A&E Hoarders Episode IV

A quick synopsis...

Jake is a young man (21) who is living with his alcoholic (and verbally abusive) father in an apartment. The father seems seriously depressed and a serious alcoholic who hasn't thrown away a wine bottle in 6 months. His space is almost literally covered in bottles. Jake is suicidal. He seems to have diagnosed OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) and cannot throw out anything that ever comes, in, including trash. He fears he will shorten his dog's life if he throws out the fur she sheds. He is an emotional wreck, but has a supportive boyfriend. Therapist Tara Fields is working with him.

Shirley, 71, lives with her husband in squalor in their home. She thinks she has 21-25 cats. She had a stroke and is blind in one eye. Animal control is in on this one and has cited Shirley for having too many animals. There are dogs on the property, too, but it is hard to tell how many. In the end, they pull out over 70 animals, 43 of them live cats. Several must be put down right away due to their ill health and serious disease. A "hoarding specialist" comes in. This person seems to be a junk hauler rather than a trained organizer.

Just a quick comment on this right now.

First of all, these are both very serious situations that are beyond the training of even professional organizers like myself who have been trained by the NSGCD to help clients with hoarding issues.

Jake is a wonderful, intelligent young man with some very serious mental health issues. The fact that he speaks of killing himself numerous times is a giant red flag for me that this man needs a (very well qualified) therapist. He seems to have gotten that in the show. Dr. Fields was gentle and gave him control with gentle nudging and self-awareness of his anxiety levels. He is also living in a situation with his father that is very unhealthy not only physically, but mentally and emotionally. Jake made wonderful strides for letting go of the trash, and he will need long-term support from a professional for him to continue growing. Hopefully his relationships with his mom and boyfriend are healthy and supportive ones which will help him continue his growth and independence (from his stuff, his obsessions and his father).

Shirley's is a case of animal hoarding, which is a completely different level of hoarding than "stuff" hoarding and I don't know if even the "experts" know how to deal with this yet. We saw a lot of denial from Shirley about the problems with the cats--she herself didn't realize how many she had and that so many had died or were sick. That is part of the illness of animal hoarding, is very poor insight into reality. I'm glad to see she wasn't charged or sent to jail. Yes, she neglected animals and kept them in poor conditions. But she wasn't intending to do that and I don't see how jail time would have actually helped her. People who hoard generally have poor insight into their situations, and even when they do realize a change must occur, often cannot make the change on their own--even with the threat of jail or children or spouses leaving or being taken away. It is bigger than they are. It doesn't excuse the situation. It just explains it.

I hope that more people will realize how complicated hoarding is. There are no easy answers. No one-size-fits-all solutions. When I was a park ranger in Yosemite, visitors would often say "Just don't let cars in the Valley, that will solve the over-crowding." Another no-easy-answers problem that (literally) fills volumes with idea for potential solutions.

Watch for more from me in the next few days about the larger problems around finding solutions around hoarding.

And, yes, if you have any ideas, send them my way!

What do YOU think?

Is A&E setting up hoarders for failure?

I'm sure that A&E isn't trying to set up its featured subjects in the Hoarders series for failure.

But they are doing their darndest to make that happen.

Here's what's wrong. (See what's right in my next post.)

1. The subjects don't seem to be getting therapy while they are getting organizing help.
This is necessary for any real change in a person's saving or acquiring habits. Not to mention emotional help with the trauma of loss and the difficulty of change, or any other mental health (or even physical health)conditions they might have.

2. They seem to be only getting help over the course of two days.
This is not how long it takes for real clearing to happen, even with a team. Maybe a bunch of guys with shovels could do it, but that would just be junk-hauling, not helping human beings.

3. They have a "team" of people there ready to help.
The "team" is a bunch of hired hands ready to do manual labor. The team is going to be of no use unless the organizer or therapist has arranged pre-sorted piles for the client to look through and make decisions about. A real team would be a team of professional organizers led by one leader organizer and the client.

4. Family members do not seem to have been briefed on how the process is going to go or what to expect.
The family members just seem to be set up for high expectations and the frustration that ensues is just good camera fodder.

Granted, I have no behind-the-scenes knowledge, so I don't know what is edited out or edited for effect. I can only hope some of these other things are happening, but what I do know is that the whole picture of hoarding is not getting out to the public, nor some of the resources, like the NSGCD, where some of the organizers got their training.

