Musings from a Writer’s Brain–Hoarding and the Underlying Issues by Eris Field

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compulsive hoarding, Eris Filed, Musings from a Writer's Brain, The Gift of Love

by Eris Field

Image by Deedee86 from Pixabay

Hoarding is a clinical disorder that affects 5% of the population. It tends to start when the person is 12 to 13 years old, often after a loss—death of a loved one, parents’ divorce, or losing cherished possessions in a fire, flood, or hurricane. It has a genetic component. That is it tends to run in families. It also has a neurobiological basis. It has been found that there are abnormalities of certain brain structures (areas of the brain). These brain structures are involved in decision making, attention, organization, and regulation of emotions. Their impairment of functioning is evidenced in emotional responses, thinking, and behaviors that are different from people who do not have a hoarding disorder.

In addition to their compulsive hoarding disorder, 25% of people will have co-existing illnesses such as depression and anxiety. In addition, people with hoarding disorder often experience problems with planning ahead, making decisions, and having an unrealistic desire for everything to be perfect.

Symptoms of hoarding include:
• Experiencing severe anxiety over the thought of discarding possessions because the saved items give them a sense of security
• Buying or saving things that are unnecessary, worthless, or useless
• Accumulating huge amounts of objects that have little or no value such as old magazines, telephone books, clothing, shoes, hats, bottles, boxes, and empty food containers
• Having numerous animals such as cats that they cannot care for
• Inability to organize space for items—hoarded items take over space needed for activities of normal living

The effects of hoarding can be severe and often affect family relationships, work, health, and everyday life activities such as cooking, shopping, sports, and having friends, children or grandchildren visit.

Hoarding disorder often results in:
• Crowded, dangerous (risk of fires or falls), and unsanitary living conditions including the presence of vermin and mold that may endanger the person’s health
• Loss of a cooking space, eating area, and living room, bedroom, halls, closets, basement, garage, porches, and yard due to accumulations of hoarded items
• Loneliness
• Family conflicts and isolation from loved ones
• Inability to perform work as expected
• Financial problems related to compulsive purchasing of unneeded objects or the care of an accumulation of a large number of pets
• Legal problems such as threats of eviction.

What you can do to help:
• Encourage them to seek professional help
• Suggest self-help groups such as Clutterers Anonymous
• After treatment, help them with their belongings if they ask for help. Remember that many feel great anxiety if anyone touches their things
• Remember that hoarding is an illness like other illnesses such as diabetes or kidney disease,
• Don’t remove things without their permission
• Don’t expect perfection or constancy

My novel, The Gift of Love, is a story of hoarding and the perils of the disorder. I hope it helps you understand the problem so many people must face.

Laurel, a 26-year-old slightly impulsive pediatric nurse learned her survival skills through early years in foster care. Her life dream is to provide a home for six abandoned children. But, before she can do anything about the dream, she must sell the huge old house her adoptive parents left her. She must sell it before she falls even deeper into debt. To put it on the market, requires tackling the escalating compulsive hoarding of her reclusive half-sister who lives with her. Paper of all kinds is filling the rooms and hallways of the house. She has tried reasoning, nagging, and threatening. Now in desperation, she borrows from her Union’s Retirement Fund to go to a conference on the latest treatments for Compulsive Hoarding.

Andrew, a 39-year-old psychiatrist, is never impulsive. A reticent, somewhat austere man, he limits his interactions with people to his work. His life is strictly planned and modelled on the life of his grandfather who was one of hundreds of orphaned boys raised by Father Baker. Despite the scorn of his father, an entrepreneurial plastic surgeon, he prefers to practice psychiatry in the underserved communities of Buffalo, New York. Being handed Jamie, the mute two-year-old grandson of his father’s second wife, as he is about to leave for the conference where he has agreed to fill in for a colleague is definitely not part of his life plan.

When they first meet, a series of unfortunate events cause Laurel to view Andrew as arrogant, rude, but disturbingly attractive and Andrew to view Laurel as a dangerous distraction to be avoided. Faced with a crisis, they are forced to work together, but will they be able to put aside their protective armor and trust each other enough to let love in?

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Eris Field was born in the Green Mountains of Vermont—Jericho, Vermont to be precise—close by the home of Wilson Bentley (aka Snowflake Bentley), the first person in the world to photograph snowflakes. She learned from her Vermont neighbors that pursuit of one’s dream is a worthwhile life goal.

As a seventeen year old student nurse at Albany Hospital, Eris met a Turkish surgical intern who told her fascinating stories about the history of Turkey, the loss of the Ottoman Empire, and forced population exchanges. After they married and moved to Buffalo, Eris worked as a nurse at Children’s Hospital and at Roswell Park Cancer Institute.

After taking time off to raise five children and amassing rejection letters for her short stories, Eris earned her master’s degree in Psychiatric Nursing at the University at Buffalo. Later, she taught psychiatric nursing at the University and wrote a textbook for psychiatric nurse practitioners—a wonderful rewarding but never to be repeated experience.

