Hoarder

My name is Josh, and I suffer from significant mental illness. My doctor says it’s severe, but I hate that. It makes me feel like an emotional cripple. The fact that she’s right just makes it worse.

But I digress.

During the worst of my depression, really more of a suicidal nervous breakdown, I allowed the house to be destroyed and filled with an illegal amount of animals. To skin the truth to the bone, I was an animal hoarder. I’ve lived in shamer because of that for more than a decade. But you all know I’ve told you this story before.

That said, it bears repeating considering what happened today.

So what happened today, you ask?

I saw something sad today.

I was walking across the grocery store parking lot, and this guy passed me in his car. The car was filled to the roof with trash, just barely leaving him with a place to sit. The smell from the car was indescribable, and the man, he had to be in his 60s, had a yellowed beard and a dead gaze. He didn’t look right or left. He just crept across the lot, oblivious to the world around him.

The tableau was so bizarre it didn’t feel real.

Obviously, he was a hoarder.

When it first came on, I was obsessed with the show Hoarders, but not for healthy reasons. I’d watch every episode of the show and think some version of, “My house may be trashed, but at least it doesn’t look anything like those houses.” I may be a disgusting hoarder, but I wasn’t as bad as those fools.

Of course, we all know or can guess, I was just as bad as those people.

If not worse.

I was simply a selfish piece of shit who almost ruined my family's lives.

I’d like to say I saw the error of my ways, acknowledged my illness, and cleaned that house up. I’d like to say that, but that would be a lie. Back in 2012, when I started writing these missives, I was determined to never knowingly lie to myself or you fearless reader.

Things didn’t change until we lost the house after three years of trying to save it following the financial crash of 2008. Cleaning out to move meant we got rid of all the animals and cleaned out the trash-strewn building. I learned later that when the bank took the house, it was unsalvageable. They bulldozed it and replanted the lot.

It was all told one of the most humiliating experiences of my life.

Now that the long-winded backstory is told let's get back to today.

I’ve always thought that if I encountered a hoarder in the wild, I’d either pity them or look down on them. Like an asshole, I figured if I learned my lesson, they should’ve learned there's. Obviously, these people are weak, whereas I was strong, and the situation they were in was a mess of their own making, and they didn’t deserve more than my pity.

Then I was confronted with a Hoarder. Not on television, not some caricature, and not a theoretical stranger. This man is a flesh and blood human being, and I didn’t feel that way. I didn’t feel pity, I didn’t look down on him, and I didn’t think he was some loser who was getting what he deserved for being weak and selfish.

Instead, all I felt was sad.

The old man looked miserable, like he would kill himself at a moment's notice. Just looking at him, in his trash-filled ar, unwashed, with that dead look in his eyes, reminded me of one person.

He reminded me of me. I saw what I could have become if I hadn’t been shocked into action and sought out professional help.

And that’s it.

So, you may be asking, what’s the moral of all this navel-gazing?

Mental illness is no joke.

- Josh (12/10/2020)