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I watched the show a few times. I am not ever going to win any awards for Housekeeper Of The Year, but when I watch that show it makes me want to get up and throw stuff away.
The show did fascinate me and led me to read more about hoarding. When I was searching, I found an older website with posts about hoarding by adult children of hoarders. Some of it was so sad. This one woman said that when she and her sister were teens, they had a priest come with them to talk to their mother because their house had gotten so bad. They wanted to let their mother know that she had to clean the house or they were going to live with a relative. She said her mother sat there petting a stone turtle and saying, "But I can't get rid of my things. I need my things." They eventually did move out and into the home of an aunt. She said her mother had since died, but then she read about hoarding and at least now knew what was wrong with her mom.
On that show they always have a therapist working with the hoarder and often he/she points out to the hoarder that they are choosing their belongings over their family and friends.
It seems that there is often intense but unskillfully expressed anger and a strong need / desire to alienate and repel people.
I've noticed that the women hoarders in particular are unable to articulate their feelings.
Interesting that this disorder is connected to depression.
When I feel depressed I look around for something to throw away, as if to throw away the cause of feeling bad.
I used to think my mom is a hoarder but her house has never looked like any of those tv shows. Honestly, I think there are chronically disorganized people who really don't care about the stuff in their homes and then hoarders that have emotional attachments to things. My mom hates to clean. So she doesn't. She lets stuff pile up, she can't find important papers and the house gets so cluttered nothing ever gets truly cleaned. I think the condition of her house stresses her out. I mean, why wouldn't it if you can't ever find anything!? I have cleaned her home for her because I can't stand it. I have done it many times. She rarely says to keep anything. She doesn't really care if things get tossed or donated to charity. She is quite easy going about it all. Why she doesn't keep it up is beyond me. That is what frustrates me. Hours upon hours of work and to go to her house 2 months later and its like I never touched the place. Even when she comes to visit me, she walks in the door and dumps her stuff everywhere. My husband jokes its like a toddler just showed up. My mother can wreck a house in a hour.
Now my grandmother was probably more of a hoarder. She grew up during the depression and kept everything. When she passed away it took us months to clean out the house. Her house didnt look like any of those tv shows because the stuff was contained to the basement, garage and upstairs attic but it was a job. I found phone bills from 1960! A lot of it was fascinating to go through and other times it was like OMG why in the hell did she keep this broken coffee maker? We also found money everywhere which made me paranoid about throwing anything out. We found 20's stuffed in books, small jars full of change. It was really a task.
As far as the Hoarders TV show goes, it really frustrates me to watch. I start feeling like I got OCD. I know this isn't going to sound very nice but some of those people are so mentally ill they need to be in an institution or something. Its not that they obsess over the junk, its that they are so irrational. One woman had an animal in a cage that was too small. The animal actually had part of the cage within its body because there was no room to grow. The HS wasn't sure the animal could be saved. They showed the owner and she was like, oh I don't know what you are talking about. Its fine. What a cruel thing to do to an animal. The people that have lost their children and say they want them back probably upset me the most. When it comes time to clean the house they refuse and throw a fit. Then cry that losing their children was the worst thing for them but will fight tooth and nail about keeping something that doesn't even work.
It must be an incredible challenge to deal with a family member who hoards.
Oh yeah, you have no idea. My mother has two houses--one in town and one in the country and they are about 4 hours apart. She was staying by herself in the country house until I detected that she was in trouble and went down and realized she'd lost her keys and purse for days and was convinced she couldn't go to town b/c someone stole her driver's license. I had to make an executive decision to move her to her town house where family could keep a better eye on her.
That's when the real fun started. Her hobby had for years been going to auctions and the place, which is a huge old farmhouse, was full to the rafters with stuff. Much of it was nice stuff and a lot was junk. I rented a big dumpster and spent a couple of weekends going down there and just tossing things away. The really hard part was separating out the good stuff from the junk, and there was a lot of stuff I'd have to stop and scratch my head and think that someone might buy this. We got out the stuff she most wanted to keep, and then several family members pitched in to get the place ready for auction. It was the biggest one the auction company had ever seen and they were pretty experienced folks. The big barn was full, the large yard was full and then there was more. It was incredible but we got everything sold but the house and land. Still I'm quite relieved but I know that after she leaves her home in town, we'll have to do it all over again.
Here's what I felt like though--remember the story of Rumplestiltskin where the girl is locked in a barn at night and R comes and tells her that something bad will happen to her if she doesn't spin straw into gold? Well that's what I felt like--like I had this mountain of a task to do or something bad was going to happen. Well you will never catch me at an auction, lol (with sound of something choking in my throat.)
Thank you for that post pauljrnicole.
That's both very interesting and very poignant.
It was a very fascinating read. I have known people like this woman described. I think it sounds like dementia and possibly years of untreated depression that cause some of this erratic behavior. There are a lot of people like this too. It is sad.
She said her mother had since died, but then she read about hoarding and at least now knew what was wrong with her mom.
