Hey, has it been 2 days already?! Where did those hours go?! Peggy Hill is my hero! I live in a town in in midwest that has a population smaller than an apartment building in a city, that show makes perfect sense to me! I live in town, and one neighbor has horses, the other races lawnmowers. Life can be so strange.
I have been hearing more and more that the hoarding can be due to his sobriety/depression/ anxiety combo, and while my head understands, and my heart aches to be able to help him, I also feel like inflicting serious bodily harm! We are so very WRONG for each other, that I’m actually chuckling thinking about it! But I love him beyond reason, have since the very second I laid eyes on him, so we endure the extra work involved with trying to get our relationship back on track. He fails to see how going to auctions/ estate sales/ the dump and bringing 12 boxes of miscellaneous crap into my house and scattering it around could cause anxiety and stress for me, or throw me off my plan. I CAN’T BE THROWN OFF MY PLAN! Usually I am very easy going and if things change, I’m the first to be excited about a new adventure, but with the meds, I get angry, frustrated, hurt, and unbalanced. Plus it’s not like I don’t have enough to keep me busy, without having to deal with all the extras he brings home. But it is good to have more information, and I will keep looking myself too. And because of the recommendation of some great friends, we’ve started going through The ADHD Effect on Marriage book and website. If anyone hasn’t checked it out, please do! In 12 years together we’ve not managed as effective, calm, & positive communications as in the first bits that we’ve tried with this help. Seriously astounding, can’t recommend it enough!
I as an artist, do like to find my share of “treasures,” but I’m able to not keep everything. If I have a number of projects waiting for start or finish, it doesn’t bother me to leave a new one at the store. I don’t like feeling overwhelmed, and my studio is only so big, if it gets piled up with stuff I find myself too distracted to accomplish anything at all. One important lesson I’ve learned about myself over the years. I have yet to meet a medium that I don’t enjoy! ADHD much?! My favorites would be acrylics and oils, graphite drawing, sculpting, pottery, weaving/ jewelry, and refinishing furniture. I have thought about going back to college for graphic design, but I tense up and quit breathing when I even think about going back, so I’m not pushing myself! I excelled in high school, as far as grades went, but that was only because hiding in a book was more comfortable than facing the other kids!
I did try college for awhile, dropped out before I was kicked out or OD’d. Thank God! That’s when I realized just how different I really was, and I didn’t take it well. I had kept hoping and praying that the nightmare was over, now that high school was.Wrong again! It was in fact a very wonderful and patient man, who loved me way more than I was capable of loving him (at the time anyway) to sit me down and patiently make his points clear. I thought that since I reacted differently than my friends to all the drugs and alcohol, I must not be taking enough. Or in the right combinations. Jeez, the stupidity. He was scared for me, and made it known, and helped me save my life, which I have thanked him for since. Props to you Allan for remembering to apologize and wish your ex well! It’s an uncomfortable thing to do, I know. After that, I looked back at my family, their own issues with alcohol and hard drugs, and its not been hard to stay away since. I did however smoke pot until about a yr ago, it was the only way I could find to eat and sleep and endure being touched.
While I have Plenty of nightmare stories from the distant past I have tried really hard not to become crying, puking, fighting, crazy, drunk, and high on goodness knows what for over 10 years, with success! (pat on my back) I would say that I have never been so crazy as to drive mountain roads at high speed with no lights! Glad you made it out alive!!! 
Also I have yet to see the humor in my past (and present, apparently) behaviors. Maybe someday I’ll be able to laugh about all of this madness.