should have thought to get this in the other post. Was thinking about you this weekend because my son and wife were talking with me about the life problems my hoarding has made for them.

How is it going for you?

Ann,
Venting is ok too, but I have found when I get very angry like that it spills over. The situation stays in my mind, I can't let it go and affected my attitudes at work and towards others around me that were not involved in the particular incident.

You have just described a personal situation with your son and dad which is outside any frame of reference I have. It must be very hard sometimes. I know it is difficult when a parent looks at their child and wishes they'd have done something/somethings differently.

As far as the hoarding is concerned, I am the hoarder in my family. I am the reason the kids couldn't have company, I have almost destroyed the marriage relationship and I have seriously screwed up our finances because of the amounts of times we have paid for two places-living in one and the other being a storage locker.

In working on dealing with my attachments to stuff, I have used 3 books. One of those is a book called "Playing Ball on Running Water" by David K. Reynolds.

As an aside, you can also find some of his writing on his website here:
http://constructiveliving.org/

He writes about a psychological construct he calls Constructive Living which is a combination of things called Morita and Naikan therapy. I have 4 or 5 of his books and am reading a different one right now, but I believe "Playing Ball on Running Water" was the first book he wrote for the popular press as opposed to scholarly books and/or journal articles.

He describes the process of Morita therapy and its focus of separating feeling and action. That we are going to feel lots of different things and that we cannot manage or control those feelings - rather the realities in our lives present us with things that need to be done and we focus on doing them rather than our feelings about them.

That has been very helpful in dealing with the hoarding. There is much emotion involved in the process of retaining items. I had to start cleaning our garage because it was a task I had to do. I had to fold up cardboard boxes and dispose of some of them even though I felt that everyone of them would be a useful size box in the future. I had to do the same with jars, plastic sack and containers. And then clothing and books. I had to make my head consider the emotions for retaining that I saw myself expressing and remember that as well as retaining I also had to do actions of discarding.

I know that it is trite and really annoying to be reminded that we need to work on ourselves, but I have found that to be true, whether the issue is considering suicide, being ticked at your boss or dealing with hoarding. I think the ideas in Reynolds' book would provide you with food for thought and maybe a way to gradually change your outlooks on the world and people around you.

Hi Ann. Welcome. Glad you found us!

Thanks Tillie I will look into it. Nice to meet you as well.

Hi Ann 🙂
Welcome.
Have you heard about this website?

children of hoarders

A place made just for people who grew up affected by hoarding.

Nice to meet you. 😀

Sure. I have had to work on myself for year's. Since she was my mother I found myself to be a lot like her. I now have a small problem with neatness. I find myself having to work daily on not emotionally abusing people I love. Sad thing is she could care less about her bad behaviors and has never worked on herself. She also has a an obsession with my son to the point that he is now 17 and has never had to take responsibility for he actions. She has babied him and not let me do anything. She would threaten to kick me out of a house I rented from her, my dad was not well either. When I would discipline my son and try to ground him my dad would threaten suicide so I would let him go with my dad. I am now 33 and my dad is dead and I hate the rest of my family. I have tried counseling and it is ok but venting is what I need.

Hi Ann,
I am glad you found a safe place to vent some of your anger.

May I offer you a comment and suggest a relatively short book which might offer you a small piece of ground to stand on?