The Hoarder in You: How to Live a Happier, Healthier, Uncluttered Life - Softcover

Zasio, Robin

 
9781609618964: The Hoarder in You: How to Live a Happier, Healthier, Uncluttered Life
Softcover
ISBN 10: 1609618963 ISBN 13: 9781609618964
Verlag: Harmony/Rodale/Convergent, 2012

Inhaltsangabe

From the hit A&E show Hoarders, psychologist Dr. Robin Zasio shows readers how to take control of their stuff and de-clutter their lives.

Recently, the once little-known condition of hoarding has become a household phrase-in part due to the popularity of the Emmy Award-winning television show Hoarders, which has captivated audiences with its stark and heartbreaking look at the people who suffer from this paralyzing condition.

Contributing expert to Hoarders Dr. Robin Zasio believes that our fascination with hoarding stems from the fact that most of us fall somewhere on the hoarding continuum. In The Hoarder in You, Dr. Zasio shares behind-the-scenes stories from the show, including some of the most serious cases of hoarding that she's encountered-and explains how readers can learn from these extreme examples. She also shares psychological and practical advice for de-cluttering and organizing, including how to tame the emotional pull of acquiring additional things, make order out of chaos by getting a handle on cluter, and create an organizational system that reduces stress and anxiety.

Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

ROBIN ZASIO, PsyD, LCSW, is a featured doctor on the hit A&E series Hoarders and specializes in treating hoarding and other anxiety-related disorders. She lives in Sacramento, CA.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

CHAPTER 1

PACK RATS, CLUTTERERS, AND COMPULSIVE HOARDERS

YOU WOULD NEVER HAVE SUSPECTED that Joan suffered from compulsive hoarding. When I first met her at my office in Sacramento, I saw an impeccably dressed African American woman of 50, who I knew from the referral was a highly regarded administrator at an insurance company, the model of efficiency and attention to detail at work for 2 decades.

The first time I saw her home, however, was a very different story. Joan was at Level 4 (out of 5) on the Clutter Hoarding Scale, an assessment tool devised by the National Study Group of Chronic Disorganization (NSGCD) in St. Louis. In broad terms, someone at Level 4 would have significant difficulty cleaning a home without professional help; conditions of the home are unsanitary or otherwise hazardous (food is often rotting on counters, and rodents and insects may be visible in multiple locations); rooms in the home are so packed with objects that they are unusable for their original purpose; there's mold and structural damage to the home; and when pets are present, there is accumulated animal waste. Joan's house met all of these conditions. It was hard to imagine that this calm, confident woman could emerge every day from such a place.

The first thing I noticed about Joan's house was the smell. Even with my impaired sense of smell, the odor of ammonia and feces was overwhelming. The cats' litter box, which was in the dining room, was overflowing, but a walk through the house made it clear that the two cats had long since given up on it and were urinating and defecating everywhere. Joan's three bedrooms were unusable--piles of clothes and books, many contaminated with cat waste, were everywhere, and disorganized to-do piles of bills, receipts, and laundry covered the living room.

In the kitchen, the counters were piled with old food and dirty, empty food containers. Canned goods and packaged foods overflowed from the pantry because Joan had bought multiples of the same items. The freezer was so full that it had frozen shut. Gnats flew everywhere. When I pulled open the freezer door and peered inside, I saw countless dead insects that had somehow worked their way into the seal. I pointed this out to Joan, who didn't seem terribly bothered by it; she said something vague about meaning to call the exterminator.

I'd seen worse homes in my years of treating people who hoard, but what I remember most about Joan's house is the plastic bags filled with cat feces that were sitting by the litter box, leaning up against the sliding glass door to the backyard. Apparently, Joan would scoop the contents of the litter box into the bag, intend to place the bags into the garbage, and either forget or find herself unable to lift it. She said she was always meaning to call someone to help her throw it out, but she never did. As a result, bags of cat waste sat in the living room. Joan, like many who compulsively hoard, had a system, albeit one that didn't work well. She was full of good intentions, but the time to take care of all the things she meant to simply never came. There were always, as with many of us, more important things to do.

