Children of Hoarders Inc.

You know where stuffing it leads, friends.

Your feelings are valid. Make space for yourselves.

Can't wait to see you there!

https://www.facebook.com/groups/healingfromhoarders

It's not natural and it's not easy to have to learn to protect yourself from your own parents.

Get all their gaslighting garbage out of your heads, friends.

Safe parents never bury children alive.

Time for some REAL !

You deserve so much better.

Wow, sound familiar?



❤❤❤❤❤❤ Personal Growth Project - Emotional Abuse Awareness

Time for the hoarding industry to stop enabling child abuse and blaming victims.

Time for the hoarding industry to stop retraumatizing survivors and assess trauma first.

Time for the hoarding industry to stop lecturing hoarded children and families to understand and support abuse.

Time for some REAL .

Mental illness is on every list of risk factors for child abuse.

Mental illness does not cause, or excuse, abuse.

Abusers cause abuse.

Otherwise, everyone with mental illness would abuse their children.

Safe parents never bury children alive.

You deserve so much better, friends.

Survivors don't owe anything.

Find whatever boundaries are safe and healthy for you to heal.



❤❤❤ Sherrie Campbell, PhD

You deserve a secure foundation.

You always did.

"We miss red flags, passive aggression, invalidation, empathy issues, toxicity, or simply; the person doesn't have their emotional house in order as much as we thought or fantasized."

Not as toxic or abusive does not equal SAFE.

Enablers are not SAFE. Sometimes, they are all that hoarded children have. And the takeaway is that they are the most we can expect.

You deserve SO MUCH better, friends.



❤❤❤❤ Teahan Therapy

Nothing changes, if nothing changes.

You cannot change anyone else, but you can break the cycle.

Time for the hoarding industry to stand up for hoarded children and stop enabling child abuse and retraumatizing survivors.

Time for some REAL !

You deserve so much better, friends.

Get that garbage out of your heads, friends.

It's not your secret.

It's not your shame.

It's not your fault.

It's not your responsibility.

It's not your disorder.

It never was. It never will be.

You deserve so much better.

Get all their gaslighting garbage out of your heads, friends.

You deserve so much better, friends.

Safe parents never bury children alive.



❤❤❤ The Empowered Therapist

Only abusers choose abuse.

Safe parents never bury children alive.

Mental illness is never a license to abuse children.

You are not alone.

YOUR VOICE MATTERS.

Voices of COH launched in 2019 and we're so grateful to all the brave COHPs coming forward to shine a light on what really happens in hoards.

Are you ready to tell your story?

Or consider sharing this instead?

Most contributors remain anonymous. Email us or ask any questions here: [email protected]

You deserve REAL !



Ben
https://mycohp.groups.io/g/main/wiki/27669

I grew up on lockdown.

Visitors were never allowed.

To the rest of the world, it takes a global pandemic that wipes out millions. But in my house, nothing changed.

Nobody knows that my mother has hoarding disorder. Including my parents.

Growing up, everyone assumed that we were just a normal, happy family.

Like other kids, I went to school, played sports, hung out with friends, but unlike my friends, I came home to a secret that has always separated me from everyone I ever knew.

A few close family friends may be aware they are never invited in. They do not know my mother has hoarding disorder, even if they know something isn't right.

Where most houses would have a coat rack, console, or key hook, upon entering, you must navigate “the new dishwasher” blocking our entry for over 15 years. It was purchased immediately after our "old" dishwasher broke, but never installed because we’ve always been on lockdown.

“The mess,” as they fondly call it, is pervasive.

Stacks of clothes bury the furniture and conceal the floor. Ziplock bags stuffed with Pepsi bottle caps surround the only usable piece of furniture in the living room, the family computer.

My mother spends the early morning hours entering the 8-digit codes on the bottom of soda bottle caps into sweepstake websites, the fantasy of a gold rush more compelling than a livable home.

Broken technology, appliances, used clothes, and indistinguishable miscellany soon transformed “the new dishwasher” into another monument of clutter in an evolving wasteland of junk.

When the kitchen sink broke, and of course could not be repaired, we adapted to soaking pots, pans, and dishes in the shower. The exposed plaster had grown dark green mold. Sanitation was out of the question.

Meanwhile, my parents denied there was a problem. Squeezing sideways through hallways, perfectly normal! Multiple rooms packed so tight doors wont open, why not?

Countertops? Floors? Horizontal surfaces are no match for hoarding disorder. Junk, oddment galore.

And the arguments they cause, all perfectly normal. I once tried to throw out a cell phone that had not been used for 5 years. The screen was cracked, keys were missing, the battery was long gone.

