5 Deep Insights Gained from Watching Hoarders
Hoarders and Hoarding: Buried Alive are two of the most perversely entertaining shows on television. Both feature efforts to help people who’ve crammed their homes with so much trash, animals, or gaudy treasures that it’s almost impossible to move. Most of the time, they have trouble using the bathroom and have to cook in tiny, dangerous spaces. They often end up sleeping on garbage. Some of these people even end up crapping in buckets and sharing their crumbling houses with lizards and rats because there is just so much junk in the way that they don’t feel like they have any other choice.
It’s easy to feel superior to someone so damaged that he’d live in a cluttered pile of filth that most of us wouldn’t let our dogs wander into, but there are actually some deep insights into human behavior that you can pick up from watching the shows, even if your house doesn’t look like it was picked up by a tornado and dropped into the city dump.
1) We can become accustomed to even the worst of problems instead of fixing them.
Many of the hoarders you see on those shows have gotten used to living in homes where they hear rats rustling around at night or where it smells so bad that first-time visitors struggle not to vomit. That’s possible not just because we humans are very adaptable creatures with a talent for lying to ourselves, but because we take many of our cues about what’s acceptable from the people around us. Since hoarders are ashamed of the mess they live in, they tend to isolate themselves from other people who might note that they shouldn’t eat food with mold on it or just start peeing in a jug every day instead of getting the toilet fixed. Give it a few years for things to deteriorate and next thing you know, it makes sense to a hoarder that they slept on a four year old bag of doughnuts last night.
Human beings, by their very nature, are all vulnerable to this same process. So, it’s worth asking yourself, “Have I let my standards slide and told myself there’s no other choice? Is there anything I’m doing that I’m so ashamed of that I have to hide it from people? Have I accepted something in my life as ‘just the way it is’ when I should be doing the hard work it takes to make my life better?”
Tony Robbins has noted, “The only way for us to have long-term happiness is to live by our highest ideals.“ Whether it’s hoarding or some other problem, ultimately our happiness will depend on tackling it rather than learning to live with a self-imposed limitation.
2) So many of our troubles are caused by our own lack of persistency and consistency.
If we set aside the mental illness that hoarders have, what makes their situation so difficult to deal with? After all, cleaning isn’t tough. Literally BILLIONS of people across the planet will successfully do some sort of small cleaning task in their home today. So, why is it hard for hoarders? Because we’re talking about people who haven’t cleaned for years, if not decades. Eventually, a simple task that could be done in a few minutes each day turns into an arduous task that will take hundreds or even thousands of man hours to complete.
Much of life is like that. In fact, as the old saying goes, “It’s likely that whatever challenges you have faced in your life currently could have been avoided by some better decisions upstream.” Time and time again, we create problems for ourselves either by doing dumb things that we know are dumb or by refusing to do the right thing when we know better. We do this again and again and create oceans that we have to swim out of that once were puddles we could have stepped over. What “hoard” are you creating in your life today with your inaction and what are you going to do to “clean it up” before it gets out of control?
3) It’s all about a human connection.
The very first thing that’s done to help a hoarder on both shows is to get his friends and family involved. Not only does revealing how bad things have gotten help the hoarder realize how far off the rails he’s gone, rebuilding a connection with people who care about him provides an alternative to his hoard. Instead of trying and failing to fill their empty lives with things, hoarders get what they’re really looking for: love, friendship, and a human connection.
C.S. Lewis is one of the most quotable human beings ever to walk the earth and perhaps the wisest thing he ever said was, “Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our lives.” You may not start a garbage pile in your living room or let 50 cats have the run of your house because you don’t have anyone in your life, but one way or the other, not being able to bathe in the milk of human kindness will leave a mark on you. Whatever else you do in life, don’t give up on reaching out to other people and trying to make connections. Your life may not literally depend on it, but the quality of your life certainly does.
4) You’ve got to accept that people are gone.
After a bit of probing from the therapists on Hoarders and Hoarding: Buried Alive, the hoarders often reveal that their behavior either started or dramatically ramped up after some kind of loss. The kids moved out of the house, a marriage disintegrated, or someone died. The saddest one may have been a woman named Ruth who lost two sons and a husband. Her spouse’s death traumatized her so much that she left his pants on the dresser where he had thrown them for TWELVE YEARS as her house filled up with junk.
