Re: Diogenes syndrome
- From: Purl Gurl <purlgurl@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 20 May 2007 13:28:58 -0700
Arcadian Rises wrote:
Arcadian Rises wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diogenes_syndrome
where the lack of shame is not even mentioned. But you get the point,
the self - neglect is part of lack of shame.
I'll be. Now I know the name for this disorder.
About ten years back, a very well educated woman lived downhill from us.
She was a history professor at my university, as was her husband. Both
were quite the socialites.
Her husband fell dead from heart attack during a class lecture. She
retired soon after and went into seclusion. I tried all I could to
visit with her, to be neighborly. She would never allow me into her
house, nor even open a door; we spoke only through an open window.
I worked on her for a few years. No luck. Never set foot into her home,
which is a big beautiful home. I received word a history professor is
to enjoy a retirement dinner. He and my elderly friend, worked together
for decades. I approached her through her open window, explained about
his retirement dinner and party, then begged her to come along to keep
me company and introduce me to other professors.
Darn if she did not agree.
I arrive in our Mercedes to pick her up, knock and she appears all
dressed to impress. She is eighty or so but looking real good. She
has a huge suitcase size handbag with her, no big deal.
At our university, she is truly enjoying herself, talking with old
friends, introducing me and a couple of girlfriends, who met us there
along with my husband, introducing to us to professors and high brows.
She enjoys drinks, smiles a lot, even tells some old university war stories.
During the buffet style dinner, all is normal, we serve ourselves, enjoy
some really great but expensive food and wines. She excuses herself from
our table then heads for the buffet, with her suitcase size handbag. I
watch, to be sure she is ok. At the buffet, she begins wrapping up all
types of food in napkins then stuffs those items in her huge handbag.
I mean, she is loading up her handbag with pounds and pounds of food.
"Maybe she is going hungry," I think and decide to help her out, which
will ruin my eloquent image at this dinner party. I walk back to the
kitchen area and explain away a need for some bags. Armed with bags,
I walk over to the buffet, dressed in my formal gown, then begin
wrapping food in napkins and filling up a bag. I am embarrassed but
the needs of this elderly woman are more important. We stand next to
each other packing up food, she even begins pointing to foods she wants.
Darn if an elderly professor man comes over, takes one of my bags and
begins helping us. Many are watching but I am undaunted being half wild.
He quietly explains she has not quite been the same since her husband
died. He knows her well. The three of us fill up two bags and her huge
handbag, then she announces she is ready to go home!
I signal my husband and our girlfriends I will be back. Off we go,
this elderly woman neighbor, an old professor and I, head to our
Mercedes, each carrying a big bag of food. I thank him for his help
and we leave for her home.
At her home, she allows me to carry in two bags of food while she lugs
in her handbag of food. At first, I am shocked but recover. Her home
is neat, clean, and well organized. However, stacked along all walls
throughout her home, are periodicals, books, magazines, newspapers,
all types of reading material. My "stacked" means reaching almost to
her ceiling and literally along every single wall. There is just barely
enough room to walk along narrow passageways formed by all these books,
magazines and such. Her entire house, inside, is like this. Even her
windows are hidden by stacks of reading materials. In her kitchen,
the same, books and books and magazines and magazines and journals,
stacks and stacks reaching within a foot of her ceilings. She has
been keeping and collecting reading material for the past decade,
maybe more, even her daily newspapers. Her house is clean but this
is like from a creepy Vincent Price movie; dark, crowded and busy.
Only visible window is a single one by her front door, this window
we visit through.
In her refrigerator, there is only a tube of bologna and a loaf of bread.
The poor old dear, all she is eating is bologna sandwiches, no lettuce,
no dressings nor tomatoes, just bread and bologna. However, when are finished
packing her refrigerator, she has weeks worth of delicious foods.
She is very thin and very frail. Now I understand why. Her children moved
her out of her home and into theirs to tend for her because of failing health,
oh, about a year later after our dinner party.
Her home is bought. Work crews with trucks worked for several days clearing
out her home of books, magazines, newspapers and all that. I estimate those
crews hauled away fifteen to twenty truckloads of printed materials.
Diogenes Syndrome. Now I have a label for her behavior.
I have shared this photograph before, as a spoof on myself.
Stupidly, I chose a dress to show off my boobs, a dress
which is too small and too tight. All evening I fought to
keep my boobs inside my dress. I was so embarrassed, a lot
more embarrassed than from helping our neighbor lady pack
buffet food into bags to take home.
This girl in lavender, frosted hair, is one of our French
lesbian girlfriends. You would never know by looking at her.
http://www.purlgurl.net/aue/uc_party05.jpg
Here are our French lesbian pair girlfriends, who are our
constant companions. Sometimes, I think the three of us
girls married the same man, my husband. You saw pictures
of them from 1985 at Sun Valley, Idaho, during snow skiing.
This is at a different uc party.
http://www.purlgurl.net/aue/uc_party06.jpg
Maybe I will share more photographs.
Of course, each person age differently, my Mom for instance would
never laugh at a dirty joke, she would even blush, so in this respect
she is a lot younger that her biological age.
Ha! Our elder up here on our hill, she is eighty. Each day, at least
once, she tells me to kiss her ass, "Well, yall can just kiss my ass
you little hussy." She constantly flips me the finger and tells some
of the funniest naughty jokes! I took her to a car show last year.
She had been drinking. While walking around, she forgets where she is
and flips off some poor older man with his show car. He is completely
baffled. I apologize to him, play this down as an old age addled thing.
I suspect she did this to embarrass me. She is very ornery.
Thirty years back, she is fifty and introduces me to belly dancing,
"Yall will love this dancing. You get to gyrating and wiggling those
hips, you will drive your husband wild!" She is right, as always.
Purl Gurl
.
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