Narrow Paths Through the Clutter
Most of us have, at one time or another-often when we're packing to move-looked around us and wondered how we got so much stuff. We promise that we'll get rid of some of it, and curb our acquisitional habits. But we don't give our possessions much thought, otherwise.
Then, someone posts an article like this one, and most of us shamefacedly examine our possessions and habits and think that maybe we could manage to get rid of a few things-those clothes we haven't worn in a while, the crappy knives that we haven't used since someone gave us a better knife, the books we haven't read and don't intend to re-read, the piles and piles of paper that accrete on that corner of our desk. And it's true. Most of us could really do quite well with less stuff.
That article, though, isn't about most of us.
Hoarding is one of those not-entirely-classified disorders that we generally hear about only when someone's compulsion leads to their death or demise. It's not common acquitisiveness, or packrattery. It's not having a pile of papers you need to go through. It's not even living a cluttered life, or having a collection of Precious Moments figurines.* With hoarding the intake of stuff exceeds the individual's ability to store, use, find, organize and get rid of stuff. It's not the unplumbed depths of a cupboard, or an ever-growing pile of papers on the corner of a desk-it's stuff that should be in cupboards on counters, papers on the floor, paths through the piles. It's not the usual fannish problem of never having enough bookshelves, it's not having space for any more books or shelves and acquiring more books anyway-multiple copies, that someone may want. It's a car full of newspapers, whose windows can't be rolled down, lest the papers fall out. It's 58 cats all underfed, flea-bitten, and diseased, using the living room floor as their litter box.
When Teresa posted some stories on Making Light**, most of the commenters loudly disclaimed their own packrattish tendencies. My guess is that enough of them saw enough of themselves in the notion of people incapacitated by their own acquisitiveness that they felt the need to both examine their own habits and deny any scariness. They're probably right-most of us are just cluttered and slightly o'erburdened with stuff.
The difficulty can be discerning from the inside when one's messiness and acquisitiveness indicate a compulsion. One thing I admired in this article was the clear indication of when packrattery, messiness, or collecting becomes problematic:
Hoarding and collecting are not the same. The Chicago audiophile whose kitschy apartment is gridlocked with 18,000 vinyl LPs or the Berkeley sophomore whose 60-gigabyte iPod contains some 15,000 downloaded songs or 8,000 digital images, are collectors, not hoarders.
“If there’s some kind of organizational scheme and the collecting does not appear to hinder functioning, it isn’t hoarding,” Steketee says. Confusion between the two is easy, as visual disarray is the telltale of both the hoarder and “functional clutterer.” But when activities of daily living are impaired, the self-described packrat is pushed into the diagnostic domain of the hoarder. [emphasis mine]
That impairment of the activities of daily living is a really useful benchmark for the line between quirks and disorders in all sorts of areas. Problem is, it can be difficult to see it, when one is in the throes of a disorder. We all come up with rationalizations and work-arounds for our quirks, so noticing when our work-arounds start taking up more time or energy than the activity warrants, and one person's completely acceptable, or at worst moderately inconvenient work around is another person's insupportable pain in the ass. My ex-husband considered it perfectly normal to have to clear a spot on the kitchen counter or table in order to cook anything; he didn't cook much anyway (he heated things up in the microwave, and fried eggs at the stove). I can deal with a certain amount of clutter on the counter, but there needs to be a space to actually work, or I get annoyed and go on a tidying rampage.*** For me, his clutter was dysfunctional; for him it was manageable.
Most of us, though, may have to deal with the pile of papers on the corner of the desk, every so often. We may have a few unworn garments in the bottom of our drawers, or a pair of mysterious hot-pink pointy-toed flats in gathering dust in the back of our closets, purchased in a fit of madness in 1994, worn three times, just to prove it wasn't total madness, and not worn since then, that, for some reason, we have moved from apartment to apartment†. But we can function. We know where our towels are. We can find the things we need, and perform the activities of daily living in our homes and workspaces with minimal shuffling of stuff.
Thing is, hoarding's a disorder. It's not a moral failing. It's frustrating that people don't seem to know what works to treat it, sure, and it can be really tempting, when dealing with someone who hoards, to refrain from blaming the afflicted person-especially when you see how miserable their compulsion is making them. But blaming the afflicted is no different from blaming an addict for his or her addiction, a depressed person for not just being happy by force of will, or someone with athsma for not breathing deeply enough. People don't choose their afflictions.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some papers to throw out.
* A taste for Precious Moments might be an indication of other problems. Or it might not.
** Warning: Link leads to stories of animal collectors. Stories are very icky; however, some of the hoarding links at the bottom are less squicky, and relevant to the topic at hand.
*** Clutter did not kill my marriage. The inability to acknowledge when a quirk became a problem might just have played a role in the marriage's demise, though.
