Hi, Darci, so sorry to hear you have been through so much. I never had kids myself but several of my girlfriends have gone through similar hellish situations with their teen or young adult offspring. I will pray for all of you that things get better.

Don't feel bad about the storage unit for now. I had to get one due to a house foreclosure and being on disability - in mine is household stuff that I hope will be part of a new home someday when I can afford something. Right now I've been staying with two different friends for the last 3+ years.

I need to go through the storage unit and dejunk it, that's a given. But I look at it right now as my only thing that's "my space" as well. Far from perfect, but if I didn't have it I'd have to get rid of everything that is part of my old life and that I'd have to buy again when I get a place of my own (like nice cookware that my Mom bought for me, my family pictures, etc.). I've gone through and gotten rid of some stuff that I knew I didn't need or want to keep, and there will be much more following it as soon as the weather's decent.

The point is, sometimes life deals us too much in a row, and sometimes we need a fallback, and there aren't always unlimited options. I hope you'll keep connecting with us here for support so that the part of the battle involving excess stuff will feel manageable, and the part involving day-to-day survival will be at least a little less burdensome knowing you have comrades "in the trenches" with you. God bless!

Welcome back Darci :)

Hi Roxie. It is me, Darci. When I started a new topic, I thought the field for NAME was to name the topic, not my name! LOL. Well, Hello again! :)

WHERE AMBITION MEETS REALITY
HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
About four years ago I began a journey to purge. It took me two years to go through the painful process of letting go... letting go of hopes, dreams and the things that I was keeping for those hopes and dreams:..... of more children... mission work with young girls.... My hopes and dreams were bigger than my ability to keep MS at bay. I finally got all of our spaces functional. Was able to let go of "doorbell dread"... when my "Varisty sports/ Decent grade student who never felt accepted by her new school" daughter decided to hook up with a HS senior "nobody loves me" misfit/thug and that going off the rails with this girl was my daughter's new thing. Tickets, car accidents, truancy, lawyers, therapist copays of $40 a week. I was going down into financial ruin... FAST. She was physically threatening me... pushing/shoving... calling me a psycho b*‪#ých‬, letting friends into the house who would steal things and fight in my home... I couldn't get help from social services, the courts... nothing. But I couldn't turn her out into the streets so I rented a place for her... Of course that freedom intensified my legal risk, but I feared for my safety while she was in the house. I even tried to have her arrested when I saw her spiraling into drug addiction and refusing rehab (i figured she was safer in jail than succumbing to prostitution and gangs in the streets). The state I am in would not help me have her commited. Nowhere to turn. My borderline depression was full blown and I was in dire financial trouble. So, I cleared three bedrooms INTO my newly functional spaces (living room, my craft room and garage) so that I could rent them out. I moved into the sliver of space now available for me(the couch) and felt years of work go down the tubes. Not having use of these spaces was making it impossible not to let things slip and slide into other clean spaces. My depression didn't help. Old habits/weaknesses crept in... shopping crept back in. My husband and I couldn't take the congestion and lack of usable space for us now that there were weekly renters. Since the weekly rentals are "bed and breakfast" all visible areas really needed to be clean and functional. To me, storage is The ROAD TO HELL for a Hoarder but we were in a corner and my husband (who lost his freedom to having strangers in our home so that we could pay MY daughter's legal bills) was becoming very angry. We figured that we were still ahead money wise by putting things in storage instead of losing a rental room to storage (each room brings in $400 a month and the storage is only $100). I feel like the storage unit is giving me a false sense that I am "ok" as far as hoarding because I keep putting more things in there (I had to buy a lot of linens and cleaning products for the "bed and breakfast" so I moved more items from closets into storage to do that. I am always busy because my daughter ended up getting pregnant and I care for her little guy as much as my MS allows. I recently donated two car loads of items from storage but still feel haunted that I am now a secret hoarder... why???