The Secret Lives of Hoarders_ True Stories of Tackling Extreme Clutter - Matt Paxton [12]
In this case, the dress is really a stand-in for human interaction. And in fact, the dress probably won’t ever get to the child. It will go on top of the pile of other shopping bags filled with gifts. Once Marcie got home, the rush was over, and she didn’t follow through.
This high is just like what a junkie feels when doing drugs. Marcie was replacing deep-seated negative memories with short-term positive feelings through consumption. But the quick hit of happiness she got from buying would never fix the sadness from the past. The shopping high was enough to get Marcie through an afternoon, or maybe even a day. But that’s the scariest part of hoarding—the deeper someone like Marcie gets into it, the more often that person needs a shopping-happiness boost.
▶ The Do-It-Yourselfer
Lucy was a crafter whose rooms were filled with four-foot-high piles of yarn, fabric, candy-making molds, Wilton cake pans, and baking accessories—and only narrow passageways gave her access through the house. Until she retired a couple of years earlier, she was an accountant, but her real love was making fancy cakes on commission from her friends and coworkers for birthdays and holidays. She was also a master maker of crocheted blankets and handmade holiday ornaments. When we met up with Lucy, her house was clean, just packed with unlimited craft supplies.
With her short hair styled and colored, decked out in matching pants and sweater sets, Lucy had lots of energy and was so engaged in many interests that she belied her seventy-one years. In spite of the clutter in her house, she didn’t fit neatly into the Stage 2 hoarder profile. Lucy’s daughter had called us for help, and Lucy agreed to have us clean. She was very personable and seemed genuinely happy to have our cleaning crew come to her house. When we arrived, she was thumbing through a pile of craft magazines and talking about the afghans she still intended to make. (I call these the “fixing to’s,” as in “I’m fixing to make that blanket.”)
We sorted through her craft items and discovered that she had at least fifty cake pans and more than nine hundred rolls of yarn. She used about eighteen rolls of yarn to make each blanket, which took her about three months to crochet. At that rate, if she never bought yarn again, it would take her twelve and a half years to use up all that yarn. Of course, that doesn’t account for the time needed for making cakes and other crafts, or for new hobbies or pastimes.
Do-it-yourselfers are distinguished from other hoarders by the emphasis they put on future plans. It sounds reasonable that a crafter would need a good supply of fabric or yarn, or a hobby mechanic would need a load of spare parts. Most DIYers buy ahead—on sale or when supplies like used parts become available. But the crafters and hobbyists who slip into hoarding are generally suffering from the “fixing to” blues.
While DIY work is rewarding, and it’s exciting to try lots of different things in life, at a certain point there’s just not enough time to do everything. Mechanics can easily turn into hoarders as they collect parts and cars that they plan to restore. One car project is enough to keep anyone busy for a long time, and in the meantime a hoarder’s collection of items for future projects grows and grows. These hoarders are usually unable to focus on completing a project because they are distracted by plans for so many others.
Craft hoarders are usually very talented and receive a lot of compliments on what they make. Lucy’s cakes were amazing, and she got a lot of positive reinforcement for that, which made it easier to justify collecting her pans and decorating supplies.
At some point, DIY hoarders switch from focusing on the actual compliments to perceived compliments. Those are the compliments that