Today we're going to talk about hoarding. Or, in particular, we're going to talk about what it was
like for me as a really young kid growing up in hoarding. One of the weird things about growing up
in that situation is not realizing what's normal. Io me I thought everyone's house looked like that
and then what you saw on tv and movies was just pretend. Like, obviously most people's houses
aren't tv/movie pristine all the time. But I thought that that was just something that you
did when people were coming over and like the rest of the time your house was a total train wreck.
I'm not going to pretend that my house is always clean or anything, but it's certainly not
hoarding levels of bad. I definitely remember teachers telling me that things weren't normal.
I was in a GT program that had me write in a journal all the time and I remember many instances
of my GT teacher telling me "that's not normal" when I would describe something in a situation
like maybe climbing over piles of stuff or waking up to cats fighting on my feet or sleeping on a
mattress on the floor in the hallway. Like, these are the kinds of things that my teacher would be
like "that's not normal" and would send up red flags to my family. We also would get pretty
detailed report cards and those report cards would not just include stuff about how we're
doing in school but also stuff about our personal hygiene and that definitely taught me a lot.
Obviously what teachers would say to me isn't the same as what they would say to the other
people in my life, but sometimes I was involved in those conversations and sometimes I just heard
those things and you know kids pick up on stuff. They're not as clueless as people think they are.
I definitely remember learning that I smelled bad. That was truly mortifying for me because I
just had no idea that I smelled bad, but I could tell when someone else smelled bad because they
smelled like a different kind of bad. But I grew up in a situation with like 15 cats and no working
bathroom so it's not like we could keep our hygiene in check. I also remember being shocked to
learn that people brushed their teeth every single day. No one in my family brushed their teeth every
day, that was just not a thing. I remember when I asked someone in my family, I was like
"am I supposed to be brushing my teeth every day? Is that a real thing, do people actually do that?"
and I was told "oh, well it doesn't really matter now because you have your baby teeth so it doesn't
matter until your adult teeth grow in." So I never gained those habits and brushing my teeth
every day is still something that I struggle with. There's not a lot that I'm insecure about, but I
remember one of my first videos someone commented about how my teeth were yellow. I think that what
they actually said was "go brush your teeth" and I cried. I also remember being very insecure about
my socks because we wouldn't sort our socks, they would just be in a huge bucket for everyone and I
was the youngest so then I was wearing socks that were made for people much bigger than me. And I
remember someone making fun of my socks because they were way too big for me, like way up my leg,
and after that I would not wear mismatched socks or socks that were too big under any
circumstances. Another thing that goes along with the hygiene is the constant infestation of bugs.
So we pretty much always had head lice and fleas and one of the things that I don't know if people
really realize is how embarrassing that is. Getting head lice one time.
not a huge deal, but getting head lice many times, getting pulled out of school constantly,
getting pulled out of school right after they're doing a head lice check, those things really add
up and other students start to catch on. And those kinds of things can really negatively impact you
as an insecure little kid. Something that really stands out to me about growing up with hoarders is
the misalignment of priorities regarding stuff. I would lose things that were really important to me
because instead we were prioritizing things that weren't important like literal trash.
Old McDonald's toys and things like that that are "collectible," but of course no one's ever
gonna buy those. When I was in about third grade we lost our house and when that happened a lot
of the stuff that was in there got left behind. It was one of those dramatic situations where
like the bank locks you out of the house and you can't get back in. And we knew for weeks,
of course, that that was going to happen and so we were packing, but we weren't packing
the most important things and one of the things that I lost was a doll from my grandmother and
also a tea set from my other grandmother. And those things wouldn't matter so much to me now
that I'm an adult, but when I was in third grade those were like the most important things I had.
And we were prioritizing these other things because there was an inability to distinguish
what was important. In addition to the difficulty regarding prioritization of things, there was also
a difficulty regarding prioritization of actions. It was always a focus on organizing and cleaning,
but it was never a focus on throwing things away. It was about finding places for these things, not
whether these things should be kept. Now I'm gonna end this with one of the most traumatic
stories from my childhood. When I was in high school, I was on the field hockey team and I
was the only person in my class on that team, like in my grade. It was tradition that one time
for your senior year you would host a spaghetti dinner for the team the night before a home game.
Now, obviously, in a hoarding situation that can be an issue. So I went to my coach and I said
"I cannot host a spaghetti dinner, um it's not possible." and my coach said "That's fine, you can
totally host it somewhere else and your parents can pay for it." Which was also not possible. And
I tried to explain to her that we couldn't afford to do that and she basically told me to figure
it out and that I needed to be a team player and that I had been to these spaghetti dinners every
year before that so it was my turn. So I spent multiple weeks dreading this and mortified and I
tried to make part of the house as acceptable as possible. And I was forced to bring about 25 judgy
girls to my house. I should note that there was no door on one of the rooms that led directly to
the horde so I covered it with a sheet. As you can imagine, that was a horrible situation for
me. People left as soon as possible, which I was very grateful about because I didn't want them
there to begin with. And I will never forgive the adults in that situation for not listening
and understanding the situation that I was in and I hope that being in that space taught them
that maybe this is not an accessible option for everyone. So that's it today for the early life
of Kym. If you have any questions about what it was like growing up in hoarding situations, feel
free to leave them but I'd like to remind you that I keep my topics about me and my experiences, not
about people who hoard because I'm not qualified to talk about that. Have a great day and happy
thanksgiving! If this happens to go out before thanksgiving. If not, happy holidays in general!
But- can you not? Really? You just have to be in my lap at all times.
you