When you lose someone you love, either because he dies or just doesn’t want to be around you anymore, it can turn into a wound that you carry around with you. Over time, most of those wounds are transformed through the grieving process into scars, although some of them never heal completely. The problem can be that some people errantly think that they demonstrate their love through suffering over the loss. So, they keep picking at their wound and it never closes. Revisiting that loss again and again, staying trapped in it like a fly caught in amber, serves no one. Not only does it make you unhappy, but it also fails to honor the memory of the person you lost. Even if it did, no one who really loved you would want you to spend years and years suffering on his behalf while your life falls to pieces.
5) “Things” aren’t going to make you happy.
Not every hoarder collects trash and lives in filth. Some of them have spent tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars on shopping-channel goodies, antiques, and collectibles. These aren’t just people who have their favorite things; these are people who have their favorite things coming out of their ears. They’ve got their favorite things in every room, on every wall, in every nook and corner of the house. They have so many of their favorite things in their house that they can’t walk from one part of the house to the other without stepping on one of their favorite things. Yet they’re usually deeply unhappy, isolated people who are failing at life.
In our consumption-oriented, easy-credit, buy-it-today, pay-for-it-next-year, shopping-channel, and Amazon-oriented society, there’s a lesson there. Once you get beyond the basics and have clothes on your back, food in your belly, and a roof over your head, things aren’t going to make you happy. Sure, they may be fun for a little while, just as a child is excited to get a new toy. But eventually, the “favorite toy” goes into the toy box and it is forgotten. It’s no different for adults. The new car gets old, the cool gadget gets boring, and after a few weeks, you stop noticing the incredible view that made your house so much more expensive. The point isn’t that your possessions are meaningless or that you shouldn’t want to have nice things; it’s that no one should confuse the little thrill you get from buying something new with long-term happiness because it’s not even remotely the same thing.
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Related at PJ Lifestyle:
re: #5-
A corollary of this is for hoarders is self-esteem/power/status.
I’ve unfortunately had the pleasure of knowing a few hoarders and each one was someone who (in their own eyes) fell short of some other person/persons in terms of life accomplishments – a brother, a father, an aunt, a schoolhood friend, etc. – and are trying to compensate by having all the stuff they accumulate. In their own minds the “stuff” makes up for the perceived deficiencies in their life.
It’s a mental condition. Some can control it as seen on the show. Some cannot — as seen on the show.
City governments should enforce the laws. The neighbors are victims of rats and stench. The city govts. waste millions in taxpayers money on govt. provided lawyers and govt. inspectors.
While everything in the above article is true, hoarding is also a compulsion. Yes, the predilection to hoard compulsively can be triggered or aggravated by life stresses. From what I’ve observed, this predilection seems to run in families. Sometimes medication prescribed by a doctor is necessary to overcome the compulsion.
My family seems to be free from it. I live in a motorhome where space is very limited. Any time something comes in (even the necessities), something else has to go out. Junk mail and trash get taken out promptly (trash pickup goes with our lot rental). Nothing stays in the motorhome unless there’s an awfully good reason for it to be there. Feel the freedom!!!
This is a good article, everyone will see a little of themselves in the reasons for not keeping up with the standard of living we all want. Seeing what it means by not doing it helps, thanks for the nudge
Nice column, John.
But I don’t know how to put this. You need to lose some weight. You are hoarding. Of course you know this. And as far as I know, you are single. You know that, too.
I use to be fat myself. 130 pounds worth. Now I am thin again, and some of my obese family is following my example.
And I am single too. But I am not the type to imply being married is an act of patriotism. Which is one interpretation of the conservative view.
I suppose my pointing these things out, is because I am a demented, compulsively critical person. Maybe even “toxic” (like a liberal. [sorry liberals]). Actually, I know I am (and i notice lately i use the word “I” a lot. [but still miss-spell words with "i" in them!]). But since these things are biggies, they undermine the message.
You might try looking into “P.A.C.E.” training, by Dr. Al Sears. His claim is, cardio is dead, because it is ineffective. And takes too much time. The problem I have with reading his books all the way through is, they say I have been hurting myself with the old fashioned approach to fitness (i suppose this means everyone else is hurting themselves too). I have a resentment against him. I’m trying to deal with it (well, not so far). I saved my own life with the old fashioned approach. I don’t want to be someone who hates people for being right (like a liberal. [sorry again, liberals. i use to be one with a small "l"]).
