The hidden beauty of hoarding

[n2doc]

Psychologist Randy Frost assumed that hoarding was a deeply anti-social disorder. Then he got to know Irene.
POSTED ON MAY 7, 2010, AT 2:18 PM

ABOUT 15 YEARS ago, I received a desperate phone call from a woman named Irene. She had found me by contacting the Obsessive Compulsive Foundation and asking for someone who might help her with her hoarding problem. Irene was 53 and had just separated from her husband. She had two children—a 13-year-old daughter, Julia, who was away at boarding school, and a 9-year-old son, Eric, who lived at home. Her husband, an engineer, had been after her for years to get rid of her clutter, which waxed and waned but never went away. Finally, he told her to clean it up or he would leave. She couldn’t, so he did. Now she was worried that she would lose her children, in the upcoming divorce, because of the conditions she lived in.

I spotted Irene’s home immediately after my 90-minute drive from Northampton, Mass. Despite its commanding view from atop a hill, the house was dark and gloomy. Overgrown trees and bushes hid much of it from the street. Its paint was peeling, and its fence needed mending. A car parked in the driveway was packed with papers and clothes. I had brought along a student assistant, Tamara, and as we walked toward the house, we could see boxes, newspapers, clothes, and an assortment of unidentifiable objects pressed against the windows.

We knocked on the front door but got no answer. We found a side door and knocked. Something stirred inside the house. Behind us, a door to the garage opened, and out stepped Irene, slightly overweight and rumpled, with straight brown hair and a friendly smile. She introduced herself with a nervous laugh and invited us in: “You can’t get in that way. You’ll have to come through the garage.”

Inside the garage we found a narrow path—through a chest-high jumble of boxes, tools, and bags—to the only door in her house not blocked by debris.

more
http://theweek.com/article/index/202751/the-last-word-the-hidden-beauty-of-hoarding

[Richardo]

1. Fascinating article - thanks for posting

n2doc, I have to say I really appreciate both the TOON and Science-oriented material you post. Kudos and thank you! :patriot:

[Fumesucker]

2. I found this part of the article particularly interesting... Thanks for posting.

Some researchers have posited that people with hoarding tendencies form attachments to possessions instead of people. The social psychologist Erich Fromm claimed that a “hoarding orientation” leads to social withdrawal. Hoarders, he suggested, are remote and suspicious, preferring the company of objects to that of people.

Irene, however, defied this categorization. She had a wide circle of friends, and it was easy to see why people liked her. She laughed easily and was often amused by the ironies of her plight. One day, as she pondered why she had saved a newspaper ad for new tires, she fell into gales of laughter when she noticed the headline: SAVE THIS AD. As Irene came more and more to seem like a model subject, the classic definition of hoarding as a socially isolating syndrome appeared to be flawed. One of Irene’s favorite things, she said, was to make connections between people with mutual interests. Unfortunately, her gift for seeing such connections was a factor in her keeping virtually everything she acquired.

Irene was well educated and had a wide range of interests. She seemed to know something about almost every subject, and she had a story to tell about each possession—most of them remarkably detailed and engaging. One day she found a piece of paper with a name and phone number on it among the pile of things on her kitchen table and excitedly recounted its history: “This is a young girl I met at a store about a year ago. She’s Hawaiian and had such wonderful stories about Hawaii that I thought Julia would like to write to her. They are about the same age. She was such an interesting person, I was sure Julia would enjoy getting to know her.” Her face lit up at the prospect of making this connection. “But Julia wasn’t interested. I thought about writing her myself, but I never did. Still, I don’t want to get rid of the contact. Julia might change her mind.”

I had met few people who were as interested in the world around them as Irene, though I later learned that this attribute is fairly common in people with hoarding problems. As Irene talked, I could see the way her possessions formed the fabric of her life. The advertisement for the tires led to a story about her car, which led to a story about her daughter wanting to drive, and so on. A piece of the hoarding puzzle seemed to be falling into place: Instead of replacing people with possessions, Irene was using possessions to make connections between people and to the world at large.

[BanzaiBonnie]

3. The article is a good one, they are beginning to get it

I think this fellow really begins to understand how some of us view the world. I seem to view everything as equally important and it causes me to hold onto everything. I might need it someday!

I do have a lovely, fairly tidy house, but there are a couple of rooms where things tend to clutter. I have learned to be ruthless, but could fall into hoarding behavior in about a minute.


I remember in school having the same kind of problem with sorting of important events or ideas. I see everything as a whole; equally important. Remember when you had to read a paragraph in a test and pick out the important points? I always got those wrong. Every event had equal value. That's also why I'm a terrible story teller. Details, I get bogged down in the details because they look important. They're part of the story.

[Berry Cool]

4. I am surprised this writer was this surprised by what is called "beauty"

in this article. Of course, to people with this problem, it's not beautiful at all, it's horrible. Their caring for others, their ability to see connections or possible connections in a world of objects and people, is beautiful, but it's also crippling. I know, because I have some issues with being able to throw things away, with engaging in too much "churning," with not being able to set priorities or with deciding that "I will act on this soon and not forget about it" and then coming up with 5,000 things I will act on soon and not forget--and it makes misery.

I told a friend of mine once that I suspect a large part of what people hoard when they hoard is not objects to their mind, but POTENTIAL they don't want to throw away--their own potential to be more and do more than they currently are. They MUST hoard yarn because someday they might take up knitting again. They MUST hoard newspapers and magazines because someday they might actually read them all, or share the articles with people they care about and help them or bring them pleasure. They MUST save that piece of clothing in disrepair because it might come back into fashion and they might fix the rips. They MUST save those coupons because they might buy the things discounted on the coupons. They MUST save the recipes because someday they might cook them all. They MUST save that old broken appliance because they might someday repair it and sell it on eBay for big money. They MUST keep all those unwanted animals because someday they might find homes for them all.

To let these objects, and these animals, go, to their minds, is to admit defeat and failure. To finally admit: No, I'm never going to knit again. No, I'm never going to read or clip all those newspapers and magazines. No, I'm never going to fix that piece of clothing, buy that merchandise, cook all those dishes or repair that appliance. No, there are too many animals and I can't possibly find homes for them all.

Yet, if they KEEP all those things, they remain people with potential: people who MIGHT do all those things in a glorious Someday that never comes.

People who have these problems need help not to drown in their own indecisiveness and anxiety and immobility and fear of failure. Those things are not beautiful.

[GreenPartyVoter]

5. As a hoarder myself, I found that very interesting. I would have liked to have read more.

[kestrel91316]

6. Buy the book and read it. It sounds fascinating. I have to constantly guard

against the tendency to hang onto crap in my own life.

"......Excerpted from STUFF: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things by Randy O. Frost and Gail Steketee. Copyright © 2010 by Randy O. Frost and Gail Steketee....."

I have found David Allen's book Getting Things Done to be a big help in organizing my life, my stuff, and my do lists. So much of what this woman has hung onto could just be stuck into Outlook on a computer and take up no space at all.