A&E Hoarders Episode III

The third installment in the A&E series Hoarders was a doozey. But oh, so real.

One story featured Betty, a woman whose elderly mentally ill husband cannot return to the home (social services has intervened) until she cleans up the house and yard. Her mentally ill adult daughter also lives with them. They are staying in a motel and money is running out. Professional organizer Dorothy Breininger is there to help.

The other story is about Tara, a 50ish woman who lives alone in a rental and is about to be evicted because of the clutter. The professional organizer helping her is Brendan McDaniel.

This was a study in contrasts, for sure. Each woman came to the "cleaning weekend" with a different attitude.

Betty was defiant. Not at all ready to "let go" of anything, and very upset that this was being "forced" on her. She still enjoyed shopping and collecting, and said it was her only joy and she wasn't going to stop.

Tara, on the other hand, was speaking hopefully about clearing up her situation and having a nice home again.

Both women had well-trained, experienced (with hoarding) professional organizers there to help them. Both Dorothy and Brendan are members of the NSGCD (National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization) which provides organizers with classes and certification programs for dealing with special issues like hoarding. This is where I attained my "CPO-CD®" (Certified Professional Organizer in Chronic Disorganization) in a mentored and peer-reviewed 18-month program.

As I watched this episode, I could see where this was going. I could be pretty sure that Betty wasn't going to make much progress, and anything that might be accomplished would not be "lasting." She just wasn't ready or willing. Tara, on the other hand, was "ready" in her heart and mind, but I know from experience that that often is not enough for the actual purging to happen.

In fact, Betty fought her organizer and her family the whole way. Dorothy did a wonderful job of letting her know that decisions were "in her hands" and that she wasn't there to fight with her. But poor Betty dug her heels in. Betty's case is a prime example of someone who needs not just an expert-with-hoarding organizer, but an expert therapist to be helping her along the way. Betty's problems run deep, and frankly, if I were her, I could see putting up a wall of junk to keep from having to deal with my reality–a schizophrenic aged husband that had been drunk for most of the marriage, a schizophrenic adult daughter who still lives me and sets fire to the house from her cigarettes (that's how social services got involved), one daughter fighting leukemia, and another daughter about to wash her hands of the whole situation. At present, her only "joy" is acquiring. I can see that only time with a skilled therapist could turn her life around a little to figure out how else to find "joy" and to possibly get relief from living in the same household with two schizophrenic adults. And that's just the surface.

Tara jumped into the process with great hope and a great attitude. The reality, however, seemed to set in quite quickly. She got a migraine. She couldn't focus. She had forgotten to take her medicine and hadn't eaten. She was getting dizzy. She started doing what is called "churning." Looking through one pile of stuff and just setting all the things in a different pile or piles. Very little was "let go." Much was presents for other people. (I find this a common theme.) Often those who hoard have these wonderful big hearts and are always thinking of other people and buying or saving things to give to them. But rarely does the stuff get into the hands of the intended. It is usually piled up and lost, uncovered years later, too ruined to be given or no longer appropriate for the person.

Even Tara had melt-downs when she believed her friend and the organizer had thrown out some comics that she wanted to save. This one action caused her to temporarily lose faith and trust in the organizer. This is why you never throw out anything unless the client has told you to do so! (In this case, I think the organizer and friend thought they DID have permission to throw these out.) Once a client is suspicious of your actions, it's very difficult to regain trust.

Brendan did regain her trust and they did manage to clear an area in her living room.

Betty, under duress the entire time, did get one room cleaned and the yard mostly cleared. I believe a lot of it was thrown out without her specific permission, since her daughter was shown throwing things out in a fit. This won't be a lasting victory.

I hold out hope for Tara. She had genuine hope for herself to change, and wanted to change. The actual change will be harder. She, too will need therapeutic help in order to understand her behaviors and be able to change them, not just in clearing clutter, but in stopping the acquiring.

Betty is in a much worse "place." She has a more difficult family situation and absolutely no desire to change.

Hoarding is a sad and debilitating illness. There can be hopeful outcomes, and with shows like these, even if flawed, more people will have more knowledge about and possibly some people will be helped.