As far as being single goes, I feel women are being dishonest when they say, they want men to stand up to them, and take charge. They might even be lying. But I have seen what happens when women do admit it (you don’t want to know). Or what happens when men talk them into admitting it (you really, really, don’t want to know).
I do not know about women any more than you do. Or Freud. But I am beginning to think Freud was right about his most crack-brained theory. Women have penis envy. They are enraged at God, or nature, for “castrating” them. So they take it out on us. Which means he wasn’t so cracked brained after all (too bad he was a coke-head).
At any rate, this is a good column. I am fighting the impulse to post it, and not post it. If people ignore it, I will be relived, and annoyed. If someone responds negatively, I will be depressed. And if anyone likes it, I will be vindicated forever.
Women are not enraged at God for “castrating” them.
They are enraged because men get treated better than them.
Glad I could clear that up for you.
Sad that you don’t realize how privileged you are, having been born female.
I’m just wondering how you know the author is fat. Sure, his headshot shows a round face, but I’ve known plenty of people who have chubby faces and skinny bodies (and vice versa, though not nearly as many).
Unless you have a personal relationship with a person it’s really no ones business if someone else is fat. This is the kind of liberal busybody attitude that has government interfering in every corner of our lives. I have never known any overweight person who wasn’t aware of their condition and either wanted to correct it, did correct it or didn’t care to correct it and I never once thought it was my place to tell them which to choose. We’re already inundated with information about every conceivable product and opinion to correct anything that could be wrong or could go wrong with us mentally or physically. It’s up the individual to decide what information is important to them. We used to have freedom of individual choice now we have only herd mandate.
Excellent piece, loaded with wisdom and insight.
Agreed, I got a lot out of this. One of the best things I’ve read in a while.
Hoarders is the first and the better of the two programs, IMHO.
I watch them both as cautionary tales; I have some of the same make-up as the people portrayed in both series. There is also a book called Stuff, I believe, which I have read, and it was quite interesting.
Hoarding behavior is pretty strongly patterned behavior, and I have learned a number of decision-making tips from both programs that have helped me take a lot of things to Goodwill before my possessions get too piled-up and messy.
I have also learned to resist purchasing items that I do not have an immediate need for; at least I am better about this than I was before viewing the programs.
There seem to be two major hoarding motivations: one is very sentiimental with emotional attachments to the objects that are hoarded, and the other is the “I-know-I-can-use-this-someday” motivation. I am afflicted by the latter. It seems to me from the programs, that the first one leads to more serious hoarding, but I may be wrong, too.
It can be a problem, too, when a hoarder’s behavior starts to spill into the workplace. I worked with a woman who would frequently ask me if I thought so-and-so was a hoarder, so that it seemed the issue was at the forefront of her consciousness. As time went by in our office, empty boxes of different sizes started piling up, cans and other containers were being piled in corners and shelves, and we had cartons and cartons of paper towels and kleenex delivered, which then needed to be stored. She would “borrow” things and then forget to give them back so that whatever was “borrowed” joined her other piles of stuff. She had other “issues” so she’s no longer with the company, but I’ve wondered what her home must look like.
I stopped watching those shows some time ago. The hoarders are mentally ill people and I was ashamed that I was watching their pain as if it were entertainment. There are many shows on cable that reveal the desperation, or illness or showcase the physical deforment of our neighbors, some that make drug or alcohol addiction a form of entertainment.
It’s a sad commentary on the depths that commerical TV will go.
I agree. Hoarders are suffering in many ways, emotionally, spiritually, and mentally. The show is couched in a quasi-documentarian/clinical approach, but it serves primarily as a modern day circus side show. I suppose the show does pick up costs for those who volunteer to be profiled, and perhaps the relatives of the hoarder see calling the show in to intervene as a last-ditch effort, but there’s something unsettling about selling advertising during a show that profiles the misery of others.
One quibble regarding not “stressing” about the future: To get obsessed is to go overboard, but in general people really should try to think about where they’ll be, what they want to do down the line. In particular, every adult should save 10-20% of their income every year. Don’t “stress,” but do what you reasonably can to make your life turn out the way you want.
