Oh My Goodness - there are others THE SAME!

I have just been tweeted a message.  There is a new book out by Fugen Neziroglu, Ph.D., ABBP, ABPP, is the co-author of a recently published book, “Children of Hoarders: How to Minimize Conflict, Reduce the Clutter, and Improve Your Relationship,”

The tweet had a link showing a whole hour of the US TV show 'Hoarders'.  I thought I would have a peek as I have not seen the show before.  I ended up watching the whole hour.

WOW!  I noticed the two main hoarders featured were able to talk and communicate with the camera totally normally, calmly and rationally about their individual hoards.  Totally normal looking and sounding people.  You would not look twice at these people in the street.  No, I was not expecting them to have two heads but I always imagined the typical hoarder to perhaps look a bit scruffy and unkempt - a bit scraggy around the edges and a bit rough.  Not so the ones on this show - they all blended into my idea of how a normal person would appear.  Smartly dressed in all cases no hint of the chaos where they lived.  They both admitted there was a problem which they would like to deal with.  They both accepted help from the TV show to help them de-clutter. Both of their houses were hoarded beyond belief.  I believe there was evidence of rodents in both the properties and neither of the hoarders were able to sleep in their own beds. 

 Imagine giving over your own precious bed to junk.  You would think as soon as it got that bad you would stop.  How can you get a proper night's sleep on a sofa?

One of the hoarders was about to be evicted if he did not deal with the issue.

Even though these poor people's quality of life had deteriorated to the extent they could not use their bathroom or bed for the purposes intended, they were still collecting.  

The families of all the hoarders on the programmes evidently very much loved their hoarding relative and WANTED TO HELP.  It appeared the actual hoarder was able to blank out the problem until confronted by other people in their own house throwing out their stuff.  They were OK for a while and then C R A C K  - they all did it.  Their sweet and charming outer facade cracked in very similar ways.  As if they had been holding back from showing  emotion and then suddenly they could hold back no more and they cracked.

All said they could not deal with this' right now' - it the very time they had willing helpers, psychiatrists, family and bin lorries and the most ideal time to deal with it.  They all displayed total disproportionate (in my opinion) anger at those trying to help.  One accused her daughter of interfering when really she wasn't.  The other was being frustratingly stubborn about keeping stiff whose boxes had been eaten by vermin.  Unable to explain logically why he wanted to keep these items he just got angry and frustrated and just put his foot down about keeping them.

Imelda does that.  If I try to go through his items one by one, we have a chat about the item, we agree it can 'probably' go out. We get as far as the - 'We already have many of these and this one is an old and broken one. Out of all the ones we have in the house this is the worst condition and the oldest and so this is the most likely to be able to go out' pile.  Instead of making a decision considering all logical outcomes, Imelda will take the thing from me and put it aside for 'later'.  Aside will be on a different pile where the thing will remain.

My case is slightly different as these hoarders on this programme had either asked for help or had been persuaded to accept it for their own health and well being by well intended family members.

Imelda has NEVER asked for help, nor has he ever admitted he has a problem!

Anyway, from my observations this hoarding behaviour and even to a large extent the hoarders themselves to seem to display similar hoarding and personality traits too.

It is good to know I am not alone.  I can really feel for the families trying to help though.  I know your frustrations.

:)