"You can’t take it with
you."
—Kaufman and Hart
Unless you’ve been living on
another planet, you’ve probably noticed the
ever-increasing media coverage over the last few
years around the "latest" disorder:
hoarding. Several cable programs on hoarding
have garnered big ratings and endless
fascination: A&E’s "Hoarders,"
TLC’s "Hoarding: Buried Alive"
and "Storage Wars,"
Animal Planet’s "Animal Hoarders,"
and OWN’s "Enough Already!"
And you thought you or someone you know was the
only one with this "secret." Of
course, these TV programs tend to highlight the
more extreme cases of hoarding, but hoarding is
either on the rise or we’re finally starting
to come to terms with it. While statistics and
prevalence are still sketchy, here’s what the
latest research shows:
Hoarding affects about 6-15
million Americans—2010, Time magazine
There are over 75 U.S. National
Hoarding Taskforces—2010, Time
magazine
Personal consumption
expenditures and storage unit rentals
increased over 20% since 1980—U.S. Chamber
of Commerce
I became interested in studying
and treating hoarding disorder several years ago
when many of my counseling clients divulged
their struggles with clutter and
stuff—especially my clients who were
compulsive shoppers or shoplifters. I also
recognized several family members and friends
who were "packrats" and, bit-by-bit,
even found my office getting disorganized. Then,
it occurred to me: my father had been a hoarder,
too! And for every hoarder still
"hiding" behind closed doors, more
public faces of this disorder are "coming
out," including Micahaele Salahi, Heidi
Montag and Spencer Pratt, Lisa Kudrow, Mariah
Carey, Kevin Federline, Celine Dion, Marie
Osmond and Paris Hilton (17 dogs might qualify
as animal hoarding).
Looking at the bigger picture
Society has encouraged
super-consumerism; hoarding often is its
byproduct. When everyone bought a home before
the housing bubble burst, we had to fill those
homes up, didn’t we? And if there wasn’t
enough room in your McMansion, have we got a
storage unit for you! Or two, or three or four!
But what, actually, is hoarding?
Compulsive hoarding (a.k.a. pathological
hoarding or disposophobia) is a hard condition
to pin down. While no clear clinical definition
or set of diagnostic criteria exist, certain
defining features have been identified by
researchers in dealing with chronic hoarders.
These criteria include:
The acquisition of and failure
to discard a large number of possessions that
appear to be useless or of limited value;
Living spaces sufficiently
cluttered so as to preclude activities for
which those spaces were designed;
Significant distress or
impairment in function by hoarding; and
Reluctance or inability to
return borrowed items; as boundaries blur,
impulsive acquisitiveness could sometimes lead
to stealing or kleptomania.
There are different degrees of
hoarding—from a Level I to a Level V—and
there are different things that people hoard,
including:
New purchased items;
Used purchased items (from
garage sales, flea markets, discount stores);
Freebies and junk (picked out
of garbage, the side of the road, etc…);
Food;
Animals;
Newspapers, magazines, bills,
other papers;
Scraps or parts for artistic or
utilitarian projects; and
Intangibles (email, DVR
recordings, etc.)
Hoarding can lead to many
negative consequences, including:
Loss of money;
Loss of time;
Loss of relationships;
Shame and embarrassment and
isolation;
Arguments with loved ones;
Germs and disease;
Accidents and injuries;
Loss of freedom and movement; and
Increased mental illness
(especially depression, anxiety and OCD)
Why Do People Hoard?
While pioneers and experts in the
field of hoarding are still unlocking the puzzle
of what causes hoarding, it’s believed that
hoarding has both genetic and socialized
components (nature and nurture). Hoarding has
been related to obsessive-compulsive disorder
and anxiety disorder but it is distinct in
itself. Theories about what causes hoarding
include:
Getting a high from
accumulating and feel pain/anxiety when
discarding;
Reaction to change, trauma,
loss, stress—control over little things;
Social anxiety/phobia,
isolation/protection;
Shaky sense of self and
over-identification with objects;
Problems with
attention/organization
Problems processing
information/categorizing;
Problems making decisions;
Problems with memory (too
much/too little); and
Attempts to experience safety,
security, control
Case Studies:
Cathy,
a 50ish married mother of three started
overshopping and hoarding around the time her
first daughter became very ill at age 3. Her
husband, Don, was an overspender, too, but
eventually became a penny-pinching workaholic. He
became increasingly angry and controlling and
threw out some of Cathy’s things without asking
her. "It’s me or the stuff!" he’d
yell. Through several months of counseling, Cathy
began to understand what triggered her hoarding
and found the skills and support to de-clutter her
home, improve her self-esteem and confidence, and
confront the underlying issues in her marriage.
Mark,
a 40-year old single father with a 10-year old
son, used to be meticulously clean and orderly
before his son’s birth. Since then, he started
to buy excessive amounts of toys for him and
developed hoarding disorder with food, papers,
coupons, and various items. He worried his son
would become a hoarder and experienced a great
deal of anxiety over his
"stuff"—procrastinating endlessly,
which kept him stuck in unsatisfying relationships
and menial jobs. Since beginning to address his
hoarding and underlying issues, he went back to
school for a year to learn a new trade for which
he has a true passion and recently graduated with
the top Grade Point Average in his class.
Bonnie,
a 50ish divorced woman and certified financial
planner, began overshopping and hoarding about ten
years ago shortly after her mother’s death. She
has eight storage units of belongings in three
different states, costing her nearly $10,000/year.
A self-described workaholic, Bonnie recently wound
up in the hospital from exhaustion and poor diet.
She started dating a man and they moved in
together. He was concerned about her shopping,
hoarding, and her health. Bonnie, an extremely
smart person who is phenomenal at assisting others
with their financial well-being, felt hypocritical
about her own money decisions and was feeling
increasingly stressed over her
"baggage."
Corrine,
a 60ish writer and journalist, never married and
no kids, had a long history of overshopping—especially
bargain hunting—which still got her into deep
debt and led to losing her long-time home a year
ago. In the process of moving, she confronted her
hoarding disorder and her attachment to stuff. As
she downsized three times over the last year, each
time she had to reassess what was really important
to her. In letting go of her home and most of her
things, she grieved but felt lighter and found
inner peace.
TIPS for Dealing with Hoarding
Admit you have a problem and need
help;
Seek professional, specialized
counseling/therapy;
Read books/watch TV programs on
this subject;
Visit the websites
www.hoardingtherapy.com and
www.hoardersanonymous.org;
See support groups (Messies
Anonymous, Clutterers Anonymous);
Hire a professional organizer;
Set a timer to clean a certain
amount of time per day;
If you are trying to help a
hoarder, don’t move or throw out their
possessions;
Seek help categorizing things:
trash, keepers, recycling, gifts, for sale; and
Maintain order and cleanliness
through ongoing support/accountability
Terrence Daryl Shulman, is the Founder/Director of The Shulman Center for Compulsive
Theft, Spending & Hoarding in Franklin/Southfield, Michigan.
He has authored four books, including the recently published
Cluttered Lives, Empty Souls: Compulsive Stealing, Spending &
Hoarding (2011, Infinity Publishing). He offers specialized
counseling and consulting in person, by phone and via Skype. He
can be reached at 248-358-8508 or terrenceshulman@theshulmancenter.com.
His websites include www.theshulmancenter.com and
www.hoardingtherapy.com.