I just finished watching Oprah---it was about hoarding and until this morning---I thought I had a problem with clutter---that is a mild form of the word for those of us in denial---I guess---so in order to fess up and come clean with this problem ---first I need to admit it to the world===even though this is the no guts, no glory, no humiliation version---anonymously--- 

but here goes....

deep breath

I am a hoarder, I come from a family of hoarders, it is genetic, I inherited the malady from my mothers side of the family--- there---I said it===

i'm powerless over stuff

thank God

I have a fake name---my mother would kill me===but we had a furnace room and a laundry room in our basement when we were growing up that was scary messy---out of control, no one ever wanted to put their clothes in the dirty clothes hamper because once it was tossed in the basket headed for the washing machine, it would disappear forever---so we all began hiding our clothes...maybe that's how this disease began----regardless---

i guess you could say i am a closet hoarder===my home looks clutter free, all clean counters and clean surfaces--- I'm lucky I have so many closets in my house===maybe i should say---unlucky---but I have a closet behind my master closet, 2 crawl spaces, an attic and a storage room in the basement plus a furnace room....all of my clutter hides in those areas...its my secret that only my family is aware of ---i try to hide as much as i can from my husband===when the kids were young they called the room in the basement, the messy place.  When I was a little girl not one of our dressers had clothes in them.  Once my brother and I asked someone what they kept in their drawers, boy did we get some strange looks...all our drawers resembled junk drawers, it was as if someone just swept everything from the top surface into a drawer or emptied a miscellaneous bin into a drawer and shut it.

I used to spend hours sifting through all the junk in the closet at the top of our stairs whenever my mom was out of the house.  I looked at old photos, read old letters, opened bags and boxes containing clothes and jewelry with the price tags still attached===it was a real treasure hunt for me.

but the stuff in my house really gets to me, prevents me from having a good time, I feel like I don't deserve to go out when I have these hidden messes.  I have purchased hundreds of dollars worth of organizing stuff at the container store but i still can not get a handle on it...it controls me...I am way too embarrassed to hire a personal organizer or to e mail oprah about it, heck, I don't want my friends to know, why would I tell the world on oprah?

sometimes i feel like im buried in this shit, i want to just toss it all in the garbage, but there are so many valuable things amid the junk, no one can sort it, except for me and just the idea puts me in a panic attack mode

i have been working on this problem for years and years and years and so has one of my brothers...he said we should just give up and admit we have the problem---i want to overcome it and i will go to my grave trying...since i know i cant take anything with me