In my next posts, I will explore my thoughts around how A&E has set up these scenarios and what helps and what doesn't.

If you need help with a hoarding situation, or would just like to learn more about the topic, please visit the NSGCD website. www.nsgcd.org

Margaret Pearson Pinkham, CPO-CD®
Certified Professional Organizer in Chronic Disorganization
Organize in Harmony
(707) 823-3479

Who wants to be called a "hoarder?"

Hoarder.

It's just not a nice word. Even one of the clients in the new A&E Hoarders series mentioned how she didn't like the word.

It sounds awful. And it sounds a lot like another word that is spelled differently but sounds the same. I have learned to enunciate clearly and make sure the person I'm speaking to is paying attention otherwise they think I've just called someone a very bad name.

In fact, I try not to use the word "hoarder" anymore at all. Instead of "I work with hoarders" I'll say "I work with clients who have compulsive hoarding issues." Instead of "She's becoming a hoarder" I'll say, "She has some compulsive hoarding tendencies." You get the idea.

It's like in the health profession or mental health profession. Calling someone by the name of their illness degrades a person, make them the illness, no longer a person with an illness. "She's a person with bipolar disorder" rather than "She's a bipolar." I don't work in hospitals (but I've watched hospital shows), and we've heard doctors refer to "the brain cancer in Room 5" when they should have said "the patient in Room 5 with brain cancer."

Hoarding is an illness. A compulsion. A sad and uncomfortable place to be.

It's unfortunate that A&E names their series "Hoarders," but I suppose that's a whole lot catchier than "People with Compulsive Hoarding Issues."

My clients are people. Most often, they are fun, creative, interesting, intelligent, talkative, warm and caring people.

And some of them have compulsive hoarding issues.

A&E Hoarders Episode II

I have a few thoughts about the second episode of A&E's new series called "Hoarders."

This episode featured two stories–Linda who needed to sell her house after her divorce, but needed to clear it and repair it before it could be put up for sale. She worked with a therapist who stood with her during the purging.

The second story featured Steven, who had filled his very small studio apartment with garbage. He worked with (the infamous in organizing circles) professional organizer, Dorothy Breininger.

Linda was shown shopping at a thrift store before her clearing began. I heard her delight in finding interesting things (a purse in the shape of an armadillo, for example), the pride in finding something that was a "bargain" and when at the grocery store, the excitement in finding a new type of energy bar. They said she shops at the thrift store several times a week and can spend $100-$200 at a time there. Now, since I am quite familiar with thrift stores, I know that that much money buys quite a lot. And that much stuff will take up a lot of space in the home!

I don't know the therapist who worked with Linda, and I don't know how much work they did together in the office before they got to the house. It seems like that for the sake of the filming, a crew was provided, but there wasn't much the crew could do since the therapist didn't set up the day in a way that a crew could really do anything. She did put Linda "in charge" of decisions about what was to be let go of (the only way to do it), but had she used an organizer too, they might have been able to get more done by doing some agreed upon pre-organizing into piles for her to look at. Instead, they worked as I do when I am one-on-one with a client--slowly, one box or pile at a time. They worked 10 hours on one day (usually far too much for one person to handle) and then again probably several hours the next day. It seemed to end with Linda overwhelmed and her son very frustrated with the lack of "progress." The end-titles told us that Linda gave up on cleaning the house, wasn't able to secure a loan for repairs and moved out. It wasn't clear what work she and the therapist had done or were continuing to do in reducing the acquiring Linda does.

In Steven's case, Dorothy Breininger (an NSGCD member, I might add) made good use of the crew by setting up numerous categories, and had the crew stack things in those areas for Steven to look through. Now, this was a very small apartment, but they were able to clear it out in the two days and set it up very simply for Steven to live in again. Dorothy talked about how they had already had some conversations around what his goals were, and asking himself "Does keeping this get me closer to this goal or farther?" I liked Dorothy's attitude toward Steven, reminding him often (and reinforcing the idea numerous times) that he was in charge of what stayed and what left, and reminding him of his end goals of writing a book and having a more spiritual life.

If anything in these shows seems too familiar to you, and you are currently experiencing distress about your the condition of your home, please give me a call or send me an e-mail. I'm happy to talk to you about the issue of compulsive hoarding and where you might find some help.