† Who, me? No, of course I was only making up a random example, why do you ask? [*whistles, innocently*]
Then, someone posts an article like this one, and most of us shamefacedly examine our possessions and habits and think that maybe we could manage to get rid of a few things-those clothes we haven't worn in a while, the crappy knives that we haven't used since someone gave us a better knife, the books we haven't read and don't intend to re-read, the piles and piles of paper that accrete on that corner of our desk. And it's true. Most of us could really do quite well with less stuff.
That article, though, isn't about most of us.
Hoarding is one of those not-entirely-classified disorders that we generally hear about only when someone's compulsion leads to their death or demise. It's not common acquitisiveness, or packrattery. It's not having a pile of papers you need to go through. It's not even living a cluttered life, or having a collection of Precious Moments figurines.* With hoarding the intake of stuff exceeds the individual's ability to store, use, find, organize and get rid of stuff. It's not the unplumbed depths of a cupboard, or an ever-growing pile of papers on the corner of a desk-it's stuff that should be in cupboards on counters, papers on the floor, paths through the piles. It's not the usual fannish problem of never having enough bookshelves, it's not having space for any more books or shelves and acquiring more books anyway-multiple copies, that someone may want. It's a car full of newspapers, whose windows can't be rolled down, lest the papers fall out. It's 58 cats all underfed, flea-bitten, and diseased, using the living room floor as their litter box.
When Teresa posted some stories on Making Light**, most of the commenters loudly disclaimed their own packrattish tendencies. My guess is that enough of them saw enough of themselves in the notion of people incapacitated by their own acquisitiveness that they felt the need to both examine their own habits and deny any scariness. They're probably right-most of us are just cluttered and slightly o'erburdened with stuff.
The difficulty can be discerning from the inside when one's messiness and acquisitiveness indicate a compulsion. One thing I admired in this article was the clear indication of when packrattery, messiness, or collecting becomes problematic:
Hoarding and collecting are not the same. The Chicago audiophile whose kitschy apartment is gridlocked with 18,000 vinyl LPs or the Berkeley sophomore whose 60-gigabyte iPod contains some 15,000 downloaded songs or 8,000 digital images, are collectors, not hoarders.
“If there’s some kind of organizational scheme and the collecting does not appear to hinder functioning, it isn’t hoarding,” Steketee says. Confusion between the two is easy, as visual disarray is the telltale of both the hoarder and “functional clutterer.” But when activities of daily living are impaired, the self-described packrat is pushed into the diagnostic domain of the hoarder. [emphasis mine]
That impairment of the activities of daily living is a really useful benchmark for the line between quirks and disorders in all sorts of areas. Problem is, it can be difficult to see it, when one is in the throes of a disorder. We all come up with rationalizations and work-arounds for our quirks, so noticing when our work-arounds start taking up more time or energy than the activity warrants, and one person's completely acceptable, or at worst moderately inconvenient work around is another person's insupportable pain in the ass. My ex-husband considered it perfectly normal to have to clear a spot on the kitchen counter or table in order to cook anything; he didn't cook much anyway (he heated things up in the microwave, and fried eggs at the stove). I can deal with a certain amount of clutter on the counter, but there needs to be a space to actually work, or I get annoyed and go on a tidying rampage.*** For me, his clutter was dysfunctional; for him it was manageable.
Most of us, though, may have to deal with the pile of papers on the corner of the desk, every so often. We may have a few unworn garments in the bottom of our drawers, or a pair of mysterious hot-pink pointy-toed flats in gathering dust in the back of our closets, purchased in a fit of madness in 1994, worn three times, just to prove it wasn't total madness, and not worn since then, that, for some reason, we have moved from apartment to apartment†. But we can function. We know where our towels are. We can find the things we need, and perform the activities of daily living in our homes and workspaces with minimal shuffling of stuff.
Thing is, hoarding's a disorder. It's not a moral failing. It's frustrating that people don't seem to know what works to treat it, sure, and it can be really tempting, when dealing with someone who hoards, to refrain from blaming the afflicted person-especially when you see how miserable their compulsion is making them. But blaming the afflicted is no different from blaming an addict for his or her addiction, a depressed person for not just being happy by force of will, or someone with athsma for not breathing deeply enough. People don't choose their afflictions.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some papers to throw out.
* A taste for Precious Moments might be an indication of other problems. Or it might not.
** Warning: Link leads to stories of animal collectors. Stories are very icky; however, some of the hoarding links at the bottom are less squicky, and relevant to the topic at hand.
*** Clutter did not kill my marriage. The inability to acknowledge when a quirk became a problem might just have played a role in the marriage's demise, though.
† Who, me? No, of course I was only making up a random example, why do you ask? [*whistles, innocently*]