Eris now writes novels, usually international, contemporary romances. Her interest in history and her experience in psychiatry often play a part in her stories. She is a member of the Romance Writers of America and the Western New York Romance Writers. In addition to writing, Eris’s interests include: Prevention of Psychiatric Disorders; Eradicating Honor Killings, supporting the Crossroads Springs Orphanage in Kenya for children orphaned by AIDS, and learning more about Turkey, Cyprus, and Kurdistan.

Learn more about Eris Field on her website. Stay connected on Facebook.

Wednesday Writers Welcomes Eris Field

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author interveiw with Eris Field, compulsive hoarding, Father Baker Boys, Soul Mate Publishing, Sweet romance, The Gift of Love

Today I’m welcoming Eris Field to Wednesday Writers. Eris has an interview and an excerpt from her sweet romance book The Gift of Love. Eris, please begin by telling us a bit about The Gift of Love.

The Gift of Love is a story of faith, compassion, courage, and love. It is the story of two women, one young and one older, who love: Laurel who dreams of a home of her own with children as she works two jobs to provide for her step-sister whose compulsive hoarding is destroying her life and threatening Laurel’s and Aunt Emmie whose girlhood was limited by polio and who now dreams of the man who writes her beautiful letters in blue envelopes. It is also the story of Andrew, a reticent psychiatrist, who as a child fled from the battles of his parents and the contempt of his father to the sanctuary of his grandfather. It was his grandfather, an orphan sent to Father Baker’s Home for Children, who passed on to him Father Baker’s lessons of courage and compassion. Andrew practices these virtues but with a desk between him and the recipient. When faced with caring for an abandoned toddler, he is forced to ask Laurel for help. In giving that help, Laurel risks losing all she has dreamed of and her heart.

How did you come up with the concept for this book?

When I was a young pediatric nurse, I met an older doctor who told me that he was a Father Baker Boy. During the depression and its aftermath, his parents died leaving him an orphan with no one to claim him. He was put on a train with a tag on his coat that said Father Baker, Lackawanna, New York. He told me how Father Baker had given him his name and had always been there for him. Father Baker had sent him to college and medical school. His story remained with me and it formed the basis for The Gift of Love.

Interesting. I’d never heard of Father Baker boys. Stories ripped from history are always interesting. What are you working on now? Do you have a release date for it?

My third novel, No Greater Love. is a cross-cultural contemporary romance. It has been accepted by Soul Mate Publishing and will be released in June 2015. It is the story of two people who know love only to lose it and then give everything they have to help one another survive while hanging onto the hope of reclaiming that love,

Congratulations on the new release. Now for some writing questions. Tell us about the genres you write in and a bit about your process.

In fiction, I write in different genres—inspirational, contemporary cross-cultural, and biographical romance. I don’t decide on a genre ahead of time. The characters begin to talk to me and I write the story. After the story emerges, it tends to fit in one of those three genres but not always precisely.

I tend to write in my head a long time before I sit down to my computer. Characters talk to me and I begin to know them—their dreams and disappointments. Sometimes they appear in specific settings as their problems pile up. When the pressure has increased to a certain point, I begin to write the scenes and the dialogue. I often go back and fill in the details that link scenes and chapters before I move forward. I think of it as weaving a tapestry.

Characters’ names are very important to me. I consider the character’s nationality, their position in the family (first-born daughter), their personality, and their age in selecting a name. I choose a name that fits them and also holds out the possibility of being more. Each name has to look right and sound right. I always check on the meaning of the name before I use it. I use several books on naming characters and also I collect interesting names from newspaper articles.

Now for some information about a writer’s reading habits. Are you a non-fiction reader?

In keeping with current events, I have been reading: Five Sisters: A Modern Novel of Kurdish Women by Kit Anderson, The Miracle of the Kurds by Stephen Mansfield, and Moscow Bound by Adrian Churchward.

I read non-fiction every day. Most of the reading is related to research for the novel I am working on but I also read Ottoman history and material about the wars our country has been involved in.

What about magazines, craft books and fiction?

The three writing craft books that I have found very helpful are:

1. Goal, Motivation, and Conflict by Debra Dixon
2. The Fire in Fiction by Donald Maass
3. Writing the Heart of Your Story by C. S. Lakin

The fiction books that I go back to again and again.

The Kadin by Beatrice Small

Any of Betty Neels’ romances (They are comfort reading when the world is harsh)

Any contemporary romance that catches my attention by a great cover or the promise of a warm love story and interesting characters.

Magazines.

I don’t read many magazines but I do read The Writer’s Digest from cover to cover.

You have such an unusual name. Do you know what it means?My name, Eris, is the name of the goddess of war/discord. I don’t think it fits me. My grandfather who taught Latin and Greek named me. He also gave cousins historic names—Florence and Venice. I always considered myself fortunate not to have been named Rome or Naples.

LOL. We like to watch movies. Do you have a favorite movie?My most favorite movies are The Inn of the Sixth Happiness and The Last Samuri.

Tell the readers the most historic city you have ever visited.The most historic city that I have visited is the fascinating Istanbul in Turkey. It is a city that has known many conquerors and still spans two continents.

Thanks for visiting today, Eris. As you leave do you have a precept that has influenced your life?

