That memory came around the time I was about eight or nine years old. It may have been earlier. I know that there were many times where the mountains of clothes, books, papers, crayons and pencils, and much more were what I came home to after school.
It was much more than stuffing my drawers and closets with my things and being a bit scattered by nature. If you walked into my room in those days, it looked nearly perfect. Perfection on the outside, chaos on the inside.
I couldn't have piles of anything on my desk, the bed, the night table. For those of us who, by nature, need to see the big picture, I think this might not be uncommon. Couple that with a creative, abstract and random mind, it is no wonder that the details and precision of "everything has a place; everything in its place" seems stifling.
But back to the notion of "perfection on the outside, chaos on the inside"...that is exactly what life felt like to me at that age and what I was expected to portray.
My family had an image to uphold. My father had a very public presence, and because he did, so did his family.
My mother did not do well with the publicity coming from this life. She really was much more down-to-earth, trying to fit-in to his narcissistic world rather unsuccessfully. But she did her best, at first, trying to keep her children and the house in a way that would not be an embarrassment to the family by staining the image that had been presented for the world to see.
Perfect on the outside...
There were very few who knew anything about what was happening on the inside of our family. I suspect it was happening long before I began to see and experience it.
Infidelity, emotional and verbal abuse, alcoholism, and physical beatings were all part of what we saw and experienced in our family. The rule was that we could not talk about it to anyone.
Airing one's dirty laundry was forbidden.On the rare occasion that I let anything slip out to a relative, I was labeled as the family troublemaker, problem child, and embarrassment. I was also accused of lying, so that the relatives saw me as such. It protect the adults from being seen as having a problem, or being the problem. I became the family scapegoat.
Chaotic on the inside...
I suppose that my messiness was also a way of getting some sort of attention in those days. What started as a bit of big-picture person and their clutter, began to be the only source of attention I would get as more children were born. It was nothing more than a consolation prize.
Something better than nothing...
Now, decades later, I do not want the attention for this hoarding, which is why I do not have people over to visit. I am ashamed. Just as I felt shame for being who I was as a kid...as a human being.
I don't really want to keep people out of my life or my home, as they are what keep me going. I need people around me. I want people around me. It's been a long time since I have had guests come to my place. I used to love to entertain, or have friends over for dinner or a barbecue. I haven't done that in years.
This is the reason I am writing this blog. To let others in to see the struggles in the hope that others will not turn away. I'm not even sure if there are people who are reading what I have to share, or if they are struggling with similar things. I hope that some will share their comments and situations.
This cannot be only me that struggles. I cannot believe that this is isolated to just my part of the world.
On the outside, no one knows.
But I live with the chaos, which has become a way to keep people out. It has not been like that for my entire adult life, but it has for quite some time. I let them see someone who they think is all together. I do this emotionally, as well. What people see on the outside is self-assuredness. My living space is merely a reflection of what goes on inside of me.
Perhaps, that is what I need to explore in my next post.
Copyright ©2015 The Anonymous Hoarder
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