By: Shoshana

Source: Remembrance and Recovery Project by Mental Health America (Mental Health Minnesota)

A Short Story Re: A longterm Hoarding & Shorterm Recent Hope-2-Cope Or: Recovery be Killing Me As It Keeps Me Alive

i have had hoarding disorder 3 decadent decades and have known it had me for half a decade with no dents in the Length of Service 2-cope in the matter for half of the latter.

Act 1 in stages:
i actively sought without getting self-caught be becoming tensely taut ne’er realizing till ‘late my home-2 cope via storing was all 4-naught

Since becoming a dual citizen in Israel and the US i became a registered student at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Masters Degree Library Science program and an unwitting but active advocate of prowling for possessions. My first directorship for all of the entire Upper Galilee my major depressive disorder was already in evidence although undiagnosed, as my severely stupefying and stultifying Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder, my anxiety disorder and agoraphobia. But still the brain was youthful and more flexible and i had fleeting hope from my job, after surviving a near fatal suicide 4 years earlier and at this juncture between Israel and Syria all i collected was Israeli/Syrian wildflowers and other people’s books.

By the time i left this great job for an endlesstime of lessgreat library dictatorships, my various mental illness aspects made me run, but before i collected – rather than collecting the cold hard facts about my mental illness – i collected colder castout clothing and harder hangers, hampers, hardware Etcetera. Whenever my discomfort and/or depression descended and/or failed to full ascend, i first forayed freely (as I inversely began to live captive of my collection e’er growing), and then quit my job and piled possessions – past and present – on a truck bound for a new destination with the same ailing brain-on-board.

When my next living space smaller, foraging frequency grew larger… When i came to the US to do my doctorate in Children’s Book Illustration at the University of California at Berkeley, my 4-day holed-up-in-hoarding active-ity was due not to any improvement in, or acknowledgement of, my condition, however, due to an acutely aggravated ascension of my longstanding agoraphobia into full-blown boarded-up-absence from the world outside my International House single, dorm room. i didn’t venture out for 3 daystraight, the 4th only in order to pack up (pun i’mtended! but not yet understood by me). i disenrolled and moved to Minneapolis and started my uphill understanding of and coping with the varying aspects of my chronic mental illness – from Wellspring – ill as they come to the Crisis Home Program – the best boon to my mental health, save my teacher, Dear-Helene – who is a true righteous gentile by saving this-here single-soul-from-suicide.

i started my descent out of hoarding and foraging during the exact event which had started and prolonged its pain, for triple decade-ents. What started my current phase of recovery from hoarding – which will go on for the rest of my life – is being totally out-of-control – when the Sister in Israel refused to return the substantial loan to finance my early retirement in a warm climate better than Minnesota for my severe osteoporosis – i felt, acted, and looked so out-of-control and angry, and for the first and far finestime i stopped frequent foraging for the past twin years and started diss-hoarding. i started dissing my hoarding disorder rather than dismissing the import of its underlying cause for me – distress deep within, which I now know from studying with my Teacher Dear, and speaking at a far-too-well-attended!!! provider/client conference – that when out-of-control comes, and distress duplicates, and risk at relapse-2-gathering and haunting hunting happen, i must dig in, and be strong, call my Teacher Dear’s Voicemail, play Scrabble, walk 4 endorphins’ energizing effects and not dig in and forage/hoard – only to need to dig out as an anxiety-producing possessive (pun i’mtended!!) prolonged patch of time.

i recently lost my 1.5-decade-place-of-employment as a Legal Assistant, and instead of digging in – not with a fork, but with a forklift – instead of fit for foraging – letting-go of being in control of my hoarding disorder. i take this supeRisky segment in my life’s time and rather than throwing my hands in anger, i throw out my multiple (pun i’mtended!!!) boxes in arousal – aroused to the fact that i can make headway in my Hoarding Disorder. At the time of direst distress and to make use of free time to free up some Physical Space which will free up some Psychic Place for me to pursue the situational depression coming with being let go from long-term employment.

My moral for me:
You’re not alone, and being boxed in for 3.5 decade-dents made me only ever more alone!…

i am truly trying to pursue my place…with the rest of the Human Race without the need [for the first and fine/est time without need for Triplicate-Storage-Space].