The Secret Lives of Hoarders_ True Stories of Tackling Extreme Clutter - Matt Paxton [64]
▶ Desire to Change
Unless the cleanup is an intervention, a hoarder’s wish and intention are probably already in play, or else the hoarder wouldn’t have agreed to go through the process. I knew that newlyweds Wendy and Sam, for example, were motivated to change, because when they talked about the hoarding they admitted it was a problem. Wendy said that she knew it was interfering with their relationship, and the relationship they had with their children.
By contrast, I could tell that Roxanne, the hoarder who had saved all of her adult child’s baby and childhood stuff, had no desire to clean. Her intervention was instigated by a social worker, who was as concerned about Roxanne’s declining health as she was about the hoarding. Besides, Roxanne was still in denial. She didn’t believe that a cleanup would make her life better. For a hoarder who has no desire to change, the house may get clean through an intervention, but it won’t stay that way.
Recovery is hard work. The thing that motivates a hoarder through each day is the desire to have a better life. Without that, it’s just too easy to give up.
▶ Recognizing Self-Worth
Although it sounds counterintuitive, hoarders care very much what others think. But if they cared so much, and wanted a relationship so badly, they’d clean up, right? Of course, but it’s not that simple. In my experience, hoarding begins with the hoarder not feeling loved or appreciated. The hoarding starts as a childlike response, akin to running away and saying, “I don’t really need you!” but then watching to see if anyone follows. I see hoarding as a cry for help.
That’s why I tell hoarders that they need to want to de-clutter for themselves, not anyone else. Not for family members who promise they will be more loving. Not for their spouses or even, sadly, for their children. Those motivations won’t hold up in the long run. Hoarders have to stop making choices based on how they want others to react and just make a choice for themselves.
When hoarders allow themselves to care what other people think, they put themselves in a state of inequality. By valuing other people’s opinion more highly than their own, hoarders obviously rank themselves second. This selfimposed inequality is often a catalyst for long-term failure.
By putting such importance on someone else’s opinion, the hoarder is also inviting judgment into his or her life. In my experience, judgment and a perceived lack of acceptance are at the root of most hoarding. When people make the choice to not let the opinion of others hurt or sway them, then they are taking control of their life and making themselves equal to the rest of the world. In my experience, the hoarder must love himself or herself fully before the hoarder can be of value to another person.
What we’ve seen in hoarding is that when people care about someone else’s views more than their own, they start to look for physical possessions to show others their self-worth. But people who fully love and respect themselves won’t need “stuff” to prove their worth.
I’m not saying the hoarder shouldn’t care about family or friends. It’s the reverse—I’m actually challenging hoarders to share real relationships, and show their personality and value through conversation and emotions instead of through physical objects. Short-term success can be achieved by being motivated by what others think, but long-term success is only reached when hoarders do it for themselves.
▶ Accepting Responsibility