very tired. I would
mail that. But this is a good example of folks
who are just when they see clutter and they see
it's a large amount of stuff, how you can feel.
So that's what I'm saying. I can relate to this,

(02:11):
and it's not between a long time. So I was like, okay,
I got to move some stuff out the way and
moved to another spot at least like a pretty later,
and I was going through the house to see where
I can move stuff out of the living room area
and put it in somewhere else. And I just started
walking through the rooms and just seeing there's hardly any space.

(02:33):
There's just stuff everywhere. Stuff in every room I went into.
There are rooms I can't even get into because there's
stuff in front of it. There's a back patio, it's
being a step down. I looked around and I had
a panic attack. They've been a long time. That's wrappened
to me, and I know that some of my clients

(02:54):
are told me they've had panic attacks anxiety attacks when
they see their clutter all of a sudden, they just
notice like, oh my god, it's overwhelming, and that's it's
a real thing. I wanted to run, screaming out of
there and just saying I'm done. This is it. I
can't do this anymore. And I didn't cry, but I
was like it was. It was there, and my brother

(03:17):
was stating looking at me, He's like, what's wrong, like
all this shit? I said, it shit, it's from Florida ceilingay.
And first thing, there was a lot of empty boxes
and bags hoarding of plastic. I did get the shit
out of here, and so I started clearing that out.
I found a way to start clearing out. But at
first I had to go through the panic attack, couldn't breathe,

(03:41):
wanted to cry, when to scream. I called my sister's
Andrew and my own faith too for assistance, for mental assistance,
because I just had to get out and they helped
me out. They helped me get out of it a
little bit. But that's I want my clients to know.
People that people who watched this show, listen to the show. No,

(04:02):
I understand, it's not even my stuff, and I'm overwhelmed.
Some of you have parents and grandparents or siblings or
kids where their houses are like my mother's, and you're thinking,
oh my god, how can we Ever, it's all doable
and you can do it, but at first you might

(04:24):
have a panic attack. You might want to scream and holler.
You might want to throw shit area that won't throw
everything out you'll do that doesn't help anyone do anything.
But those are real human emotions, and that's why I
wanted to share with you, like I had a human emotion.
It's been a long time, but it really hit me
because I have other clients. Doesn't bought because I'm they're

(04:45):
hiring me. It's not my stuff. I'm like bouncing the
clients and I have their stuff. It doesn't bother me.
But maybe because my mother and she's my mother. That's
probably why says I don't organize family anymore because it's
too close home. Immediate family goes to home. So it's like,
this was really he I'm thinking to myself also, if

(05:08):
she died, well, she's gonna die before I am. The
chances are I gotta deal with all this shit. So
you get said that too. You're thinking I gotta clean
I really, I really, I took a minute, take it
all in. I'm like, wow, Now one of the things,
I'm glad I stayed in the back and she didn't.

(05:28):
My mother wasn't feeling well and so wasn't well. So
going in there and just yelling head her and singing,
F this shit, I'm just gonna do it. I mean,
it's not gonna help anything, but here's I think she
is something you have to realize too. So telling them
how bad their situation is doesn't help. Either doesn't help either.
They know how bad it is, they know how bad

(05:51):
it is. There's already shame involved, so trying to shame
them to do something you're not gonna do anything. It's
already feeling shame already to just come outing shame on shame.
So that's not gonna do anything. And I think and
for and for them, they're already like it's it's beyond
their control on somewhere, and you have to find way

(06:17):
to stay calm and talk to them calmly. Sometimes it
doesn't help either, I know. But for me, I noticed
that if I talk to her and go, okay, girl,
we need to make rooms that you don't fall, you're
gonna have to turn away and just not You're just
not gonna know where just stuff's gonna be moved. I
try to keep the things that she immediately uses up front,

(06:45):
keep it out for her. And there are areas that
are still cluttered that she is just screaming at me
not to touch. So I ain't touched them because they're
kind of off to the side. But still it's like
I was like, work on the constraint on the areas
there are immediate concern that's doorways, passageways in front of her,

