Support worker hurts my feelings as he decides to clean up for me

[dekaspace]

Basically I am a cluttered but tidy person in the sense I shove stuff in cupboards but I do hoover floor pretty much every day and take rubbish out a few times a day to council bins as I dont want my wheelie bin overflowing but sometimes I can have like a dirty plate beside me and a cup in sink because I have not had a chance to clean yet but if I leave anything like empty plastic bottles on side to take to recycling down the road I often turn my back to see him grab them and put them in bin for me despite me telling him I prefer him not to do it, or I have a bag of rubbish ready to take to bins and he just takes it out again I tell him not to as I have my own way of doing it.

 

The problems also with this is I may have something like a empty bottle on the side to fill up for travelling and he thinks its rubbish, and one time had a few tablets left and he thought they were rubbish and dumped them, another time was something in a carrier bag ready to take back and he dumped them.

 

His boss comes round sometimes and is the same except he says the place is messy! Its not messy at all its just I have things like opened letters on the side that just arrived or clothes hanging over door to dry etc.

 

 

[trekster]

Have you tried explaining precisely how and why your support workers actions upset you?

 

I am a hoarder and if people move my things I get confused as to where they have gone. I try and work with my support workers to throw away my clutter but also to sort my clutter. I have a spreadsheet on my computer with 1 tab for each room with descriptions of what items live where.

 

I highly recommend 2 books to help with sorting your clutter, "the life laundry how to de-junk your life"....

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Life-Laundry-De-junk-Your/dp/0563534753/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1394822510&sr=8-1&keywords=%22the+life+laundry%22

 

.... and "the life laundry how to stay de junked forever"

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Life-Laundry-De-Junked-Forever/dp/0563487496/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1394822605&sr=8-2&keywords=%22the+life+laundry%22

 

Also books about OCD (hoarding behaviour is a type of OCD), "Breaking Free from OCD: A CBT Guide for Young People and Their Families"

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Breaking-Free-OCD-People-Families/dp/1843105748/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1394822791&sr=8-1&keywords=%22breaking+free+from+ocd%22

 

You mention your flat is tidy? Are you running out of storage space? IKEA tend to sell quite reasonably priced storage units. I got a drinks cabinet from my local charity shop and have put quite a number of my stamp albums in there.

 

I have tried to channel my hoarding obsession by working on a recycling one instead. I have both recycling bins easily accessible to me so I can put in papers and other recyclable items as they are used. I try and establish a "throw as you go" scheme in my home. Support is aware of what goes in recycling and what goes in the bin and sticks strictly to this system. I managed to recycle some old magazines the other week and clear my hallway of clutter.

 

Hope some of these techniques can help you.

 

 

 

[dekaspace]

I know its a few months old, but I am less a general hoarder and more that I have a lot of projects I want to start and due to depression and lack of space never get round to i.e I buy a broken games console that I plan to fix and buy parts for it but too tired and stressed so store it, I then want to sell it on but people get greedy and offer me less than I paid by a huge margin i,e its £100 second hand working in shop, sells for £50 broken on Ebay, I get offered £10 delivered which just covers post cost.

 

Or even things that work i.e computers I may have built out of spare parts and cost £300 to make(and a few hours building) and people say "oh it costs £300 for parts and its easy to build so I offer £120) and by the way these are REAL estimates, I have been offered that much for brand new computers before.

 

So I store them in cupboard taking up space but its more box piled on box than everything spilled everywhere.

 

However as I like my tv and games consoles I have a huge amount of wires behind tv in living room making it look messy, if everything was wireless my flat would look spotlessly clean.

 

Workers problem is he treats me like I have severe learning difficulties and asks me even things like have I washed myself todasy, and he seems hugely OCD himself as he comes in stinking so heavily of aftershave its it makes me sneeze and feel physically sick, even this week I had just put some carrot shavings from my lunch into a small carrier bag along with some plastic wrappers and he told me they stank so I should take them to rubbish bin straight away and not leave them in kitchen and then puts another bag over them.

 

Back to his attitude, he annoys me on that as he comes across as trying to motivate me but makes me feel like a primary school child such as when he does ask if I washed he goes into a high pitched voice and goes "oh well done, thats good" even if I tell him I have made the bed he is like "oh thats excellent, well done" which feels like he is insulting my intelligence.

[BelLocke]

Sounds like your support worker would hate our flat... We've got more games consoles and things than we know what to do with.

In all seriousness, he does seem to be treating you in a condescending way. It sounds to me like he underestimates how much you are able to care for yourself, such as when he asks if you've washed, etc; however, throwing away things without even asking you or explaining why he feels they should be tossed is not right at all. He shouldn't have any right to do that unless you WERE severely unable to take care of yourself and he sincerely thought it needed to be done.