OCD is a mental illness it’s caused by chemical reactions in the brain. OCD is related to the brain production, and rate of absorption of Serotonin and Dopamine.
http://www.livestrong.com/article/307232-ocd-dopamine/
The idea that a person can apply self control to overcome OCD behavior like hoarding for instance, is like telling a diabetic they can control their diabetes – blood sugar levels with just will power.
http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2012/10/06/why-psychiatric-disorders-are-not-the-same-as-physical-diseases/
Not true. To tell someone they “can’t” overcome a problem like this is a lie and offers no hope. This blame-it-on-the-brain just gives people an excuse, an out, so they don’t have to work hard on their behavioral problems.
There is always hope for change and people with behavioral problems can participate in therapies that help them re-learn behavior patterns. We break down old habits, re-train new habits, keep people in weekly meetings, and even something called a “compulsion” can be re-learned. OCD is nothing more than strongly-rooted habitual behavior. It can be re-learned.
I am not suggesting that medication is useless but it is not the only answer. I am stating that behavior can be re-routed, re-trained, re-learned (whatever you want to call it) with or without the use of medications.
The few I’ve watched illustrate to me that their families have literally abandoned them long before they become buried. When the arrive they are astounded at the mess. Why the hell have they neglected a family member for so very long,(some their own parent)? That and the ignorance about mental illness are the problem.
Having immediate family members with hoarding issues, I can tell you that at least in my instance, distance oftentimes is the only solution. My mother is an abusive bully and a hoarder, my father was a passive hoarder. Dad has since passed away, but I haven’t spoken to my mother or only sibling for a few years now.
You can’t change the behavior of a toxic person unless that person is willing to change…. just like an alcoholic will only stop drinking when he/she is personally will to do so. Instead of letting the toxic person live rent-free inside YOUR head, you avoid them. To some, this may seem like abandonment, but in my particular case the abandonment occured in early childhood. Growing up in a loveless home, watching a husband and wife maintain a loveless marriage (but refuse to divorce because then the other person would ‘win’!) and hearing the words “I love you” only twice in my life from my own mother (once after a beating that drew a significant amount of blood at the age of three or four, the other as a teenager when distant family members were present)…
you learn that to maintain a relationship with toxic people only poisons your own life. So you move on, and leave the toxic people to live their lives in the cesspools they’ve created… and you don’t let them contaminate you.
I would help my mother today (out of respect, certainly not out of love) if she were to ask, and were to be a civil person. But she is not capable of this behavior, and I’m realistic enough to understand that. Now if only my sibling could reach this same conclusion, instead of wasting precious time being angry at our parents and me, for not harboring the same hate-filled attitude…. this sibling might someday experience peace….
But that change is not my responsibility, nor my goal. Being kind to my spouse and dealing with my own problems is my responsibility, and my spouse is far kinder and more patient with me than I deserve.
I have a cousin who has the opposite problem — she compulsively throws things away. She even throws away things that don’t belong to her! She lived with me for six months and I had to keep stopping her from throwing my things away — one day I went looking for my farberware frying pan and she said “I threw it away because it looked old.” That was a $150 frying pan, so the first thing we did was march down to the store and buy me a new one at her expense. Then I emphasized to her the four words that will live always in her ears: DON’T. TOUCH. MY. STUFF. She learned the lesson vis-a-vis my stuff, but then she met Prince Charming and for the first four years they were together she tried unceasingly to throw away ALL his stuff. Fortunately both his love and his strength were equal to the task, and finally she turned to throwing away her own stuff until she discovered eBay and now she sells it all. Today she will suggest to others that they should throw things away, but she doesn’t touch our stuff. I think it’s an illness. So do most of the family. Otherwise they might have shoved her onto the train tracks by now.
Congratulations John – a very sensitive, compassionate and profound view of the human condition. Your awareness of and commentary on the plight of your fellow human beings does you credit.Your vitriolic, spiteful, even hateful commentary on politics,as with many other commentators from the “right” and the “left”, is to be lamented.
Points off for quoting that dillweed Anthony Robbins and double-points off for making me look at him.
Hoarding is not adapting to a filthy environment or a lack of living up to your ideals, it’s a mental illness.
There have been times in my life when I’ve let my environment get out of control to some degree but not a day went by that I didn’t notice it and at least work around the edges to keep it acceptable and eventually correct it. That’s the difference between knowing what’s happening around you and not knowing.
Unhappiness or loss can sometimes let things around you go to pot, so to speak, but most people eventually come out of it and go back to making their environment adapt to them not the other way around.