(07:10):
behind her on one side by the door, and it's
like we gotta get that stuff that she can walk
back and forth freely. Want any obstruction, and you know,
it doesn't trip over a pair of shoes are on
the floor. You know. Right now we have got her
new mattress because we said that's a little lower. She's right,

(07:32):
it's a little too high for her. But her room,
her whole bet is surrounded stuff. So we gotta figure
out a way. And her bed is covered with stuff,
so yeah, figure out. So I'm already saying we get
some bins, because that's another thing. To get some bins,

(07:55):
and I'm gonna start to throw CEFN bins. Stock the
bins in the corner. Here you go, girl, At least
at the least you can go through each bind That's
a one solution. What I've been doing recently isn't going through.
So he had a lot of smaller bins full of papers.
I've been going through. I've gotten rid of so much stuff.
Same at time. Stack up bins in the corner, stack

(08:16):
him over here, and at the very least, at least
it's off the floor, or it's not in the way
it's I may not be organized yet, but you'll get there.
That's the thing I'm very very adamant about. Get the
bins and that will help you because it's just it's
too much kids, It's too but it's just it's it's

(08:40):
just so much stuff. But my concern is her safety,
and that's for anybody out there, because you can hurt yourself,
you know, crazy, and I don't want that for her.
I don't want her to fall herself. She fell on
me and I got hurt because you fell on me.
So now it's affecting me. But I know my first
thing thing isn't one to scream and holler at her

(09:00):
and say what But that's not gonna do anything. You
have to kind of take go outside, take five ten
minutes whatever, pull yourself together, and then try to come
in with the plan. You know it's some media plan.
Do that, life will gone and the you can work
on something else and always try to have some brace
and compassionors somewhere they got that way overnight or didn't

(09:24):
get there. She can overnight. She knows she is a
quarner and a clutterer. She knows that, and so there
are times she'll say something to me. I just ignore it. Now.
I just got up said everything she said. But I
have training, so now I was like, you say it
everyone you that's why it doesn't matter, you know, And

(09:45):
I think that's and we deal with another issue right
now where she was hiding things and she can't always
find them, and I'm like, you live in the house
by yourself, you lives else n a dog, so I
you can't we can't find it. You did you touch it?
Did you move it? There are times where I'd find

(10:08):
stuff and she would swear to this one spot, and
I've done to myself where I go it this one spot,
I go, so, let me just check over here. Why
looking over there, Jane's I know. For I'm like, let
me just look over there, and I go over there
and I find it. I know. For me, I used
to have my keys. I were a keyholder. I one
day I couldn't find my keys in the keyholder. I'm like,
I always put the keys in here. Well, I found

(10:29):
them somewhere else where I found I'm like, it's got
to come back to me. That's right. I put him here,
mean and put them in the keyholder. I just did it.
There's something else happened, something else happened, somebody else happened,
and that was it. So I get it. I get it,
I get it, I get it. I get it, and

(10:49):
it's tough. It'll always remember everything, so I think, so
it's every day I got to deal with this and
it's not easy. And and I'm at the point where
I'm busy with my own life and with things that
I'm going off for me, and I'm all the stuff
that I don't even have the I'm getting older myself,
and I'm like, do I even have the energy for this?

(11:14):
And some days I don't. I wish I just wake
up the energizer Bunny and just go, Okay, we're gonna
do this, blah blah, and I just don't. And I said,
I know she feels bad on some level, and that's
what everybody. Everybody does that situation. So you have to
have such compassion there somewhere, but you have to stick
to the facts and talk to them factually, like this

(11:38):
is this is the deal, this is what's going on.
But yes, I had anxiety techids. I did. It was
not cute, but I survived it. Thanks Sam Faith and
Xandra sisters Andre, I am doing better. But with buch
of techniques, there are the things you can do to
kind of when you come up said, when you see

(11:59):
something that's overwhelming, I am for hire because I said
I've been through it as I can talk about it
really easily. And I also have some training a lot
of heelp dot com so serve my life coach and
pressure organizer. You can find me there and this show
of course is on YouTube and all obviously reservice platform.
The Super organized the show with James not Jr. Next Monday.

(12:19):
We'll see you again. Be kind yourself, have compassion for others.
I'll see you next time.