One Wee Spark

I read somewhere once, perhaps in a college class I took years ago, that the children of abuse will generally not speak harshly about their parents even when the abuse occurred at their hands. They will paint their childhoods out to be "not that bad" or generally happy even when they lived hell on earth. For many years, I found an outlet from my childhood in my childhood. (Yes, I typed that correctly.) I placed blame, frustration and anger on my father's absence from my life while neatly and easily ignoring the other bigger issues--my mother's mental illness and the broken system of my childhood years. It was easy to paint the picture of the girl without a father. As a child growing up in the first generation of socially acceptable divorce, it was okay to acknowledge the effects of not having a father. Early on in my childhood, I had been publicly called on this lack, called a bastard for coming from a home without married parents. I was an illegitimate child. For me,...

My mother and my father never married. Never were engaged even. In fact, my mother was never proposed to by any man and never married. Her "relationships" were odd at best, and really, if I'm honest with myself about it...little more than stalking. I remember one Sunday afternoon when I was about seven or eight being rounded into the little white station wagon. This would have been while all the windows were still in tact yet the car was always infamously packed. Mom announced that we were going for a drive. I'm sure we stopped somewhere for soda and snacks, although that part remains hazy although I remember my mother gloriously chugging from a 2-liter of soda while driving. Yes, I said 2-liter. Then we headed south about an hour and fifteen minutes to the rural area of Bryantown. You see, my mother was smitten with a co-worker named Ron. I don't believe at this point they had had a "date" (I'm not sure they ever had what I consider a date...), but ...

Can Hoarding Be Cured? - Topix# I was actually thinking about this question myself last week, wondering if there really is a cure for compulsive hoarding. It appears that even the professionals admit that most of those affected who GET treatment will return to the disorder, and the bigger issue is that most hoarders never recognize or admit that they have a problem and seek help. In fact, I don't have statistics on this (but I will look for them) I would bet that even those hoarders who are forced by law enforcement (CPS, APS, or Code Enforcement) actually revert to their ways once they have saved their homes. As sad as hoarding is, the thought that there seems to be no long-lasting treatment to keep a hoarder from returning to their ways is simply devastating to the families and friends! What is the point in attempting to get intervention if there is likely to be no lasting change or result? Should family members walk away? Do friends ignore the safety and health issues? Do neighb...