You are worth it. You deserve it. And you can do it. The first step is asking for help.

Margaret Pearson Pinkham, CPO-CD®
margaret@organizeinharmony.com
(707) 823-3479

If you are not in my area (Sonoma County in Northern CA), please visit the NSGCD (National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization) website to find a professional organizer trained in these special issues.

A great little book to read is Buried in Treasures: Help for Compulsive Acquiring, Saving and Hoarding by David Tolin, Randy Frost and Gail Skeketee. It speaks to both the person with the hoarding issues and has sidebars written to family members or loved ones who are trying to help or understand. Great primer for "do's and don'ts" when helping a person to clean their home.

When will I take on a client with Compulsive Hoarding issues?

I work with clients who have compulsive hoarding issues.

The clients with the highest probability of changing their situation will be doing these things...

1. It will be their idea to ask for help.
When they are ready, they will call me. It doesn't work well if they are forced to call me by a well-meaning family member. "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't him drink."

2. They are in some sort of therapy or counseling.
It's best if they are in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) at the same time I am working with them. With their permission, I can work in a collaborative arrangement with the therapist to help move things along in the home while the client and therapist work on issues in the office. I am not a therapist, and I am well-aware of my boundaries when it comes to this issue.

3. The client has family or friends in the area who are supportive and encourage their efforts to clean up.
This isn't an "absolute" of mine, but again, the chances for change are much, much better if the client has a support team. A therapist or other professional can also be a part of that supportive group.

If you are looking for an organizer in your area, please contact the NSGCD (National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization) and look at their website for a qualified professional with training around compulsive hoarding.

Watch this blog for more posts about compulsive hoarding and what to expect from a trained professional organizer if you are a person with compulsive hoarding issues.

There's help...there really is. It's not easy and it's not cheap. But it's life changing and it's worth it.

Are you ready for a different life?

A&E Compulsive Hoarding Series

A&E is running a new series about compulsive hoarding, which premiered Monday, August 17.

You can read more about it and find the schedule here. It will be shown on Monday nights, and according to my Comcast schedule, each episode will be shown a number of times each week.

I just watched the first show and am left with mixed impressions of their portrayal of the topic and their subjects.

I know a couple of the Professional Organizers who worked with the people, and have heard Dr. David Tolin (the psychologist featured in one segment) speak at an NSGCD (National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization) conference.

The reactions of the people that were being helped were typical of those with compulsive hoarding issues. Aware of their situation, yet seemingly blind to the piles around them. Intelligent, creative and caring people. People concerned with not wasting things, yet in that very concern gone haywire, they have wasted and ruined almost everything they have "saved" for use in the future. It all seems logical to them.

Even the threat of eviction or losing a spouse or custody of their children often does not prompt them to change their ways. They seem to be at the mercy of this cruel condition.

So very complicated.

And heartbreaking for their families.

For the most part, the organizers and Dr. Tolin treated these clients with respect and patience. There might have been a few times where I might have said something differently or tried a different tactic. But I know these people to be trained and educated around the issue of compulsive hoarding. Dr. Tolin is one of three researchers conducting research into this condition, and has co-written a book intended for those with the problem of hoarding and their families--Buried in Treasures. (See this book on my Amazon carousel at the bottom of this page.)

Keep in mind that this was a one-hour television show that condensed many, many hours of actual work. We don't know what went on at other times, or what was cut here and there.

I did read some comments on the A&E website about how so much was just "thrown out." Please keep in mind that when most professional organizers work with clients (myself included) we try to donate, recycle or repurpose whatever we can. We don't want to waste anything, either.

But the big issue with things that come from a house filled with hoarded items....they are probably toxic with mold or are impregnated with the smell from the home--again, mold, mildew and dust. Most items really cannot be saved, and should not be dumped on some unsuspecting thrift store and possibly contaminate someone else's home.

In the next few days, I'll write more posts about compulsive hoarding.

In the meantime, check out my links listed on this blog and check out my credentials for working with people who have severe clutter or compulsive hoarding issues.

Please contact me by phone or e-mail if you have any questions or concerns about your own issues or a loved-ones.

Margaret Pearson Pinkham
margaret@organizeinharmony.com
707-823-3479