"For Hoarders, The Mess Begins In The Mind" by Patti Neighmond (NPR)

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125344573&sc=nl&cc=es-20100425

The story about psychological dependencies and hoarding behaviors is fascinating! And I quote:

"Through the process of questioning why she values it and keeps it, Sherrell realized it was not the coat itself, but the memory of being a young mother with babies and toddlers. "I loved being a mom," she says. "I loved having kids home."
But with her children grown, Sherrell learned how to keep memories without keeping the coat. "I did realize that I can keep those memories with pictures," she says, and the coat was therefore relegated to the discard box. Sherrell is proud of her decision, in large part because it was "her choice."

I too struggle with just such memory-linked lives of objects. Why ARE clothes so hard? Is it just women? Are we so identified with the different selves that clothes represent because our society ties so much of our worth to appearance, and this is absorbed and inculcated from age tiny? Is it also because we are most often "Mistress of the Wardrobe" for the family? Responsible for not just feeding but primarily clothing all of our near and dear? And then they leave and what we have are their outgrown shells, shedded like molt and left in drawers and attics?

I am currently waiting for the knock of discovery, as "people often aren't "found out" until they're older, often when their homes present fire hazards or neighbors complain" (Neighmond), and I have been crawling over a huge pile of clothes for a month to get to the side of my bed not stacked with books. I had the bright idea that I needed to "purge" my wardrobe, and so dumped the drawers onto the chaise and there they are, in heaps. Granted I have been Way overextended with school, but each time the siren pile calls and I TRY to eliminate items I become paralyzed with "What if?" Consequently I have so far segregated one small bag of sartorial self-representation from their fellows (there I go anthropomorphizing again! It is as if they have freakin' FEELINGS. Enough already.)

But seroiusly. I have a problem. Barry already dubbed it "Ornamentia", and on top of that, I think I have Synesthetic Anthropomorhic Over-Identification Disorder (I just made that up). "Waste Not Want Not" fits in here somewhere, and I am old enough to remember "The starving children in India" and cleaning my plate for them (Not so much the parents, but certainly grandparents imbued those words with missionary zeal).

Which leads me to another tangled part of this-- weight. My weight has been up-and-down and mostly unsatisfactory since age 9. I have a range of sizes of clothing kept for just such fluctuations, and garments leaning toward the ideal self-representation that act (silently, alchemically?) in the closet depths as incantations. (Hoping they do). To get rid of the pink and black net fluffy skirt (!) would be to ADMIT I will never be 17  years old or Ann Miller, and I ain't goin' there.


Plus--- I often feel objects as practically alive in some synesthesia-of-purpose and am bound to take them "home" to their rightful owner. You know, somebody offers you x-thing and you think "I don't really need/like that, but so-and-so would love/really use it!"  and then you cart it off and put on your To Do list ----to get it to its true destination?

Plus, as an artist who needs materials  with which to create, I have been burned time and time again-- I finally toss out the unidentifiable thingy, object-of-unknown-purpose only to remember it with crystal clarity when I need it to make-- whatever. Argh! Into the trash I go nose down like a Mallard duck-- and that's the good version. Usually that garbage went away yesterday, and the widget-y item is toast... just sayin'.

But scary! From article:" "And now, a year later, I've been called in because again the health department is involved," says Saltz. "Condemnation is near, and the apartment is absolutely floor-to-ceiling bags, belongings, clutter, junk, bottles and food. And the client herself is actually sleeping in her car somewhere because she can no longer fit into her unit." "(NPR). I hope nobody rats ME out! I want to change, I really do. But first I have to lose 20 pounds...