My mother snarled at me with rage in her eyes, “NEVER throw things away without asking me! I could sell this. I could trade it in for a better phone. This is MY phone!”

But she blamed me and my father for the state of the house: “If you and your father would just clean this place for once, then maybe we’d be okay.” Silence had become our only reply.

It wasn’t as if we hadn’t tried.

I grew up Googling “how to cure a hoarder,” unable to explain to my parents how helpless I felt.

My father couldn’t admit his wife was a hoarder, never mind explain how her acquiring was drowning us all.

For many children of hoarders, Christmas is a nightmare repeated every single year. My mother tried to compensate for feeling deprived as a child by drowning me in gifts that were either 3 sizes too big or 3 sizes too small, all of which she had found on sale, most of which still had a $1 price tag attached.

“I just couldn’t resist” she’d say with a grin. Or, “It’s ok if you don’t try it on, I just LOVED that one.”

I felt guilty and ungrateful. I knew she was trying to rescue herself from an unhappy childhood. How did she fail to see she had stolen mine instead?

It is hard to appreciate “gifts” used to justify the shopping binges that turned a home into a junkyard.

Begging her to stop had no effect.

Instead, I felt used, guilty, and hopeless.

Her refusal to respect my wishes and boundaries didn’t stop when I left home. Her pathological need to use me to justify her binging had no limits.

Away at college, I distanced myself, seeking control over my own life, my own space. My mother came to town and wanted to meet. I told her I was unavailable, studying for exams.

When I returned home, I found my mother had invaded my apartment and filled it with useless groceries and household goods, without my permission. Every cupboard, countertop, and crevice crammed with sale items her hoard could no longer contain.

I had always been a dumping ground for her insatiable needs. I saw clearly how she had physically and emotionally pushed me away.

I learned to lock my doors.

I love my parents. My sadness and anger does not diminish that.

No understanding I have for them, or their disorder can restore a lost childhood.

I wish they could find freedom from their denial, passivity, and avoidance. They deserve so much better.

And so do I.

Time for the hoarding industry to listen to survivors and stop advocating for hoarders to victims.

You deserve so much better.

Time for some REAL !

Who needs to see this today?

There is no DX that excuses child abuse. There is no DX that forces anyone to abuse others instead of getting help. Parents' job is protecting children.

Only abusers choose abuse.

Safe parents never bury children alive.

Time for some REAL !



🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 Patrick Teahan Therapy

Sometimes the diagnosis...⁠
⁠
Is being an asshole.⁠
⁠
Sometimes the clinical diagnosis is asshole.⁠
⁠
We spend or, we have spent, a significant amount of time⁠
self-diagnosing ourselves, as well as trying to figure out⁠
why a family member or ex is so abusive. ⁠
⁠
Are they? (insert any DSM criteria as to what you're seeing and are looking to match up or confirm)⁠
⁠
Then what?⁠
⁠
This is a gentle reminder that figuring out why someone might⁠
be abusive doesn't keep you safe or change things. The change is ⁠
up to the abusive person, and it usually isn't looking good.⁠
⁠
As childhood trauma survivors, our inner child struggles with the reality that someone is bad for us. This is a function of our codependency. As small children, we rooted for abusive or unprotective parents. We had hope, and it's still a problem.⁠
⁠
If we know they struggle with a mental health issue, we become more compassionate, which means we might still subject ourselves to abuse.⁠
⁠
Our inner child needs help reclaiming that not everyone is for us. Some people don't deserve a second chance, or even a first one.⁠
⁠
What matters most is your peace, safety, and dignity.⁠
⁠
Am I saying everyone with mental health issues should be shunned or deserve the stigma? Of course not!⁠
⁠
This post is about no longer allowing people to be as****es to us and not getting caught up in why they are abusive.⁠
⁠

You can break the cycle!

Nice doesn't count when it is just a performance.

If the inside doesn't match the outside, you deserve better, friends.



❤❤❤❤ Immerse into the Unknown

Not your job to redeem the abuser.

You cannot do their work for them.

You CAN break the cycle.

Hoarding is not your problem to solve.

You can break the cycle.

You can break the cycle.

Beware of lying hoardsplainers lecturing you to help, support, or understand abuse & abusers.

Safe PARENTS never bury children alive.

Time for the hoarding industry to stand up for hoarded children and stop enabling child abuse and retraumatizing survivors.

Mental illness does not cause, or excuse, abuse.

Abusers cause abuse.

Time for some REAL !

You deserve so much better.

It is never too late to break the cycle, friends.

You can break the cycle.

You don't have to keep neglecting yourself just because that's what your dysfunctional parents taught you to do.

Take good care of yourselves, friends.



❤❤❤❤ Made Easy