Shows no one cares about

[_jems_]

For the past week or so, I've immersed myself in two shows:

På spåret, a Swedish game show/geography quiz that I recently discovered is available online. And that is the only way I will ever watch a Swedish show (though this is pretty much the only one I'll ever make an effort to watch), because even if someone reminds me 15 minutes before a show

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[_jems_]

During the first season, I actually got kind of annoyed with the show because all of these situations are emergencies (people are getting thrown out or what have you), but the professionals still treat this like a counseling session instead of the tough love intervention it really needs to be. Well, at least that's my take on it, and considering how many of the follow-ups have been abysmal failures, I'm thinking I'm not that far off.

What gets me is that this usually isn't just people letting trash pile up, it's them inviting it into their homes. Who the hell does that?

[_jems_]

I am morbidly fascinated by it, it's like a train wreck and I can't look away!

That particular woman's "clean-up" only resulted in her storing 1 400 boxes, and hardly throwing anything away. So the courts didn't believe she was better, she never regained custody and her husband left her so that he could take care of their kids. I felt she deserved it for not facing her problems even with so much on the line. I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to be sympathizing with these people, not going "Ha-HA" like Nelson from The Simpsons.

[thecolorbetween]

Can I just say, without sounding too weird, that I really love whenever you mention something Sweden-related? I still think about it, allll the time, so it's always nice to see little reminders of my time there on my flist. The other day, I found a link to a Gothenburg-based real estate site, and it was both really good (because every picture made me think, "I want to go to there!") and reallllllllly bad (because, well, every picture made me think, "I want to go to there!"). Anyway, I don't know På spåret, but it sounds fun.

[_jems_]

You should count your blessings that you aren't here, we've been having a horrible winter! Of course, I don't know where you are, maybe you're not faring much better...

På spåret is two teams competing against each other to guess a destination and then answer questions about that destination. It's insanely difficult at times, but great fun!

[thecolorbetween]

So I've heard! I hear you the amount (or lack thereof!) of sunlight you got in November was record-breaking. I still think I made the right decision by going abroad in the spring, as it was getting lighter, rather than in the winter. I think I would have been too sad to go outside by December. I'm in New York; we've had some pretty cold days, but I doubt it's half as bad as Stockholm.

Oh, that does sound fun...and very difficult! I watched some Swedish news when I was there, but I mostly watched American TV. I did catch an episode or two of some Swedish drama set in Gothenburg, though. What was it called? Andra Avenyn! It was so dramatic, and I barely understood what was going on. I also watched some TV movie about a guy who had his children's nanny kill his family. Also very dramatic, haha.

[dtissagirl]

I never heard Hoarders, but oh man, I'm a bit like that. Though I've no qualms about getting rid of stuff like CDs or DVDs I don't want anymore [there's always someone who wants those!], these last couple of weeks when I was cleaning my place, I found myself pondering over and over whether I should throw out old hard disks, or post cards, or recipe books I haven't opened in like, five years. [BTW, I gave up the HDs to recycling, my best friend inherited the post cards, and I kept the recipe books. *g*] And while I got rid of most of my X-Files related magazines, I still kept about 30 of them for sentimental reasons ONLY.

Maybe I should watch this show. Hee.

[_jems_]

But see, hanging on to stuff of monetary and sentimental value is completely normal. These people hang on to GARBAGE and get hysterical at the thought of letting any of it go.

I like Teija's description of pack rat better, because I don't believe hoarder can describe anyone except these people.

It's available at a certain comm if you want to check it out.

[adolwyn]

Hoarding is a form of OCD, which means that cold-turkey and immediate fixes don't even begin to work on changing the behaviour. You could walk in, force them to throw things out, and be dealing more likely than not, with a full-blown nervous breakdown. In my work with OCD people as a counsellor, asking someone to throw something out and leave it in the garbage for ten seconds can reduce people to shaking, crying, anxiety-attacked individuals. It's really easy for non-hoarders (and even people who suffer from other forms of OCD) to look at a situation and say, "just throw it out!" In reality, though, a hoarder would almost definitely rate throwing things out as a 9 or a 10 on their anxiety scale if it isn't approached as a counselling intervention

[_jems_]

I get what you're saying, but I think the problem with this particular show is that most of these people are being court mandated to clean up, it's not like they themselves have finally arrived at the conclusion that they have to do something. So really, they're there by force to begin with, due to outside pressure, and the whole gentle hand-holding crap that these councilors do is pretty much as ineffective in the long run as tough love would be. But at least the tough love approach might get something done.

Of course, I'm pretty sure I just don't get it, but for me it all boils down to this: What's worse, throwing away a cup or not getting to watch your kids grow up? And if you're so ill that you can't even see that as the ultimate question, I gotta wonder if maybe you shouldn't be hospitalized.

[bigboobedcanuck]

THE SLUSHEE CUP! That's so funny that it stood out to you, too, since that's the one I remember most from a marathon of this show a few months ago. The best thing about watching it is that it really makes me want to clean and declutter. Heh.

I do feel sympathy for them given the fact that they're mentally ill. But it's seriously so frustrating. Like the guy whose wife fell on the stairs because they're full of old magazines, yet he still didn't want to give anything away. The thing with hoaders (judging by this show) is that they're inherently selfish. Their stuff is, in most cases, more important to them than the happiness and safety of their family. Which is really, really sad.

[_jems_]

It was just so poignant! And the fact that the councilor trying to talk to her didn't recognize that was just mind-blowing.

See, I don't think it's their stuff that's more important, it's their disease that's more important. Which is just as selfish, but less frivolous.

Also, watching this show makes me want to finally do that last push to finish cleaning out my closets. Because good lord, the only thing you want after watching this show is surfaces, surfaces, SURFACES!