The Secret Lives of Hoarders: True Stories of Tackling Extreme Clutter by Matt Paxton, Phaedra Hise

daughter’s childhood. She was really trying to find a childhood that she never had. She didn’t understand that hoarding her daughter’s possessions had actually pushed her daughter out of her life.
    I’ve seen hoarders whose habit was triggered by events as wide-ranging as a cheating boyfriend or a diagnosis of cancer. One client had lost a child in a car accident and then two weeks later her husband died. Another started hoarding after her husband shot himself in the backyard. Sometimes a hoarder is so deep in depression that the story takes on facets that probably never even happened, but the hoarder believes that they did. I call those “false triggers.” True or false, the triggers are real in the hoarder’s mind.
    There always seems to be an emotional event that triggers the behavior. Finding that is the job of the therapist and the hoarder. But family members and those who work with a hoarder need to understand that collecting things is what hoarders frequently do to comfort themselves after trauma. Anyone coming in to clean is coming in to take away those comfort items. That makes the cleanup person a real threat, even if the hoarder is asking for help.
    Almost every hoarder I’ve worked with has experienced tragedy. They are sad and feel alone and isolated. Hoarders do not consciously choose to live the way they do; it’s a defensive reaction to what happened or what they believe happened. Family members and professionals can help by remembering that there is a cause, instead of focusing solely on getting rid of the trash.
    The triggers never go away: They are life-changing traumas that will always cause some pain. The memories come up often, unexpectedly, and usually when someone is already under stress. Or a hoarder may not even be aware of the trigger, and so it happens in the subconscious. In response, hoarders turn to their possessions, maybe shopping to add to the hoard, or retreating to be with their pets, or creating more piles.
    Becoming a hoarder is not unlike becoming a workaholic or an exercise fanatic as a way to escape a difficult life or event. People can turn to these activities just like hoarders rely on acquiring and holding on to their stuff. Work can be a place where someone can feel safe and confident. Exercise can be an activity that makes someone feel better. But anything taken to extremes will inevitably become a problem. In an ideal world, the hoarder would learn to recognize triggers and then respond with a healthier, more balanced behavior that’s equally comforting. But that’s usually a task best undertaken with a counselor, not a cleaner.
    Not all hoarders figure out their triggers, but Marcie, the shopaholic, was able to do so. As we worked on cleaning her house, Marcie started talking about why she shopped so much and saved it all, and she confessed that she wanted to figure out what had made her become this person.
    In our time together, I had noticed that her husband was a big, angry guy. He yelled at her a lot during the cleanup, and I wondered if it went further than yelling. I mentioned the yelling to Marcie, and she was pretty frank in asking me if it was obvious that he hit her. She kept talking about it, wondering if she was hanging on to things to comfort herself, to feel safe and protected.
    I’ve witnessed cases like Marcie’s repeatedly. Hoarders aren’t slobs who don’t care about being clean. They are people struggling with overwhelming emotional issues. A pile in a hoarder house isn’t a pile of stuff; it can be many things: a pile of sadness, a pile of quitting, or sometimes even a pile of hope. It’s never really about the stuff, hoarders are just confusing their possessions with their emotions.

BOUNDARIES
    Regardless of what triggers a person to turn to hoarding, there is one characteristic that I have found to be pretty common to all of the people with whom I’ve worked: They struggle with