Hi there, I feel like I should be at a meeting admitting all of this, but here goes. I am writing this for many reasons. To let others know they are not alone. To keep me (hopefully) a recovering hoarder, and not an active hoarder. To help me see the journey I am going through. And finally, to help all of you non-hoarders out there understand what we are going through a little.
I was diagnosed about nine years ago as a hoarder. I went through counseling and I started on meds, and eventually quit both of those things. Things got better. Then things got bad again, and again. We would go through a few good months, then backslide again. A year and a half ago, I was told get it together or my husband was going to leave me, and he was taking our kids with him. Who can blame him?
I went back to therapy. I am back on the meds. I am better than I was then. Do I have good and bad days? Yes. Do I have more good than bad days? I am getting there. With the help of God, my husband, and my kids, things are slowly looking up.
What is hoarding? "Hoarding disorder is a persistent difficulty discarding or parting with possessions because of a perceived need to save them." (taken from http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/hoarding-disorder/basics/definition/con-20031337) It physically hurts for me to throw something away. Not things like meat trays, and tissues, but things like a piece of paper that I may have a use for or want to go back and read. (Seriously had piles of kids school work.) Scrap paper was used till there was not a speck of white left, and still I couldn't get rid of it, because I might need a tidbit of information off of it in ten years. Clothing with rips and tears could always be mended and/or used to make something else. Any craft supplies/office supplies/any time anyone said "Want this? I am just going to throw it away." Eventually we would run out of storage space in our home, so I would stack things places, it would fall on the floor, and our house became a place uninhabitable by humans. On the outside I was normal. Even thought of as a good person, great mom. I know the truth. I hurt my kids. I hurt my husband. It still breaks my heart.
What am I besides a hoarder? I am wife, a mom, and a full time college student. I volunteer at my kids schools and at local Bible studies, and in our church family. Do they all know about the hoarding? Some of them do, but they don't understand.
How are things now? Better. I take it one day at a time. Is our house clean? Not 100%. If I spent a day or two getting it ready, it would be ok to have people over. My kids have friends over to our house now, on a semi regular basis. I still have days where I finish straightening a room, and I have to go lie down and cry because it hurts so much to get rid of the things we just threw out.
Enough for today, I will be back tomorrow. Until then,
May God guide your footsteps and bless you,
Deborah Ann
