Yes, therapy isn’t an option at the moment. Even with a sliding scale its still not something I can afford, and there are more important things to focus on at the present time. I’ve been working on my financial situation for quite a long time though, so the future looks brighter. The way I’ve lived my life in the past has caused lots of damage and its quite a lot to repair.
I never really thought hoarding was that big a deal either, until I actually thought about it. Although its different than NPD, it shares a lot in common in how it can affect everyone. I’ve been reading things about it like “doorbell dread,” where you get intense feelings of dread everytime you hear a doorbell. Its a side effect of growing up that way.
In my house the hoard eventually took over. Its something kids can get ashamed and embarassed about, and it tends to be a gigantic secret that your family keeps from everyone. You can never let people in your house or have friends over for company. As a child I rememeber kids wanting to come over and play with me, or wanting to just see my room ro where I lived, and I’d have to refuse and not be able to offer much of explanation. Nobody ever really knew why we wouldn’t let them in the house.
My mom would nag my father about it, and we’d occassionally complain, but you’re dealing with a mental illness. If you mess with this persons hoard you will end up suffering or being punished. Just like with NPD, you’ll find yourself being blamed for the other persons actions. It was my moms fault and my fault the house was messy and junked up. It was never his fault.
Eventually the hoard engulfed the whole house and you couldn’t even move around. Cock roaches eventually took over and there wasn’t much you could do about it. My father always said the stuff was valuable, or said he’d buy his own land one day and would eventually have a farm and he was going to move it all there. After he passed away I realized how unrealistic that was. It took scores of people to clean up the mess, rented dumpsters, a week long garage sale… and countless weeks to repair the damage. And this came after the city hied a team of workers to forcefully clean out the outside and charged us by putting a lean on the house.
Its hard to explain what I hated about my father. He didn’t yell at us, and he didn’t curse at us, and didn’t really beat us. He didn’t emotionally berate us like my mother. But yet, as a kid I installed a dead bolt on my door and locked myself up in my room and refused to leave. Until my mother was gone, or my father drank himself to unconciousness it wasn’t safe to leave my room to eat, to go outside, or to even make a trip to the restroom. In the thirty second it takes to walk from your room to the bathroom, my father had a way of destroying your soul with a demand or comment. Getting my father to take family responsibilities or act like a father should was more like a negotiation. If you want or needed something from my father, you had to give into insane demands. Otherwise, he’d make you suffer by witholding something. It was manipulative, and deameaning, and a very controlling way to do things. He’d tell people we were bad kids who didn’t behave or do what they were told, but in a way, we weren’t. We were revolting and standing up to him. Nobody wants to be controlled or micromanaged or forced into relationships with somebody. Nobody really wants to listen to a guy who spends all day with prostotutes and porn and alcohol, and then shows up to complain about you and boss you around… and you have to comply or you will not be provided for.
So, you just ended up locking yourself in a room and never, ever, coming out to face anyone. Most kids snuck out the windows in the middle of the night. I had to do it in pure daylight. You learn to be ashamed of your home, and dreading it. You dread going home, and you dread being there.
There a nice youtube video here on hoarding:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65xcUgj3wsU
It sad, cuz when I saw that video I didn’t think that house looked bad at all. Thats clean by my standards. And some of these people are just dealing with OCD or senility. My particually situation had some NPD or BPD tossed in, with some pornography and some alcoholism and tons of other crap.
Heh, I could probably go on about it forever. There’s no end to the stories I could tell.