Actually, I'd say she just knows what the symptom was. I think hoarding is a symptom of a bigger problem--the physical manifestation of it and just like we live in a day and age where an excess of food can make us fat, we also live in an age where an excess of stuff can make us hoarders--we didn't have that luxury in times past.
I've been thinking of this some more and I've come up with two personality characteristics that can feed into hoarding--no guarantee you'll be one, but watch it if you have these. They are procrastination and thrift. Procrastination for obvious reasons, but also not so obvious ones, such as buying supplies for a hobby that you never get around to doing. How many people are like this? They want to sew something for instance--they go to town and buy the material and supplies and come home and put it away until another day--one that never comes. That feeling fades until next time and they do it all over again. Or they start the project and never finish it and by the time they come back to it, it's so cold that they can't imagine jumping back in and finishing it before they start something new. Some people have several hobbies like this and after several projects don't get finished the stuff piles up and can't be organized. They can't throw away something that was started b/c you never know when they'll get in the mood to finish it, even though it's now 20 years old and totally out of style.
Or thrift--consider our seamstress again. She likes to go to thrift stores and auctions and buys lots of fabric and notions and takes them home to work with--she likes to have a large selection of fabric to work with, but the trouble is that when she's doing a project, none of it seems quite suitable so she goes off again hoping to have an even larger selection. Or he sees something at Goodwill that is really high quality but nothing he could ever use but buys it anyway b/c it's "good." You know, like the sterling plated silver in the wooden box that one brings out for special occasions only there never is one and even if there was he couldn't find it anyway. My dad had all kinds of stuff packed into his workshop--electronic gewgaws and model trains and planes and all kinds of great stuff. The model trains were brought out once for about a week and then put away though we begged for it to be out again but he was afraid something would happen to his set so it stayed put away. There was enough quilting stuff to fill 5 pickup trucks at mom's auction, though she does at least quilt. It's just that she didn't have enough lifetimes to use all that stuff up but kept bringing it home anyway.
Looking back though--the very first sign of mom's dementia was when she started hoarding but I'd say thrift was what prompted it in the first place.
On that show they always have a therapist working with the hoarder and often he/she points out to the hoarder that they are choosing their belongings over their family and friends.
It seems that there is often intense but unskillfully expressed anger and a strong need / desire to alienate and repel people.
I've noticed that the women hoarders in particular are unable to articulate their feelings.
I have noticed those traits in my mother for a very long time as well. My mother would rather have been alienated from her sister than to let an old blender go that she would never even use. When I would go to visit her I could tell that she just wanted me to leave ASAP.
Actually, I'd say she just knows what the symptom was. I think hoarding is a symptom of a bigger problem--the physical manifestation of it and just like we live in a day and age where an excess of food can make us fat, we also live in an age where an excess of stuff can make us hoarders--we didn't have that luxury in times past.
I've been thinking of this some more and I've come up with two personality characteristics that can feed into hoarding--no guarantee you'll be one, but watch it if you have these. They are procrastination and thrift. Procrastination for obvious reasons, but also not so obvious ones, such as buying supplies for a hobby that you never get around to doing. How many people are like this? They want to sew something for instance--they go to town and buy the material and supplies and come home and put it away until another day--one that never comes. That feeling fades until next time and they do it all over again. Or they start the project and never finish it and by the time they come back to it, it's so cold that they can't imagine jumping back in and finishing it before they start something new. Some people have several hobbies like this and after several projects don't get finished the stuff piles up and can't be organized. They can't throw away something that was started b/c you never know when they'll get in the mood to finish it, even though it's now 20 years old and totally out of style.
Or thrift--consider our seamstress again. She likes to go to thrift stores and auctions and buys lots of fabric and notions and takes them home to work with--she likes to have a large selection of fabric to work with, but the trouble is that when she's doing a project, none of it seems quite suitable so she goes off again hoping to have an even larger selection. Or he sees something at Goodwill that is really high quality but nothing he could ever use but buys it anyway b/c it's "good." You know, like the sterling plated silver in the wooden box that one brings out for special occasions only there never is one and even if there was he couldn't find it anyway. My dad had all kinds of stuff packed into his workshop--electronic gewgaws and model trains and planes and all kinds of great stuff. The model trains were brought out once for about a week and then put away though we begged for it to be out again but he was afraid something would happen to his set so it stayed put away. There was enough quilting stuff to fill 5 pickup trucks at mom's auction, though she does at least quilt. It's just that she didn't have enough lifetimes to use all that stuff up but kept bringing it home anyway.
Looking back though--the very first sign of mom's dementia was when she started hoarding but I'd say thrift was what prompted it in the first place.
I would agree that the hoarding is a symptom of a deeper problem. That even shows up sometimes in the Hoarding TV show.
I used to keep too much stuff--not to the level of hoarding, but not throwing away things that really needed to be parted with. I've changed that aspect of myself over the years. Now I am much more of a minimalist.
