Read The Secret Lives of Hoarders: True Stories of Tackling Extreme Clutter Online

Authors: Matt Paxton,Phaedra Hise

Tags: #General, #United States, #Psychology, #Case Studies, #Psychopathology, #Compulsive Behavior, #Compulsive Hoarding - United States, #Compulsive Hoarding, #Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

The Secret Lives of Hoarders: True Stories of Tackling Extreme Clutter (8 page)

BOOK: The Secret Lives of Hoarders: True Stories of Tackling Extreme Clutter
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Ironically, that obsession is actually the root of the problem. Candace frequently got bogged down while she was trying to get control of her stuff because she couldn't make the
perfect
decision about what to do with her things. This dilemma created a constant internal struggle.
Candace would look at a stack of books and want to line them up neatly on a shelf. But of course there was no empty shelf in her house. Based on her behavior during the initial stages of the cleanup, I can only imagine her internal dialogue: “You're doing this all wrong, you need an empty shelf. Don't listen to those people trying to help you; they don't know how to do it correctly. You can do the job way better by yourself. There's just so much to do besides these books, and wait, you are doing it all wrong!”
So instead of cleaning off a shelf, or maybe deciding to donate the books, Candace became overwhelmed and exhausted and would then just toss the books onto a growing pile. She truly believed she would get to the mess later, but later never came.
Obsessive people can also become overwhelmed by fears: of losing an important item or information; of others touching or moving their possessions; of missing out on a special sale purchase. The sum of these fears can contribute to hoarding. Just as a person with classic OCD finds relief in repetitious actions or rituals, some OCD hoarders collect things not only to feel good but also to fight off discomfort and pain. Dr. Chabaud has worked with OCD hoarders who are driven by a need to protect their families—they feel if they don't buy a spare set of sheets then their entire family will be in peril because a hurricane might come one day and level the house, and leave them with no bedding.
There are a few other classic yet rarer OCD symptoms that can lead to hoarding. A person with an obsession for cleanliness won't touch anything that has touched the floor. So whatever falls there remains there—and accumulates exponentially. Some people develop a compulsion to save hair or nail clippings, feces, or anything they may have touched, and they won't get rid of it. There can be process compulsions—the need to go through a long mental checklist before an item can be thrown away. Rather than go through this ritual, the hoarder will postpone the decision and the stuff piles up. I've also heard of OCD hoarders who become obsessed with buying sets of things, or buying things in even numbers.
When hoarding is driven by OCD, it's all about perfectionism, indecision, and procrastination. You will see the hoarder get bogged down in making decisions about which items to donate, throw away, or keep. He or she will probably have to touch every item as it leaves the house, checking things off on a “mental inventory.” A hoarder with OCD can often handle the items leaving a home, but not knowing if the item is there or not messes up the inventory in his or her head and creates constant mental violence.
Children Who Hoard
DR. SUZANNE CHABAUD,
who works with clients with OCD and hoarding issues, says a significant number of children with OCD are also hoarders and their hoarding is sometimes a very early symptom. Kids who hoard have a lower response to medication than OCD kids who don't hoard.
Hoarder children exhibit pronounced tendencies of indecision, procrastination, and perfectionism. They don't want to let things go, they can't make a choice about what toys to keep and what to donate. Or the children get fixated on “just right.” For instance, they find the exactly perfect place for a stuffed bear, and then the bear can't be moved. Moving the bear would upset the perfect order of things.
Not all children who become hoarders have OCD, of course.Their behavior may be learned if they are growing up in a hoarder house. Some children of hoarders never learn to set limits on their possessions, or basic cleaning and organizing techniques. On the other hand, children with OCD may react in exactly the opposite way, and always try to carve out a neat little space for themselves in a cluttered household.
▶
Anxiety
With her long denim jumper, huge blue eyes, and helmet of gray hair, Thalia looked every inch the kindly grandmother that she was. Thalia was also a Stage 5 hoarder whose incessant talking and constant fluttering of her hands were classic signs of high anxiety. Time and again during her cleanup, she became so agitated that she would suffer a meltdown and the entire process would come to a halt. She admitted that she was in therapy, and she had prescription medication bottles littered through the house. But if any of it was antianxiety medication, it didn't seem to be very effective.
