It may just be an over-exposure to lifestyle television shows, but shedding excess ‘stuff’ seems to have become the latest method for revealing the person you always knew you were, but had lost amongst the stuff. At first glance it is easy to assume these home owners were just untidy, that their mess built up and up until in they no longer saw it. Now I’m learning that this behavior is a recognizedpsychological illness; a variant of obsessive-compulsive disorder, and has very little to do with self-rediscovery.
Viewing hoarding as a psychopathology instead of entertainment means that you can’t simply rid the hoarder of their stuff, but have to resolve the underlying issues for it having arisen in the first place. If this isn’t done, then there is nothing to prevent a recurrence of the hoarding behavior once the cameras have left.
I particularly recall a program with an older woman whose tiny apartment was deeply filthy, and who had piles of mildewing books in every hallway and room. During the educational part of the show when she was reluctantly made to clean, she referred twice to a major loss decades years before that she attributed to being the start of the problem. At the end of the show she was thrilled to have been ‘cleaned out,’ but on the return visit two weeks later, was well on her way to returning to the previous state of filth and disarray. Although the physical mess had been cleaned up, the psychological one at the root of it wasn’t resolved. Now hosts can be seen having ‘heart to heart’ chats with recalcitrant home owners, quickly diagnosing their underlying psychological issues, then getting them to promise to reform – or at at least to reform until the camera crew has left!
It seems t me to be rather cruel to expose those whose behavior is beyond simple help to the glare of public scrutiny in the name of entertainment. I’m sure the shows’ researchers work hard to find back stories that will make for interesting and compelling shows, but as we’ve become jaded by the merely slightly abnormal, we now demand ever more eccentric or desperate examples to help us feel smug about our own low level messiness. This pushes the researchers to seek out ever worse and sorrier cases, apparently regardless of the underlying problems.
For most people de-cluttering is something that is handled routinely, and the mess never gets completely out of hand. A blitz on a particularly cluttered area is therapeutic and liberating, bringing space and order into our lives, but for others mess is far more than something that can be fixed in a thirty minute television show. Maybe instead of allowing us to feel smug because our homes aren’t as messy as the ones we see on tv, the shows should instead help us want less stuff in the first place, and let those who need help get it quietly and privately when they are ready to ask for it?
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I think some people have little physically and emotionaly so they stockpille whatever they can. Their stuff is the foundation that supports them. The more inadequate a person feels the more validation they require. When they are not having their needs met they accumulate to feel worthwhile. At least that is what happens with me. The more vulnerable I feel the more I want to snuggle among my stuff.
timid – this may be true for you, but not for my husband who is definitely not lacking ego and self-esteem. Hiding from something maybe, but definitely not using it a a crutch.
My second husband is a horder. I come from a family that is OCD in the other direction. At first I found it theraputic to accept my husbands quirks, but doing that has now made me live just like he does. I am not happy with this, but as you say he can’t be cured by just a pick up. For some reason he always leaves things just less that the perfect that is my learned position on things. I mostly just give up on perfect to the dismay of my family, but I actually find it liberating to a degree. Still, I am trying to help us both back to a position somewhere in between that both of us can accept. Any suggestions out there?