jessica can hardly recall a time when the house was in order. some of my earliest memories would be getting yelled at because she couldn t find something and she thought we d moved it or threw it away. and having this huge fight or tantrum because she misplaced something and her later finding it. at the time i didn t have a clue. i would say, okay, well, i need to do something. because her condition is not widely known, jessica s mother prefers not to reveal her identity. i guess it s not the characteristic i want to be known for. working with children, jessica s mother also has concerns about how her hoarding might impact her career in education. it s very important to me to be professional in my job capacity. and when i meet with the clients or meet with the other educators, that s what i want them to take away and think that, oh, she s very professional. she does a very good job. we can depend upon her. not, oh, my god.
of my own away and purging my own belongings. stuff i probably would have liked to have kept. and kind of like there has to be other people out here. there has to be someone who s talking about this. jessica finds great comfort online. she s an active member of the not for profit organization children of hoarders and corresponds with others for support. even just reading about other people s experiencing, what they re experiencing and if i can t relate, offering my own support. you know, you can get through this. it will be okay. as the cleanup continues, jessica remains hopeful. i think that she ll get it down towards manageable where people say she s a bit of a clutter bug. that s it. i think she can get it down to that point to where it s a little bit safer for her. so that s the best i can ask for, i guess. they have to want to learn how to think differently. how to chae their behaviors, understand their pathology. so motivation and getting them to recognize the cost of t
trying to say and they really understood. and you know, it was really futile. and thousands of dollars for nothing. and you realize, well, this person s not helping me. so you go to the next one. they re not helping me, you go to someone else. they re not helping me. eventually it becomes apparent i can either spend a lot of time playing who s the right person or i can just call it quits and try and do it on my own. and that s extremely difficult. it s overwhelming, the anxiety is just amazing. and you think, wow, why am i doing this? and i need to stop. jessica has also been unable to secure long-term professional counselling for her mom. a lot of them don t want to come to your house. they don t want to see firsthand. they don t want to get in there. and not necessarily get their hands dirty and helping them clean, but get their hands dirty in the sense of while they re throwing this tantrum, talking to them and seeing what s going on and addressing what is causing this. and that
issue. now we have to get on the long road to addressing it and trying to fix this and fix this behavior and fix this mentality. and pushing her, you know, when she doesn t want to go any more. jessica acknowledges progress has been made, but there s still a long way to go. this is probably 75% of what it was about a year ago. used to be completely filled with boxes that were up to your waist and they went higher as they went back. i m not sure i would have made as much progress as i have. i think it would have been much easier to side step it and find something else that was less distasteful to do and not as difficult. this is very difficult process. so if it were just me by myself, there wouldn t be as much progress. despite her mother s recent efforts to change her life, the hoarding has also had an effect on jessica. i started seeing reactions in myself that i couldn t understand. i was constantly throwing things
but without immediate answers, the hoarding continues. part of it and the feeling you fight against is the idea that, okay, this is mine. i bought this. i have the control over it. and now somebody s telling me that i need to get rid of this and i need to let go. it becomes an issue more of control than perhaps emotional attachment. i think it s just the issue of letting it go. i think she feels that when she lets it go, she loses a little bit of control over the item. she doesn t realize the control she has to let it go is much greater. for years, the hoarding strains jessica s relationship with her mother, but more recently, the two commit to tackling the problem together without professional help. it was you have an issue and you need help. no, i don t. i m perfectly fine. no, you really do have a problem. and you really do need help. when she got there and admitted it, it was a huge giant step. and breath of relief. okay. she understands there s an