The Secret Lives of Hoarders_ True Stories of Tackling Extreme Clutter - Matt Paxton [1]
Families of hoarders are often asked, “Why didn’t you do something to stop this?” or, “How could you allow your loved one to live this way?” Usually the truth is that they tried and were shut out, sometimes permanently exiled from the hoarder’s house. Hoarders often feel threatened, unloved, harassed, and misunderstood; family members feel rejected, ignored, or scolded; neighbors feel annoyed, unsafe, and alarmed. Nobody seems to know what to do.
The Secret Lives of Hoarders is a compelling and compassionate guide to this disorder. Matt Paxton brings understanding and empathy to hoarders and their families who are fighting the battle against clutter, and he knows what it takes to minimize its assault on human life. He is a person of heart and practicality who knows how to reach hoarders and their families. He has learned how to involve public, community, and professional services. He recognizes that hoarders are often victims of an internal process that leaves them helpless when they don’t have the benefit of involvement from professionals and a loving, supportive family. He understands the characteristics that hoarders have in common as well as the features that make each case unique. He also knows that, in rare cases, hoarders should be left to live out their lives without intervention—of course, only when health and safety are not an issue.
Matt goes where most people do not dare: inside hoarders’ homes. He doesn’t shy away from houses defined by squalor and dangerous conditions; rooms filled with rodentinfested debris and no escape from fire; health hazards and falling mounds of clutter; homes that speak volumes of human suffering. There is no direct and simple path to recovery, yet Matt is able to define a process based on his intimate and direct knowledge of a disorder that he has embraced professionally for many years.
In this book you will learn more about hoarding than you would from a professional journal article or scholarly thesis. You will see every aspect of this disorder and its remedies addressed not only from inside the hoarder’s world, but also from the point of view of those that hoarding affects.
Matt directly deals with issues about every aspect of hoarding, focusing on real stories that qualify the negative stereotypes and prejudices about people who hoard, and he helps us see that the tentacles of hoarding reach far beyond the person who hoards. It is a societal problem, more so than many other psychological conditions. He takes the sensationalism out of hoarding so that it can be discussed as meaningfully as depression or anxiety. The more we can talk about hoarding in an informed way, the more we can unite resources to remediate it.
Matt writes with concern about the life inside a hoarder’s home. He describes the entire spectrum of issues, from what happens in a hoarder’s mind to what society can do to help. Inside every hoarder is a person waiting to be released, and this book can be the first step in handling a potentially dangerous disorder from which people lose their lives and society loses valuable human resources. After reading this book, people can look directly at the sad reality of a hoarder who previously mystified, angered, and frightened them. In The Secret Lives of Hoarders, Matt is inviting us to embrace hope, join hands, and get the work done.
Suzanne Chabaud, PhD
Clinical Psychologist
Founder of the Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
Institute of Greater New Orleans
INTRODUCTION
It was the summer of 2006 and I was desperate for work. I was living in Richmond, Virginia,