Hoarders Whore

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I have a few guilty pleasures in life, one of which is reality TV. Nooooo ... not reality TV like Survivor *shudders* reality TV like Lockup, Intervention, Obsessed, and Hoarders.

Give me a marathon of any one of these shows and I am happier than a redneck browsing the clearance rack at WalMart.

I've heard mutterings that some people cannot stomach these shows - they find the dysfunction so disgusting, so disturbing, that they are compelled to avoid these shows at any cost.

Then there are the "train wreck" folks - those who use the people in these shows as a gauge of their own worth and value. They find themselves saying things like "At least I'm not that bad" or "How could anyone ever let themselves get in that position."

The "train wreck" folks validate their own pitiful lives by belittling those they see as "less than" themselves.

I take a somewhat different view of these shows. I recognize the vulnerability - seeing the things people have in common with all of us rather than seeing them as their addiction, their crime, their mental illness.

When it comes right down to it, the people featured on these shows are no different than us. They want love. They want respect. They want validation. Yet in most cases, some event sends them over that proverbial line we are all so sure we would never cross.

I have a theory on this ...

Any one of us could find ourselves featured in one of these shows. That's right, even you, you and especially you. It would take little more than an unexpected trauma. A death. The loss of income. It might even be something most people would deem insignificant, but results in the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back.

And deep down? We all know this, yet most of us refuse to admit it. We'd like to think we are better than those people that we would never ...

It's too bad we are so pompous.

Ignoring the reality of our own vulnerability, judging what we see rather than what we know, or even worse, belittling the people featured on these shows? That is disgusting and disturbing.

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PFC #2 - Game Over

After what seems like an eternity of work and a far more emotional process than last time, I finally finished up the Picture Fiction Challenge, hosted by R.E.H. If you missed this one, be sure to join the fun next month!

************GAME OVER************

It’s been almost 90 days now. Well … 89 days, 13 hours, 24 minutes and 47 seconds, not that I am counting or anything. When I arrived on that "memorable" Tuesday night, I had no idea even where I was. I thought it was just another holiday family gathering until I saw them all sitting in that circle of folding chairs, staring at me like I had two heads. At that moment I wasn’t feeling the love, I was feeling like hunted prey, ambushed by the crack of a rifle being shot in the dead silence of the forest. Much of what happened next remains a blur, partially due to my alcohol saturated brain cells, and partially due to the speed and direction the information came from.

The first one to speak was my mother. She was crying before she even opened her mouth, her voice breaking as she attempted to form recognizable words. I didn’t hear the word fear, but I could hear the fear in her voice. I remember her reflections of my childhood, the Valentine’s Day dance at my Junior High School (the first time she knew that I was drunk), my frequent and lengthy suspensions from high school due to drug and alcohol use, broken relationships with family and the inability to keep a job for more than six months. It seemed like hours had passed before she finally stopped speaking and began just sobbing.

Next up was my father, his voice much stronger and stable than my mother’s was. I remember hearing the proverbial “Daddy’s Little Girl” saga, intertwined with memories very much like my mother’s. I began wondering to myself if instead of keeping a baby book he had kept a “drunk” book, filled with memories of the many things I had done wrong. I couldn't believe some of the things he remembered. Insignificant events that were long forgotten in my world. I remember thinking this was all so surreal - that no single person could keep track of such things for as long as he had. I was angry. How dare he judge me when it was he who had shown me the path to addiction.

One after another family members and people who claimed to be friends, took their turns spewing their venom, wrapping it up with nice, tidy, "I love you or I wouldn't be doing this" pink bows. The packaging may have looked good to them, but the gift was nothing more than justification to knock me down yet again. At some point, I shut down. I continued to look at each person who spoke, but I couldn't hear the words they were saying - they were completely drowned out by the self-loathing thoughts playing repeatedly in my head.

There was an "intervention professional" there as well. David. I remember wondering who the hell he was when I walked in the room. He seemed to know everyone, yet he had a face that that conveyed deception. I knew the minute I saw him that he was not to be trusted. He gave me that feeling I used to get any time I was near Uncle Reggie - the one that all of the little girls in the family were warned to stay away from. I would see much more of David over the next 89 days, 14 hours, 43 minutes and 13 seconds, and yes, I'm still counting.

I grab a handful of green M & M's from the Ziploc bag stashed in my carry-on luggage. These damn things have put 11 pounds on me the past three months, but they seem to be the only thing that even comes close to managing the cravings. David tells me my body is no longer toxic - that the drugs and alcohol are not physically ruling my impulses. He has no idea how wrong he is. Every time I put one of these M&M's in my mouth, I pretend that it is that shot of Jack Daniel's Single Barrel, or the line of crystal meth, that my body and mind still crave.

I've played the game here; in fact, I'd say that I've mastered the game. I've done the individual therapy, the group therapy, the family therapy. It was so funny the first weekend my parents came out here. Florida in March is much more pleasant than it is in Chicago. They were so proud of how far I had come, how much progress I had made. I was back to being the little girl they felt they had lost to alcohol and drugs. They stood on the beach for hours after that first meeting. I can only imagine what they talked about as I peeked at them through the shears covering my window, once again from the outside looking in. In those moments, they looked so happy they almost made me want to quit … almost …

89 days, 15 hours, 36 minutes and 24 seconds and I am finally walking out the door of what has been my prison, back to the life that brings me comfort - far more comfort than any of those people sitting in that intervention room could ever offer me. The life that allows me to escape from the painful realities of what life is and what life always will be. David may have won round one, but I won the fight. Fuck you David, and fuck the rest of you with your judgmental words of pity. Game over.


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A little explanation on the photos. I tool a few more liberties with interpretation this time

I saw the main character as a 30-something woman, determined, a high achiever and somewhat of a loner.

Green M&M's and a Starbuck's cup. I didn't use the Starbuck's cup, but managed to find a good (hopefully) place for the M&M's.

The tigers were a bit of a challenge and rather than think about them, I focused on what they mean to me. Hunting for prey, ready to pounce - hopefully those were actions you felt when reading the story.

A sunny beach, Florida to be exact. I even took the liberty of using the people in the photo in the story.

This one was about watching from afar, seeing oneself from the outside looking in, spying on others