The Secret Lives of Hoarders_ True Stories of Tackling Extreme Clutter - Matt Paxton [5]
Brad and Ellen just couldn’t let things go, and weren’t processing the avalanche of stuff that comes with raising three active boys. Left unattended for much longer, the clutter would become full-blown hoarding and overwhelm them and their small house.
According to a study by Johns Hopkins University, there are an estimated 12 million hoarders in the United States. Four percent of the population is somewhere in the range of Brad and Ellen to Margaret.
Hoarding isn’t about how much stuff a person has. It’s about how we process things. Most people can easily make decisions about what to keep and what to toss or donate, and then they follow through. A hoarder can’t. There’s something off-kilter in the hoarder’s brain that we don’t fully understand yet. It starts small, and then it gets out of hand.
Hoarding begins like this: Most people who go to a fast-food restaurant and get a cold soda then throw away that big plastic cup when they’re done drinking. Maybe they even recycle it. But a hoarder has issues with that cup. The cup is useful. It’s a pretty sturdy cup, not a flimsy little paper thing. Maybe a church feeding program or a homeless shelter could use it. Carelessly tossing that cup in the trash would be a waste when there are so many people in this world who can use a good cup. So the hoarder keeps it, intending to get it to the church or shelter. It just never gets there.
Or that cup—decorated with colorful cartoon characters—is meaningful because the hoarder went to the fast-food place with her toddler daughter as a special treat. The moment was an important emotional memory for the mother, and looking at the cup brings back that joyful experience. Throwing away the critical link to such an important occasion is unthinkable.
Hard-core hoarders go through this internal debate with every single item that crosses their path: plastic bags, junk mail, wine corks, fast-food chopsticks, and soy sauce packets. They are the ultimate recyclers, but for some reason that cycle never gets completed. At some point hoarders lose the stuff-management battle and get overwhelmed. The piles grow, the trash overflows, embarrassment builds, and they stop letting people into their homes. Without help, they have no idea where to even begin to clean up.
Once the possessions start to take over, hoarders tend to get attached to the items no matter what they are. Being surrounded by piles of stuff can be strangely comforting. The stuff is there, day in and day out. It doesn’t change, it doesn’t leave, it doesn’t even move unless the hoarder wants it to. Hoarders feel like they have everything they need—lots of clothing, spare toothbrushes, extra food. They’re in the land of plenty where they are in charge and control everything.
SEPARATING HOARDING FROM MESSINESS
Hoarding isn’t a character flaw. It’s not laziness or forgetfulness. It’s a mental disorder. While scientists and medical professionals are still figuring out exactly what hoarding is and what causes it, most agree that it is a glitch in the brain that manifests itself by making a person want to hang on to things, whatever those particular things may be.
The critical thing is how to determine if someone is just messy or a bona fide hoarder. Everyone builds up a few piles now and again, and many of us have a growing “collection” of something like porcelain Christmas houses or old Sports Illustrated magazines. When is that a problem?
Hoarding is an issue when the clutter begins to affect the activities of everyday life: cooking, cleaning, entertaining, and moving freely about the house. In the early stages it can be difficult to tell hoarding from messiness. Someone who shuffles piles of junk mail around the kitchen counters or who is too embarrassed by a messy house to invite people over might just be on the slippery slope to hoarding—or not. If the clutter gets progressively worse instead of better, it’s probably hoarding.