 

May I ask why you have a support worker? I'm not sure what his duties are supposed to be in your situation; however, maybe it would be worth explaining how all of this is making you feel (if you haven't already) to him and/or his boss and then outlining precisely what things you would like help with and what things you'd like to take care of yourself, such as the recyclables, etc.

[dekaspace]

The support worker is there to help me with anything I need and the social works plan for them originally was for them to help me leave the house as I suffer from some depression and so quite lethargic so it was to help me to leave the house, do shopping, go for walks, go for drives etc.

 

The problem though is the firm keeps cancelling appointments, staff leave due to not being able to handle the job, and because of that reason I never have a structure as a lot of staff there are lazy, this one is the only hard working one but doesnt think about peoples mental health, I have another who is booked for a 3 hour shift every thursday who turns up, asks how I am doing then leaves about 10-25 minutes later despite being paid for 3 hours and last week he told me he would be a hour late as had other commitments so I assumed that meant I still got 3 hours so rang him on the day to say I was held up for a hour after the later time(so 2 hours after the normal time 1 hour after his delayed time) and he just refused to see me saying that I only had a 2 hour slot so the time I wanted to meet him was the same time as my time ended(so in other words he was taking his 1 hour delay out of my time/money)

 

Useless firm really, I was told many complaints about it when I first went with them, worse for me was when I got a different support worker and he turned up twice in 2 months and each time for 10 minutes..

 

I do admit to being disorganised though, but again most of that is depression related, when I had my first flat everything was organised to the point of all underwear folded, dvds/games done by alphabetical order, the problem now is I have so much stuff and so little space so even if it was organised I would still have to store stuff in cupboards.

 

I have told the company a few times and all I get from them is "yeah thats the way he has always been" nothing about talking to him about it.

 

Funny thing is the guy thinks he is like my best friend when he just annoys me being overbearing and in my face.

[BelLocke]

That firm just sounds awful and like they need some lessons in organisation themselves... It makes me really sad that people who are responsible for others act in such an irresponsible way, especially because I'm training to work in care and I could never imagine treating people that way.

Is there a particular reason you chose to go with this firm, since from what you say I assume you pay for it yourself? I know it could cause a lot of upheaval, but maybe it's time to think of switching to an alternative firm/agency if there's one available. I'm not sure how much good these people are doing for you, especially when they're there specifically to help you with your depression and frankly they seem to be having the opposite effect.

Maybe somebody else in the forums with more experience than me can weigh in on it, though.

[trekster]

I agree with belocke get a different agency to support you. Tell your social worker things aren't working out.

[dekra]

A support worker should be there for exactly that, SUPPORT to live your life in an independent manner. NOT to run your life for you and remove that independence. As you've already been advised, talk to your social worker, tell her/him what kind of practical support you feel would be beneficial to you and ask for what the two of you agree are your main requirements and have support workers stick to that remit.

[dekaspace]

Back again, no I do not pay for it myself as I like my independance and hate anything that costs money I like to be careful with it.

 

What has ended up happening anyway is due to a house move they just gave up giving me support despite still being paid for it by that I mean I told them I was moving from the area but had a months notice so was going to do it in pieces to save money, I still expected support and had it arranged for the next session as usual, on the morning of the support I thought I would ring them to say I didnt need it that day as was busy but they never answered phone from 9am to 11.30 at which point I gave up.

 

They never even turned up and when I finally spoke to someone they just said they thought I had moved despite the Social Work still paying them for visiting me! I asked for a final appointment so they can help me tidy my flat and cut grass and was refused saying "we no longer support you" again despite them still getting paid!! Its they have misunderstood and removed me from their system then its too much hassle to put me back on.

 

Oh and they were the only company in my old area that did support via the social work payments, used to be a highly praised one from a charity that closed down due to funding issues that had a reputation of taking people on day trips, for meals etc(unlike this one who told me I had to pay them petrol if I wanted to go anywhere) that rushed out the door at end of support time even if they arrived a hour or so late, or rushed off early as supporting someone else overran so they didnt get a chance to eat their dinner!(so using my paid time to eat their dinner)

 

I was hoping that due to all the issues they would be nice and if I paid for a van to get one of them to drive during my support time(even if 2 hours support and it took 3-4 hours I thought all the time they were paid but didnt turn up should cover it) but nope they said they couldnt help me, just like they couldnt help me with gardening due to "health and safety" just like when they encouraged me to get shopping they refused to help me with bags or even open a door.