Writing my way from spark to flame; mom, wife, daughter; loving well along the way.
Hoarding Infographic: Awareness
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I rarely just copy and paste something here that I haven't had anything to do with the creation of, but this one is visually appealing and it carries with it interesting statistics and resources.
I've been very fortunate to meet and work with some fantastic people over the last two years, including trips to the Mental Health Association-San Francisco's Hoarding and Cluttering Conference last March , and more recently the International OCD Foundation Annual Conference just last weekend in San Diego. Because of this, I've sat in on many speeches about hoarding, the most recent research, and because I grew up with a hoarder, I am an expert on my mother's hoarding. I realize that the viewpoints on the internet are skewed horribly. It's easy to say really harsh, mean things when one is protected by an alias, avatar, and a computer screen. And yet, since I see so many inaccurate statements made about hoarding, I thought I would share what I've pieced together from the research, my experiences, and my mother's admissions.
“There may be a great fire in our soul, yet no one ever comes to warm himself at it, and the passers-by see only a wisp of smoke.” ~Vincent van Gogh Growing up, the message that I wasn't good enough was pervasive. In my home, I competed for time and attention with things--music, crafts, other people. To my young, child's heart, this competition was interpreted simply that I was not good enough to merit first place in my mother's eye and time. At school, I learned that attention was earned by being the best, achieving above the expectation. So long as you could stay ahead of the pack academically, even in the artistic merits, you were "good enough". But even then, the pressure to stay at the top, to surpass other's achievements was daunting. By middle school, the pressure to be the best at school was suffocating and oppressive. It wasn't until high school that I gave in, gave up, and succumbed to the idea that I wasn't "good enough". In relati...
When I meet someone for the first time, I realize now that I may or may not be a "stranger" to them. It's an unusual predicament to meet someone for the first time and be unsure if they know about your past (at least a small window into it), or whether you are a completely blank slate. Recently, I shared with someone I had met for the first time two months ago that my mother and I had been on the show last year. From the look on her face, I could tell that she was a bit in shock. I can only imagine the thoughts running through her brain: "She's look so normal." "She's one of those kinds--attention-seeking drama queens." And I could also tell that she also struggled with the first glimpse of who I am in relation to the disclosure that I had been on a reality TV show, and not just any show, but "Hoarders". Her next comment was priceless, "We'd just been discussing this topic this morning--who would be on a reality TV show?...
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