Thalia's house was full of knickknacks like salt and pepper shakers and other china figurines. She also had lots of memorabilia from her volunteer work in local elections in her Pennsylvania suburb—banners, yard signs, photos of her with the candidates.
Thalia's anxiety was so high that she was unable to make any decision—ever. A stack of campaign flyers would send her into a tizzy. One can only imagine what was going on in her head:
What if there is something important in that stack of documents and it gets thrown away? What if one of these flyers is valuable because it is now history? Is all this memorabilia worth any money? Could anyone I care about use that flyer? Will my family finally love me because I saved them these valuable historical documents ? Wait, there may be some cockroaches in those papers, maybe they are too gross to move. I don't want to make a mess because then I will have to clean up. Who would I call to take care of the roaches? Can I afford to hire pest control? Oh no, I don't want anyone to see my house. Wow, what time is it? I really need to get working on these papers. But now I'm tired, I'll lie down and rest. I'll worry about the papers tomorrow. What do I have to do tomorrow? Do I have anything important I have forgotten? Where is my phone? Oh no, I can't find my phone. Did I lose my cell phone or did someone steal it? I bet someone stole my cell phone. Oh no, I can't afford a new phone. What am I going to do . . . ? Oh, here it is under some papers. Gosh, there sure is a lot of paper here. What am I going to do about all this paper? I wonder if there is something important in these papers. . . .
Anxiety can completely paralyze a hoarder. Thalia was simply unable to help herself. Even though she wasn't physically active, her mental gymnastics exhausted her. When anxiety becomes this crippling, it needs to be treated with medication and/or therapy before cleaning can even begin.
Anxiety disorder is a general term that covers a range conditions including panic disorder, several phobias, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder. (OCD hoarders have traditionally been grouped under anxiety disorder, but they have been discussed separately since they do portray distinctive behavioral characteristics.)
The latest studies on hoarding suggest that it may be its own subset of anxiety disorder and not part of OCD. Researchers are debating whether there should be a new category of psychology called “compulsive disorders,” which would include hoarding, OCD, and perhaps drug and alcohol abuse.
While the medical profession is still figuring out how all of these disorders are connected, in my experience, most hoarders have anxiety issues. Dr. Chabaud points out that a hoarder's intense apprehensiveness is driven by fear—fear of real or imagined danger. All hoarders are attached to their objects, and so all of them will get anxious when someone starts taking those items away. A hoarder who has spent twenty years collecting something begins to identify with those items. Taking them away is like taking
the person
away. Anxiety is a natural reaction to such a severe threat.
Dr. Chabaud also says that hoarders who have a compulsive need to shop, for example, do so because it reduces their anxiety. The urge to buy is so intense that if someone tells the hoarder to stop, he or she starts to feel angry, irritable, scared, and anxious. People often ask me how a hoarder can have the energy to shop, but not have the energy to clean. For a hoarder, shopping has nothing to do with energy; it is completely about relieving anxiety and feeling good.
Hoarders are quick to go into anxiety mode when faced with making a decision about throwing items away. The anxiety is so overwhelming, and painful, that the hoarder avoids it by postponing decisions. Hoarders truly believe that they will get to the task tomorrow, but that day never comes.
▶
Attention Deficit (Hyperactivity) Disorder (ADD/ADHD)
Lucy, the craft hoarder who baked all the cakes, wanted to finally clean out her house after she retired. As long as someone was there working alongside Lucy, she was on it. She was hyper-focused on cleaning, and she could get through a room more quickly than most hoarders I've worked with. But on the days that nobody was helping her, and she had boxes to sort through on her own, she got too distracted to do the job. Unfortunately, she would go shopping instead.
Lucy would go shopping and load up on craft items, not stopping to think about the reality of what she really had time to do. “I can crochet a hundred fifty baby blankets this year,” she would tell herself. “I know I only made three last year, but this year will be different. I have to buy all this yarn now so I can have my materials on hand when I'm ready to get started. If I go ahead and buy the yarn, then that will motivate me to actually get it done! And these cookie sheets are on sale; if I buy them, I will finish the blankets faster since I also want to make cookies. I know! I'll give cookies along with the blankets! I just have to stay focused and I can totally do it.”
