Childhood memories? What childhood memories?

I was almost an adult before I realized that it was strange that I can’t remember much of my childhood. The normal state of affairs is not to have a large, fuzzy blank between the ages of, say, 3 and 13. It's disconcerting not to be able to trust your own memory. It's even worse to have people recount stories that you don't remember AT ALL, even though you were there. On occasion, my father will mention something traumatic that happened when I was a teen or tween and I can't recall it in the slightest. Given that a big chunk of what I do remember is either upsetting or just plain weird, I always kind of figured I was repressing memories. It's a bit disturbing to think that all those memories might bob to the surface of my mind one day, as I have already spent enough on therapy to install an Olympic-sized swimming pool in my shrink's backyard. Or maybe just send him on a really nice vacation. But I digress.

Recently, though, my therapist explained something that made me feel much better about the whole deal. Apparently, most parents interact with their children in a way that helps them make sense of the world. (What? You mean other kids don't have to figure it all out for themselves as they go along? Damn, that must be nice. Not that I'm bitter.) These repeated interactions, where your parents help you process the events of your young life, also help you to encode memories. I never really had anyone to consistently help me with, well, anything. Forget having anyone who could help me make sense of my world. I lived in a world that didn't make sense for anyone else, either. And so where a child with more support would have processed events and encoded them into memories, I just lived through events and then forgot them.

For me, this explanation was kind of a relief. I was already well aware that I didn't have anyone who could really help shepherd me through my growing-up years, so that didn't exactly come as a shock. I'll definitely take that explanation over feeling like I have all of these unremembered traumas circling below the surface, just waiting to float up and bite me. Awesome it is not -- but I'll take what I can get.

It really, really could have been worse

And in another news item that makes me deeply thankful that my mother hoards innocuous things like books, this Louisiana couple just got sentenced to jail for hoarding snakes. Seriously? Snakes? Not that I condone animal hoarding or anything, but I could at least kind of see how you could get started hoarding something like puppies. Puppies are cute. Plus, they don't typically harbor a desire to kill and eat you while you're sleeping.

Granted, the news coverage makes it sound somewhat unlikely that these people are genuinely hoarders; it sounds more like they were just trying to make a (neglectful, unethical) buck by illegally breeding snakes. Disturbingly, though, they presented themselves as an animal rescue organization. This, apparently, isn't uncommon amongst animal hoarders, who will continue to adopt animals long after they've stopped having the funding or wherewithal to care for them (much like this Ohio woman, who hoarded dogs, cats, snakes, fish, and a horse). The lack of insight amongst animal hoarders is mind-boggling. Long after they have begun keeping animals in absolutely deplorable, cruel conditions, they continue to believe that they are saving and caring for them.

I haven't yet come across a news report of an animal hoarder with children in the home, but I'm sure it happens. And just thinking about it makes me truly thankful for small mercies. Growing up in a hoarded home was heartbreakingly difficult at times, but at no point was I sharing space with 100 snakes. Ick. So it really, really, really could have been worse.

Apparently, it could have been worse

I was reading recently and learned that there are several types of hoarders: animal hoarders, squalid hoarders, and clean hoarders. (Really? 250,000 words in the English language and the best term that researchers could come up with was "clean hoarder?" Come to think of it, that's actually kind of funny.)

Clean hoarders keep things that the rest of us consider junk, in quantities that impede basic daily activities (cooking, sleeping, mobility, etc.). Piles of gifts for other people that are never given away, 27 bottles of unopened shampoo, newspapers and magazines stacked to the ceiling -- you get the idea. Hoarding of this type can be dangerous, as it creates fire hazards, falling hazards, and basic house maintenance issues. Clean hoarders do not, however, tend to keep things on the more nauseating end of the trash spectrum.

Squalid hoarders keep junk, too, but they also keep things that would make most people's stomachs turn. We're talking used paper plates, rotting food, dirty adult diapers, bags of garbage, and sometimes their own bodily excretions. (Seriously?) Their houses often begin to decay as well, because they are unable to have a repair person come in to, say, fix the leaking toilet. It will just keep leaking for years until the floorboards give way. These houses are often unsalvageable after the hoarder moves out. They're so far gone that they must be bulldozed.

Animal hoarders live in squalor, too. You've probably seen them on the news. They're the hollow-eyed people arrested for animal cruelty after the humane society raids their home and finds 82 cats (or dogs or horses or whatever), in varying states of illness and starvation, living there. Often, they will keep dead animals in the freezer or in other areas of their property. (Again I say, seriously?) Ironically, these hoarders often truly believe that they are "rescuing" the animals under their care.

My mother is a clean hoarder. So yes, I'd definitely say that it could have been worse.