Joan's case exemplifies to me many of the things people don't understand about hoarding. Many people judge hoarders harshly, believing them to be lazy, unsanitary, uncaring, selfish, self-absorbed, or narcissistic.* Joan's personality couldn't be further from any of these traits. She was desperate to live differently--she just didn't know how--and she needed help. Joan completed the 6-week Intensive Outpatient Program at my clinic, which involves extensive hours of therapy and home visits. While her home wasn't perfectly free of clutter when she was discharged from the program, she now lives a very different life than she did before treatment. She currently works with a therapist one-on-one, and she continues to improve.

In my practice and on the A&E show Hoarders, I work with people like Joan, who suffer from compulsive hoarding, an anxiety condition in which individuals are simply unable to prevent themselves from accumulating and saving oftentimes shocking amounts of stuff, most of which an outside observer would consider useless garbage. Some 3 million people in this country are thought to compulsively hoard, but I believe that number is a gross underestimate due to the shame, guilt, embarrassment, and fear that prevent many people from seeking help.

In extreme hoarding situations, people may live in squalor, with conditions so unsanitary and hazardous that their physical safety and that of their loved ones and pets is at risk. I have seen contamination from food, garbage, and human and animal waste eat through the walls and floorboards of a home, leaving gaping holes and wood riddled with insects. It's difficult to imagine how someone could think a platter of food with visible mold could ever be worth saving.

You have likely heard of the legendary Collyer brothers, two wealthy eccentrics who were found dead in their brownstone by New York City police and firemen in 1947 amidst their 130 tons of belongings. (E. L. Doctorow novelized their lives in a book released in 2009, and for years, mothers in New York City cited their example--"You don't want to wind up like the Collyer brothers, do you?"--to motivate their children to clean their rooms.) Extreme and sometimes tragic cases of compulsive hoarding continue to be reported regularly. Just last year, a Las Vegas woman who was reported missing by her husband was found dead 4 months later in her own home, buried under a pile of her belongings. Law enforcement and investigators had searched the place several times. "For our dogs to go through that house and not find something should be indicative of the tremendous environmental challenges they faced," a police spokesperson said. It is impossible to walk into a home like that and not wonder, "How did things get this bad, and how can a person live this way?"

The answer is complicated, as complicated as the minds of people who suffer from compulsive hoarding, a condition that can lead to severe isolation, depression, and physical degeneration, as well as interfere with someone's ability to earn a living and function in society. One reason people can live like that for so long is because they become habituated to their environment. That is, they simply get used to it--they adjust, accommodate to it, and work around the obstacles. Randy O. Frost, PhD, who studies compulsive hoarding at Smith College, calls this symptom clutter blindness. It's an apt term, because those who hoard often do not see what the rest of us do when we look at the same pile of stuff. They see lots of useful possessions or rooms that are "a bit disorganized," while we see complete chaos and mountains of randomly collected items. It is a problem of perception.

Sometimes it is not until an outsider comes in--be it a friend, someone like me who is there to help, or an agent from the state or county who is evaluating whether children or animals can live safely in a home--that the wall of denial that many hoarders have built around themselves can be broken down. Sometimes, but not always, they see the way they've been living through others' eyes and realize that their lives have spun out of control. On other occasions, sadly, they are unable to recognize the severity of their problem.

A CLUTTERED LIFE

I'm like many people in that I'm far more likely to want to give the bathroom an extra scrubbing, or perhaps finally go through that stack of junk mail on the side table, if I have company coming over. I am a very organized person, and somewhat private; I don't want the world to see my mess, the minutia of my life. I like to present a polished exterior, and my home is a reflection of that, by and large. Of course, a few piles that need to be sorted through, or even a...

„Über diesen Titel“ kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Verlag
Harmony/Rodale/Convergent
Erscheinungsdatum
2012
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1609618963
ISBN 13 
9781609618964
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
240
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
gpsr@libri.de
gpsr@libri.de

Friedensallee 273
Hamburg
22763
Deutschland

Weitere beliebte Ausgaben desselben Titels

9781609611316: The Hoarder in You: How to Live a Happier, Healthier, Uncluttered Life

Vorgestellte Ausgabe

ISBN 10:  1609611314 ISBN 13:  9781609611316
Verlag: Rodale Pr, 2011
Hardcover