The Empty Nest

I know that this may be very difficult to understand for people who are not familiar with OCD hoarding, but I guess that's one reason why the associated behaviors qualify as symptoms of a disorder -- they do not make sense; they are not rational behaviors. In this case, a person with more than adequate financial resources, with far above average intelligence, with a high degree of social functioning outside of the home, seems utterly incapable of distinguishing between "important" things and "trash" -- leading eventually to living conditions of abject squalor. Attempts by others to help to clean up or at least to manage the clutter can be traumatic, with the hoarder refusing to allow the removal of almost anything that most people would regard as trash, insisting that things will somehow get "squared away" eventually.

Many health care professionals advocate taking a slow, non-judgmental, low-pressure approach to resolving such cases. While they are almost certainly correct that different methods may be too traumatic or may prove unsuccessful at providing permanent solutions, I believe that other factors should also be weighed when considering treatment or assistance strategies:

• What is the impact of "go-slow" approaches on other family members, particularly on juveniles who are raised in squalor?
• Even if there is significant relapse after more aggressive intervention, what happens when a "go-slow" approach fails to generate adequate progress before the hoarder becomes elderly or infirm, when the likelihood of progress is dramatically reduced and the likelihood of injury drastically heightened? (See The Hallway for the result of "too much patience".)

I am not saying that a "go-slow" approach is necessarily wrong; indeed, it probably should be the first thing to try. However, it must be balanced against the impact of hoarding on the entire family and the prospects for the long-term safety and well-being of the hoarder.

The Hallway

I've been inspired by another child of a hoarder to get off my duff and upload some video I took at my mother's house last summer. It's a warning about what can happen when one waits too long to intervene. I wanted to clean up the audio a little, but I could never quite get up the energy to edit it -- it's very, very painful for me to listen to my own narration and to see the surroundings -- how could we not have intervened earlier?

Of course, many children of hoarders know the answer -- our hoarding parents have meltdowns, they threaten to kill themselves if anyone gets involved, and they push every emotional button that they've identified in us since we were toddlers. Ugh, I feel so raw now -- such a mix of sadness, guilt, anger, and relief that at least some of it is out in the open. A big part of me wants to take down the video and go hide under a blanket, but if keeping it online helps one person prevent a life-threatening crisis for a loved one, I guess my pride is a small price to pay.

An Open Door

My family was never poor financially, but we are poor in a way that is very little understood. My mother is a compulsive hoarder. She suffers from a mental illness which makes it difficult, if not impossible, to discard items which most of us would consider to be trash. She is almost completely incapable of distinguishing between the useful objects of daily life and those objects which are broken, trivial, or even unsanitary. To her, nearly everything is "important", "might come in handy", or "will be worth a lot of money someday."

Any attempt by a family member to throw away even a ten year old piece of junk mail is likely to be greeted by my mother with a fit of rage or a flow of tears.

At the same time, my mother is extremely intelligent and very charming. She can speak knowledgeably about nearly any subject, and, with an infectious laugh and a quick wit, she has always been popular "outside."

Unfortunately, she hasn't let any of her friends "inside" for at least thirty-five years, and, until she had a health crisis in 2005 (more on that another time), she hadn't allowed any of her adult children inside her house for several years. The reason is apparent from the moment one walks through the back door and into her kitchen. (One can't walk through the front door because it faces the heavily traveled street, and if it is opened, the family secret might escape.)

I grew up in this environment. For years, I was convinced that my mother loved "things" (like coupons, newspapers, and junk mail) more than she loved her family. My siblings and I were deeply ashamed of our living situation, and I would be lying to you if I said that we were past the pain, the conflicted feelings of shame and anger, and the constant struggle to salvage a sense of identity and self-esteem. We didn't understand that our environment had its roots in a mental illness. We thought that we were the only ones who couldn't invite friends over to visit.

We were wrong. Compulsive hoarding is a serious mental illness with significant public health consequences, and a million or more people in the United States are estimated to suffer from it. While no cure for the condition is yet known, the pace of research on this disorder is increasing, and support groups are springing up on the internet and in a range of communities.

With this website, I hope to share some of my experiences with having a compulsive hoarder in the family, and I hope to help others learn that they are not alone, either. I'll try to post at least once a week until I feel that my story has been told.

In the meantime, if you are a child of a hoarder or know a child who may be in such a situation, please take a look at childrenofhoarders.com or its private Yahoo! group, both of which have been very helpful to me and many others despite only being online for a few months each.