We all hold onto things with special meaning. I am a very sentimental person. I keep a lot of things that loved ones and friends have given me over the years. I keep them because they have value, sentimental worth.
I am very clean. A clean freak is the best way to describe me. I like things in their place and perfect. I get this from my mother. She’s clean to a fault. You could eat off her bathroom floor and it would be just fine. Like mother, like daughter. I have followed in her footsteps.
I love throwing out things that I no longer need. I get a high from sorting through my clothes each season. I have a big black trash bag and I just toss the clothes that I haven’t worn in while into the big black hole. I make room in my closet for new and I give the older, but still nice things to charity.
Clutter equals chaos. I feel like I can’t breathe when there is clutter in my life. Not just with material things but with all things. I am over the clutter. I will never be a minimalist, but I can dream about it. My fifty pairs of jeans are holding me back from being simple. Trust me, I will never be simple.
I don’t watch much television, but the other night I was flicking through the channels and I came across “Hoarders.” This show is so horrific yet fascinating. People are being buried alive in their own homes. Their minds are being tortured while they live amongst clutter and trash.
And by trash, I mean trash. Their homes are covered in paper bags, empty food boxes, food scraps, animal feces that they can’t get to, clothes, dishes, videotapes, dirty tissues, and etc. Its plain filthy. It should be illegal.
I know they have a mental disorder and it’s a sickness but there are some things that I can tolerate and pity and some I cannot. While watching this disgusting way of life I find myself glued to the television. It’s like a train wreck and you must watch.
I cry every single time they show a child living in the landfill’s they must call home. I cry because they can’t help themselves and they certainly can’t take charge and be the parent.
I have declared some of the people just plain lazy. There’s always an episode with a person that I just don’t sympathize for or understand their reasoning for living in squalor.
I’m not mean. I have compassion. I am a bleeding heart. But, this is where I draw the line.
What is the difference between living with a physically abusive parent and being a hoarder? Not much. Either way you are harming your children, physically and mentally.
For God sake’s these children don’t have beds to sleep in because their guardian chose to cover the whole house in garbage. They sleep on the couch with three other people and trash sits along side them from the floor to the ceiling. They have an eight inch walk way to maneuver through the house.
How do they shower, get clean, and get dressed? How do they eat? Imagine you brought home take out Chinese and when you were done you threw it on the floor and it stayed there for twenty years. No way. No fortune cookie is giving that household hope.
This is sad. But, it’s also abuse. When children are laying on the floor covered with trash and they are breathing in animal droppings that are an inch away from their mouths and noses, it’s time to stop the insanity.
The best part is when the victim says, “I never should have let it get this way.” You think? The first year should have been a wake up call to someone. It shouldn’t take ten to twenty years to see this monumental problem.
If they can’t stop themselves the government should stop them. Make them get help; take their children until they can maintain a livable, healthy environment. Do something instead of just filming it and making money while we all sit watching with our jaws to the floor.
It should be illegal. It should be stopped just like we try to stop child abuse. Abusers don’t mean to beat their children all the time. They claim they are mental too. So again, why is this any better?
The children go to school embarrassed, dirty, hungry, and unhealthy. They have the weight of the world on their shoulders, literally!!! They are being abused. No way around it.
I pity anyone that is suffering from a mental disorder, but those of us not suffering should not let this continue. It’s our duty to help each other. I can’t stand when people say, “Mind your business and don’t get involved.”
Nope. Never. I don’t live that way. I certainly don’t agree with that in all circumstances.
Get involved. Hoarders are not just hoarding material things; they are hoarding bad feelings inside. They are locked up within themselves. I understand.
You wouldn’t want a child watching their parents snorting cocaine, performing lewd acts, or hitting each other. They shouldn’t live with violence and they shouldn’t live in trash.
I wonder what the right thing to do with these children is and how we can help them. Taking them from their parents seems mean to some people, but is it?
The parents can’t love them because they don’t love themselves properly. Something has to give.
Watch the show and see for yourself. The children are bitter, angry, and sick. Can you blame them?
While their parents are hoarding meaningless material things the children are hoarding and harboring some serious resentment and issues that will last a lifetime.
These hoarders need some borders, not just a one time clean up so they can start all over again. Their children and themselves should be all they are saving.