All the children in the world are our children.

 Now for a peek at Eris’s book:

The Gift of Love

Laurel, a 26 year old slightly impulsive pediatric nurse who spent her early years in foster care, dreams of having a family of her own—six children, no men in the dream. Laurel doesn’t just dream, she has a plan –stop her step-sister’s compulsive hoarding, clear out the mountains of paper engulfing every room, and sell the old house that is pushing her toward bankruptcy. As a last resort, she raids her retirement fund to go to a conference on the newest treatments for compulsive hoarding.

Andrew, a 39 year old psychiatrist whose grandfather was an orphan –a Father Baker boy– is never impulsive. A reticent, somewhat austere man, he limits his interactions with people to his work. About to leave for the conference where he has agreed to fill in for a colleague, he suddenly finds himself the reluctant caretaker of a two and a half year old boy, Jamie.

Laurel views Andrew as arrogant, rude, but disturbingly attractive and Andrew views Laurel as a dangerous distraction to be avoided. When Jamie becomes ill, they are they are forced to work together but will they be able to put aside their protective armor and trust each other enough to accept the gift of love?

Excerpt from The Gift of Love

“Andrew! I caught you just in time!” A woman in her fifties with a scrupulously maintained body clad in a vivid blue silk suit shouted as she scrambled out of the taxi clutching an oversized purse under one arm and a toddler in the other. Swaying on three-inch heels, she hurried toward him.

With a numbing sense of foreboding, Andrew finished turning on the alarm and locking the front door. He would know that strident voice anywhere. Stacy, his father’s second wife, ex-second wife.

“Stacy,” he said curtly. The last time he had seen her was at his father’s funeral, the beautiful, grieving former wife. How angry his grandfather had been to see her there.

“You’ve got to take him.” She hurried up the walk, a toddler in her arms. “You owe it to your sister.”

Andrew stepped forward so that she could not move up the steps. “I don’t have a sister.” He motioned to the cab driver of the second cab that had pulled into the circular driveway and stopped behind the first cab to take his bag and laptop.

“Your half-sister,” she hissed at him and then changed to a more placating tone. “You probably don’t remember her. I moved on soon after she was born.”

“No, I never knew her.” He had not lived with his father after his marriage to Stacy. “What happened to your daughter?”

“My daughter? She was your father’s daughter, too,” she snapped. “She died of an overdose six months ago, and I have been stuck with him ever since.”

“Him? Your grandson, I presume,” Andrew said with chilling reproof. “Of course your daughter would want you to care for him.” He edged past her down the steps.

“You don’t get it!” Stacy was shaking with anger. “I don’t want him. I am leaving for Hawaii with friends this afternoon.” There was a hard edge to her voice. “If you don’t take him, I will put him in foster care. One way or the other, I am going to be on that cruise ship.”

Andrew had seen that look in her eyes before. During the time that she was married to his father, she had made sure that Andrew was always in a boarding school, an enrichment program, or a summer camp.

He eyed her with abhorrence. “You’d put your own grandson in foster care so that you could go on a cruise?” He closed his eyes and saw the stream of injured children he had treated in the emergency room when he was an intern. So many of them had been foster children. Without a word, he lifted the toddler from her and strode to his waiting taxi.

What could he do? There was no one he could leave the child with. Birdie and left early that morning and his secretary had taken a long weekend. The only thing he could think of was to take the toddler with him to Puerto Rico. Aunt Emmie would be meeting him there and she would help him find a solution. She had been there to help him all his life and she would know what to do.

Now that she had gained what she had come for, Stacy hurried back to her taxi calling over her shoulder, “He is two and his name’s Jamie, Jamie Young.” She tossed a small duffle bag toward Andrew’s waiting taxi driver and shouted out the window as her taxi pulled away, “He’s mute.”

 

The Gift of Love is available from: Amazon  and www.soulmatepublishing.com

 

About the Author:

Eris Field, a Clinical Specialist in Psychiatric Nursing, taught psychiatric nursing at the University at Buffalo for several years. She now enjoys writing novels in which the heroes are often fascinating psychiatrists and the heroines, awesome women.  Her first publications include a biographical novel, Legacy of Change: The Saga of a Turkish Family from Empire to Republic, that she co-authored with her late husband and a textbook, Psychiatric Advanced Practice Nursing. It was with great pleasure that she learned that her textbook was being used in China, Turkey, and Australia.

Her first novel, The Gift of Love, is set in Western New York and features a psychiatrist, the grandson of an orphan– a Father Baker boy, and a pediatric nurse. Reluctantly, they work together to help a mute child. Her second novel, Lattices of Love, is the story of a Turkish-American woman who kicks open the lattices of old harem rules and refuses to accept an arranged marriage.

Now, Eris lives in the ‘snow-belt’ region of New York and writes what she loves to read–contemporary, cross cultural romances. She is a member of the Romance Writers of America and the Western New York Romance Writers group.  Her interests include supporting the Crossroads Springs Institute in Kenya for children orphaned by AIDS and visiting as many fascinating cities of the world as she can.

Contact: Eris Field Perese

eperese@aol.com

www.erisfield.com