Admittedly, I love television. Recently, I introduced two programmes on Foxtel's Bio Channel to my screening: Mysterious Diagnosis and Hoarders. Both series talk about sick people, chronically sick people.
I watch Hoarders in absolute disgust. Homes look like dump sites - they're hazardous and unsanitary. It's sad. It's infuriating. How could adults put their children through such living conditions? Children cry during interviews. They're ashamed. They're perplexed. They're angry. They don't want to come home.
I thought I grew up pretty bad - Mum hardly discarded anything, and Dad's always been a collector. I had my own room but it was cluttered with two-thirds of things that weren't mine. Like children of hoarders, I felt the same to a degree - distressed and silently angry. The difference, however was that our home wasn't filthy and I always wanted to come home (partly to my hobbies).
The experts on the show talk about how this illness can be a form of heredity. So I ask myself the question: am I a hoarder? Honestly, I do exhibit a few hoarding tendencies (for e.g. I keep things that I can still use - e.g. my pencil case of 17 years, and clothing that I can still fit no matter how old or unfashionable they are) but in the scheme of things, they all now seem so mild.
Meanwhile, I learned that Bickerstaff Encephalitis is scary sh-t. It's an auto-immune condition where the brainstem gets attacked and your central nervous system goes out of whack in no time! Alopecia and Graves, the two auto-immune conditions I have also now seem so mild.
