Tag Archives: hoarding disorder

I have had a monumentally horrible week.  And one of the hardest things about it, is that I cannot tell you about most of it and make fun of it for the sake of healing by humor because, after all, real mental health issues are a very private thing.  So, I am left with a mish-mash of free-associations and brainstorming to fill up a page with random and unthinkable thoughts.  (When I brainstorm, sometimes it is more like a brain-hurricane.)

Under the general heading of; Things a relatively sane older man who is battling hoarding disorder should probably not do is the new collection I started of Sparkling Disney Princesses.  As you can see above, I unfortunately acquired some of the more recent Disney Princesses in sparkle form within the rules for collecting (not costing more than $20 and not spending more than $50 in any one month).  I even added a rule to slow down the collecting mania.  (No buying sparkle princesses of characters I already have in my Disney Princess collection.)  Tiana, Merida, and Elsa add up to only $30 over the last three months.

This is actually Cowboy Mickey in the middle of the bedroom he shares with about 500 dolls and action figures, 1000 books, and the fairy in the foreground who is real.

The thing about the relentless doll collecting is more the space it fills than the money it burns.  A few years back I completed a five year stint of buying, selling, and trading action figures in which I learned how to make the obsessive-compulsive-disorder part of it turn out to be profitable.  I ran a used-toy and collectible E-Bay store that helped me pay for my mental health issue.  Of course, I did not get ahead, as all the profits are tied up in the dolls, action figures, and stuffed toys that I have kept.  Still, I learned how to do the thing effectively enough to believe I can effectively do that again if I need to, in spite of the fact that E-Bay got wise and raised their fees to make a $5 and $10 business far less profitable.

I should note that I gave up toy-selling on E-Bay after an irate Barbie collector teed off on me in the comments section over a misidentified 80’s Barbie.  (Heck, how was I to know that the date on her neck was a copyright date only and not an indicator that she was sold in the 1970’s?)  Lady Godiva Barbie on the wingless Pegasus from the Goodwill store is a new project I put on the project table.  There is at least a month’s worth of hair-combing necessary and clearly visible in the picture.  Mane and tail alone will take weeks.

And I am not yet done with the notion of collecting beautiful sunrises.  The recent rains and cloudiness of Texas wild weather have provided some interesting color and variety to the skyline of the park next to our house.  It all helps to keep my mind off of troubling issues that developed from dental pain and attendance woes.  This has been a very rough week, but the sunrises keep coming, and I look forward to a new day.