Lucy's ADHD drove her hoarding in that she was distracted by too many hobbies and bought endless supplies for each one. Also, she didn't keep track of what she already had, so she was buying duplicates.
Lucy was smart, and she wanted to stay clean. This wasn't about laziness or a lack of education. Lucy's brain just worked differently. Hoarders like her have got to treat the ADHD first, usually with a combination of medication and therapy, or they just won't be able to master the processes required to stay clutter-free.
The connection to ADHD is an easy one to make. Someone who is easily distracted and has difficulty sticking to a plan could become overwhelmed by keeping track of his or her possessions.
Dr. Chabaud has found that with ADHD, it's difficult to tell which comes first. For example, do people start hoarding because they have ADHD issues, can't focus, and overbuy when shopping? Or is it that a hoarder is so confused by the collecting compulsion that his or her brain starts to get easily distracted in other areas?
Because Lucy was easily distracted, she just wasn't going to reliably follow through with things like folding laundry, washing dirty dishes, or even getting basic housekeeping done. And once she fell behind on those tasks, she felt so overwhelmed that she had no idea where to even start.
The hallmark of ADHD is that the “executive function” part of the brain doesn't work very well. This is the brain's “boss,” essentially, driving the person's ability to sort, prioritize, and categorize tasks. A hoarder with ADHD can't really make rational decisions about what to do. This hoarder also tends to fight structure and order, preferring to be spontaneous. Organization can look too controlling to a person with ADHD, like it might stifle the person's creativity and impetuous nature.
Throwing items away seems risky, because in the ADHD world things are always getting misplaced. If an item with sentimental value gets lost, the memories might disappear with it, so the hoarder prefers to just keep everything. The most important items—whatever the ADHD person is holding at the moment—go “right here on top” of the piles. That's how the piles grow. Everything in every pile is in some way important to a hoarder.
Also, ADHD hoarders have trouble thinking through “what-if” scenarios. For example, how likely is the hoarder to actually fix that broken clock radio? What are the chances the hoarder will actually find the missing pieces to the board game? More important, with whom is the hoarder going to play that game? These scenarios probably aren't going to end satisfactorily, but someone with impaired executive function in the brain can't weigh the likelihood of that.
Finally, another hallmark of ADHD is the tendency to
overfocus
on a process or event and lose sight of the big picture, which means Lucy may not have even seen the house in its entirety. She may have seen only one pile at a time, and not realized—or subconsciously chosen not to accept—the extent of the problem.
▶
Addiction
Kurt was a shopping hoarder whose house, like Marcie's, was filled with purchases still in their original bags and packaging. He was a compulsive shopper who lived for the thrill of finding a sale item, of comparing pricing and getting value for his money. Kurt liked nothing better than to deck himself out in a suit, gold chains, and watch; spritz on a little cologne; style his toupee—and go shopping. He felt important and totally in control.
Kurt admitted that he knew he was getting himself into debt and worsening his hoarding, but the act of shopping made him feel so good that he justified it to himself. On any given day he'd head off to his favorite big-box store, and he might tell himself that he'd just see what the sales were but wouldn't actually buy anything. But then he would come home with hundreds of dollars' worth of items. One could imagine his rationalization: “I know I shouldn't do this; my credit card is maxed out. But this jacket fits me perfectly and it's such a bargain. And my sister would love this silk flower arrangement. If I buy it for her, then she will come over and we can sit and have coffee like we used to. I should get new coffee mugs since this set is on sale. What the heck, my credit card will probably get turned down anyway.”
When Kurt's card went through and he had toted his new purchases home, the guilt would set in. “I shouldn't have bought that much stuff,” he would think. “I have got to stop shopping so much. I will bring those mugs back tomorrow. I'll put them on this pile of other things that I have got to take back. Boy, this place is a mess. I have got to start sorting through this stuff and sell some of it online. I know I can get a lot of money for it.” But instead of sorting, Kurt would just go shopping again the next day.
BOOK: The Secret Lives of Hoarders: True Stories of Tackling Extreme Clutter
2.14Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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