Three of my four children were born
with a rare disease. It's heartbreaking, and it's often terrifying
for the parents of afflicted children. I have never told anyone
before, because this disorder is little known and not very well
understood. Most professionals who hear of it for the first time
refuse to believe that it's a real sickness. I assure you that
it is. I'm finally gathering my courage to talk about this openly because I
know that there are other families out there who suffer with
this illness. It's time for us to stand together as parents and know
that we are not alone in this fight.
Aside from the chronic symptoms that
plague the children, mothers are often drastically affected by their
children's disease. Most are the ones who usually live with the
effects of this disorder every moment of every day. Most fathers are
affected to some extent, but they're often in denial about this
phenomenon.
What is this horrific sickness? Believe
it or not, it doesn't even have a name yet, but I call it CCMRS. I
will list the common symptoms of this little-known, yet incredibly
widespread syndrome.
The most common symptom, present in
over 90% of the kids who suffer from the disease, is the complete inability to clean their rooms. They are often blind to the fact that
there is a thick layer of dust coating their dressers, desks, and
bedposts. These children seem to deny the existence of their closets
and dressers and opt, instead, to heap their clothing, dirty or
clean, into a gigantic pile in their room. On rare occasions, when parents have taken
it upon themselves to help their suffering children, they often
find that a gaping, smoldering hole has been burned into the carpet by the
toxic contents of the pile. Another common indicator is that there is
usually some kind of food, dirty dish or utensil lying in some hidden
spot. It's not uncommon to find a fossilized hot dog under the
child's bed. Dirty underwear is scattered about, and trash of
unknown origins is usually strewn over every square inch of the
carpet. Only a handful of the people who have attempted to research
this phenomenon will agree that the kids who suffer from CCMRS have a form of blindness that makes these elements in their rooms completely
invisible to their eyes.
A particularly chilling sign of this
disorder is a wet, mildewed towel at the bottom of the laundry
hamper, with the damp, black crud seeping into the nearby clothing.
Another very common symptom is the
inability to pick up towels off the floor after they've been used,
inability to pick up trash that has missed the garbage can on the
first try, and absolute muscle failure when they try to hang up their
coats and put away their shoes.
Short term memory loss is another
common indicator, such as when children are asked, “Who made this
mess?” Children with CCMRS will be completely dumbfounded. Most
sufferers regularly lose their memories of where the dishwasher, dish
soap and sponges are located, causing them to leave dirty, sticky
dishes in stacks in the sink, around the sink, on the stove, and
sometimes, even on the floor where the dog licks the plates. In CCMRS
families with pets, the animals often suffer an unpleasant side effect of the
disease when they excrete the nastiest stuff you've ever smelled,
from both ends, as a result of noshing on leftovers strewn around the
house.
The most frustrating part of CCMRS is
that parents will repeatedly try to teach their children to hang up
their clothes, put food back into the refrigerator and cupboards,
clean up the globs of peanut butter that are frequently left on the
kitchen counter, and for heaven's sake, take a shower once in a
while!
This leads to our next symptom. Boys,
in particular, seem to have a variant of the illness that causes them
to have complete and utter disregard for their hygiene. Boys with
this condition seem to have absolutely no knowledge of their own body
funk, and subsequently, they do nothing to get rid of it. In fact,
it's so severe in some cases that, even if the boy is followed around
by a hoard of flies and has a distinct fog emanating from his
armpits, he will still deny – violently, on occasion – that he
needs a bath or a shower. Look inside this young boy's mouth
(although experts highly recommend you wear a surgical mask, possibly
even a gas mask before attempting this), and you will find remnants
of last Friday's pizza and various levels of tooth decay, gingivitis,
and yellowing of the teeth. He can't seem to comprehend the fact that
his mouth smells like formaldehyde and no one wants to be within a
ten-foot radius of him at any given time. The sad truth is that, for
as many dental visits he's had, as well as parental nagging, he
simply does not possess the ability to brush his own teeth. Often, he
lacks the muscular ability to raise a stick of deodorant to his
armpits, his fingernails and toenails are reminiscent of the tragic
Edward Scissorhands. And frequently, there is a small family of rodents
nesting somewhere in his tangled mop of hair. This symptom has also
been observed in girls, although it's less common in the female
gender.
The most alarming trend, though, is the
fact that parents will frequently develop symptoms of the disease
after they have been around their infected children for long periods
of time. A higher number of children in a family seems to increase the appearance of
symptoms in parents.
It's time for us, as mothers, to take
some action. CCMRS, or Can't Clean My Room Syndrome, is recognized by parents across the globe, yet the medical community refuses to acknowledge it and consequently, there is little or no funding available to allow research to find a cure. It has been estimated that at least 95% of all children
suffer with some degree of this disease. Call your local politicians
and tell them that you want to start a task force to research this
horrible, debilitating illness. Have courage and take any kind of action you can to alert the medical community of this ravaging disease.
I'm thinking of organizing a telethon.
