Are You a Hoarder?

With all the TV programs on hoarding, I hear many people calling themselves hoarders, or a family member may use the term to describe relatives.  While I think it’s good that we feel more comfortable talking about our overload, the term may often be used when it does not fit. If you are using the term on yourself or someone else, this can be damaging if it is not accurate.

Sometimes being chronically disorganized can be confused with hoarding.  Chronic Disorganization may be evident in one or more aspects of a person’s life, such as at the office, at home, or in the area of time management.  It is a quality of life issue that adds stress to your mental, physical and emotional health as well as to social and work situations.

Below are the criteria for someone that is chronically disorganized:
 1. Disorganization over a long period of time, often years;
 2. Disorganization that adversely affects your life on a daily basis;
3. Many failed self-help efforts to get organized, indicating the need for professional help.

The clinical criteria for hoarding are:
1. The acquisition of and failure to discard a large number of possessions that appear to be useless or of limited value.
2. Living or work spaces sufficiently cluttered so as to preclude activities for which those spaces were designed.
3. Significant distress or impairment in functioning caused by the hoarding behavior, such as social impairment, behind on taxes, health or fire hazards.

If one is a hoarder, TV programs reassure one that they are not the only one  with this issue, but TV programs also paint unrealistic solutions.
1. Only on TV are people going to work around the clock, so the time frames which it takes to make things change aren’t real.
2. To make the change stick, a whole new mind set must take place and that only happens over a period of time.
3. If one is a serious hoarder, emotional support generally needs to be ongoing.
4. The TV programs also show others telling the person what they can keep or not keep. I, as an organizer, will never tell a person what to keep. Yes, I will ask questions so you make the right decision - but it must be your decision. Someone else making the decision on your possessions is not a emotionally healthy situation.

Does the line sometimes get blurred between chronic disorganization and being truly a hoarder? Yes, in fact on the National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization “Clutter – Hoarding Scale”, the first two levels deal more with the clutter and levels 3 -5 go into hoarding.  Looking at this scale is helpful for concerned family member and friends.  It helps us to become realistic on the seriousness of the issue and to learn how best to handle it. For free information and the “Clutter – Hoarding Scale go to www.nsgcd.org Use back arrow to return to this blog.

Anyone trying to assist someone else needs to be knowledgeable in what is helpful and avoid what is considered “toxic help”. “Toxic help” will only make the problem worse. Some professional organizers have been trained and certified (CPO-CD®) to work with individuals on extreme overload. Their work is often in collaboration with mental health providers.  We must realize that our hoarding clients are fragile and vulnerable. It is vital that we have the focused training to encourage them to continue through an often painful process of change.

For more information go to: http://www.clutterfree.biz/chronic.htm Also there is an interesting article titled “Recent Demographics Show Hoarding Affects  2 -5 % of the Population” at  http://www.clutterfree.biz/about_media.htm