Buried: The Hoard Knows by Reese Belew

Reese Belew

I had experienced physical and sexual abuse in childhood.  Later throughout my life I continued to have experiences of all the other forms of abuse, psychological, financial, narcissistic abuse. In my mid fifties I got diagnosed as autistic and I learned that we are more vulnerable to victimization by NPDs.  I learned that hoarding is one trauma response triggered by C-PTSD.  Like an ancient tel which is also a tomb of all the past that once existed there, this hoard contains all the dead remains of all I've lost, never to be recovered, only grieved forever, until my body too dies.  And like the tel grows slowly, the hoard and the layers of trauma grow slowly over the years.  I am a mere ghost of the person I used to be, and my ghost voice keeps calling to the other dead, digging them up, remembering the pain of their past loss, and feeling present pain in their remembering.  

Buried: the hoard knows

Lifelong abuse of ASD-me by the herd-brained horde caused my hoard, built of C-PTSD. I abhor this hoard as the tomb of my life. I whisper, “gently, gently, slowly,” as I carefully disinter fragments of myself without collapsing the telling layers of this tel. Artifacts haunt me. Professional clothes, pantyhose from career destroyed; swimsuits, ballet shoes predate decrepitude; hairdo gewgaws, bras - pre-cancer; self-esteem, self-confidence, pride, trust, hope, destroyed belief system, lay buried in the hoard alongside my dead self. All finds find “rest in pain” here. All of neurotypical life’s lies lie here. All here hear my ghost voice, digging.