An interesting, perhaps related story--a friend of mine was always struggling with constipation. She saw this woman who was something of a cross between a psychic healer and mental health provider, and the woman told her she was constipated because she was emotionally hanging onto things from her past that she should let go of. She also said this can manifest itself by hanging on to physical items connected to the emotional baggage.
Well, the next weekend my friend started cleaning out this closet. She had been married and divorced and was now remarried, but she had hung onto all these old letters and tapes and other items from her previous marriage and some of those letters were from the time when the marriage was breaking up and they were going through their divorce. She looked at the box full of crap and decided there was no reason to hang on to any of this and toss it all away. She got rid of a lot of other stuff, too, but that old marriage stuff in particular lifted a burden from her mind, and then she started to sh** and kept on going for about four days. LOL.
I think that there's the hoarding we see on TV and because of that we all think that the reasoning is universal, but that there are really different levels to this and different causes for it.
My mother is a hoarder. She has a 2200 sf house, and only one bedroom is clear and useable. Two living areas, one is full of stuff. So she really has the equivalent of a one bedroom apartment as far as accessible space and even with that, part of the kitchen is full of stuff (it is a huge kitchen but still).
She also used to have two large storage units (monthly rentals). She has 2 outdoor storage sheds as well as a rental mobile home in another area that she hasn't rented out for years because it had her stuff in it. She pays lot rent on that mobile home of close to $300 a month. Pretty expensive storage! Oh and a rental unit (3/2 house with 2 car garage) that she gives the renters a break on the rent because she is storing a bunch of her stuff in that garage, 2.5 hours away!
The only reason she doesn't have the rental units anymore is because she couldn't afford the monthly rent and she moved all that stuff into her main house after my Grandma died.
So, she is what you would consider a classic hoarder. She is not extreme to the point of saving trash but all kinds of other "stuff" qualifies and she won't get rid of it, insists someone might need it or goes on about its value. When she has tried in the past to have a yard sale she prices everything way too high, simply because it is hers, it seems to deserve a higher price in her mind. All of her "mess" is stacked/packed in boxes so she sees it as okay. She acknowledges that she has too much crap and she even laughs sometimes when she tells me I will get to deal with it all when she dies! Every attempt at getting her to go through it now and get rid of it now is pointless though.
When my Grandma died, she asked me to help her go through boxes of her old clothes, but then wouldn't part with any of it. I understand being sentimental about something that really represented my Grandma and her style, like special occasion items or a favorite sweater, but my mother wanted to keep ALL the things, everyday things like walmart t-shirts and pull on pants, stuff my Grandmother didn't even pick out and would never have chosen anyway (she had Alzheimer's), stuff that others had bought for her to wear because it was comfy and easy to care for. We spent 3 hours doing this and got rid of maybe 2 items.
Now, I saved baby clothes from when my kids were little but I saved 2 or 3 outfits each, not everything they ever wore from birth to age 2. I suggested she choose a few things my Grandma loved and chose for herself, before the dementia, but she just kept all the Target t-shirts too and worn out old slips from 1970.
Now, I am messy. Very messy. I have "hoarder tendencies" if you look from the outside but it is not about hoarding/keeping stuff at all. It's about not wanting to clean and being disorganized. The main difference I see between me and my mom is that I don't' get attached to stuff. I like to ACQUIRE stuff (thrift shops), then I am lazy about making decisions about it on a regular basis, so I have to do this purging, like spring cleaning, more often than most people would. The difference is, I have zero problems letting it go. And my stuff is not neatly stacked like my mom's. It tends to be wherever, I am very disorganized and I over-estimate the space I have in my living situation. If you told me I needed to move in a month though, I could do it, even if it meant giving tons of stuff to Goodwill or throwing it away (my mother will NOT throw away anything worth more than $.50)... but if you told my mother she had to move in a month she would panic and move stuff around and not be able to get rid of anything.
My mother, on the other hand, ran a "white glove" clean household when I was growing up and constantly nagged about a spilled drop of this or that and pretty much kept on us constantly to clean and tidy up, so she takes a moral high ground when it comes to "my mess" vs "her mess" because hers is, as I said, stacked and boxed and orderly even though it takes up ALL available space. It's bizarre. And I know you can't blame your parents for everythign but I do wonder if there is a connection with my lazy housekeeping habits as an adult and her drill sergeant attitude when I was growing up We do laundry, keep the kitchen clean, keep the cat boxes clean, basic CLEAN/sanitary but the "stuff" is often in disarray, things not in their proper place, and she would have never tolerated that when I was living in her house.
She is attached to things she "gives" you too. You had better not ever give the thing away, sell it, or throw it away even though she 'gave' it to you and she will ask you constantly about the thing, are you using it, is it still working, etc. I learned long ago that it is NOT ever worth it! She is still upset about a portable dishwasher she gave me 10 years ago. She paid $15 for it and it was probably 15 years old at the time she bought it. I used it a year, it quit working, I gave it to some guy to sell for scrap metal. You would have thought I'd given away the only existing copy of the very first Bible or something! She STILL brings it up!
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