Jennifer, I hope you are doing ok, I know this is a very lonely experience, may i suggest watching the tv show hoarders, i learned a lot over time about the things that contribute to this, and also practical ways to clean up the stuff, ie sorting into the three basic piles keep, donate, throw away. Really, if you can do a small group of stuff this way, it can be the start of something huge. I hope you come back to this message board sometime, I want you to know others read your post sometimes long after, we all think of you as we read and wish the best for you and understand your hurt.

I am a hoarder and I am well aware of this. I can make no argument that I am simply messy or disheveled or simply a bit of a pack rat. I live with my mother and fear that I have "infected" her over the years also.

Everywhere, we have piles of garbage, and things, and stuff. We love books, there are a lot of those.

We have three bathrooms, and not a fully functioning toilet. We are unable to have a plumber come in and fix them. We also have central air conditioning that it broken, and had to resort to buying window units for the hot summer months. We do seem to have plenty of ants at the moment though. I also have two cats that I love dearly. One of them is curled up in my lap as I write this, trying to soothe me. I wish I had a better home for them.

We're both chronically ill and both work full time. We are both very tired all of the time. I've tried cleaning everything out, and either end up confused as to where to start, or make a decent start and then get overwhelmed and shut down. I know I need help very badly.

I feel lonely, cut off from everyone else, and incredibly sad. I often have trouble eating and sleeping when things seem to be going bad. I frequently have dreams of my entire house collapsing. My desperation is at the point where that would seem like a blessing. I sometimes wish my house would burn down, just so I could start over. That is never a step I would take on my own, but in a way, that sounds like it would be a dream come true.

At work and in most aspects of my life, I'm smart and capable, clever and funny. Then I come home, and I'm the same failure I started the day as, living in a pile of garbage.

I wish I could have friends or my boyfriend over. A lot of times, I wish for a knight in shining armor, who would ride up in a truck filled with garbage bags, mops and a tool kit, who would just fix everything and I could go on like nothing every happened.

More than anything, I wish I knew where to start to fix this.