November 2014
The man who slept in an earthenware pot by Dr Elizabeth McCardell, M. Couns., PhD
I was looking for a tube of toothpaste the other day and I found 11 of
them. I also found 14 toothbrushes. I realized, with a start, that I have
become like my father. Kept in a storeroom was his stash of toiletries: lots
and lots of toothbrushes and tubes of toothpaste, soaps, and such things. My
brother tells me he hoards stuff as well. Certainly my mother hoarded (I found
loved objects hidden away in the linen cupboard, and dozens of tinned food and
bottles of lentils after her death). Our Estonian aunt and uncle collect used
butter containers and endless milk bottles. Our accumulation of useful stuff is a intergenerational
product of knowing scarcity. My mother grew up in the very uncertain times of
Russian/Estonian upheaval and my father was born into poverty in Sydney, and
then, of course, were the wars. I
was a post-war baby, and I guess, following my parent’s mindstuff, never quite believed that supermarkets
are perfectly good at storing things.
Collecting on the scale I live with is not a pathological problem (I can
and do give my things away), but some levels of hoarding is a serious
problem. At the extreme end is a
very nasty condition called Diogenes Syndrome, often associated with the
elderly, but not always. Diogenes Syndrome is characterized by extreme self
neglect, anxiety, social withdrawal, apathy, living in squalor, and collecting
random stuff in a disorganized manner. It’s also noted in people who refuse
help, preferring to suffer than accept assistance.
Diogenes? Diogenes of Sinope was a Greek philosopher, circa 412BC, and
one of the founders of Cynic Philosophy. He made a principle of
living a life of poverty, begging for his living and sleeping in a large earthenware pot. He had rejected
his father’s profession of minting coins and a lifestyle of wealth, seeking the simple and, as he thought,
a life closer to nature.
Cynicism is a school of ancient Greek philosophy based on the idea that
the purpose of life is to live as nature intends it. Happiness could be gained
through rigorous training and rejecting desires for wealth, sex and power. They
advocated abnegation of accumulation of possessions, and preached this
principle around Greece. Certain
branches of early and later Christianity adopted this idea, and some of us know
practitioners of this today. It’s ironical, l then that the extreme syndrome of
hoarding should be named after Diogenes. I suppose, though, in the extreme
rejection of collecting things, as much as the extreme desire to collect there
is a similar energy at work. Fear of destitution and rejoicing in it has a
strangely similar compulsion to it.
Those with Diogenes Syndrome are described as aggressive,
stubborn, suspicious of others; having unpredictable mood swings, emotional
instability and a skewed perception of reality. Linked to frontal lobe brain
impairment, this Syndrome is an extreme one, but collecting things is usually
quite normal. For sure, there are
the crazy cat ladies with 50 felines and the tea pot and coin collectors with
massive barns to house their collections, but many of us gather things around
us that give us pleasure. When such preoccupations tip over into chaos, then
mere collecting becomes a problem of hoarding.
Television shows
that make a drama out of hoarders and their mountains of stuff help and hinder
hoarders. Piles of years of newspapers and paper napkins and plastic bags and
cardboard and polystyrene boxes and children’s toys and shopping never unpacked
and 70 pairs of underpants and socks and so on littering entire houses that the
occupant and visitors have to crawl through to get to somewhere else, might
make good viewing, but how the television therapist deals with it may not be
useful for others.
What television
doesn’t do well is make shame feel better. Nor do they help the person with
their intense feelings of pain and anxiety. Yes, the mountains of junk are
removed, but what then? The cry of, “You’re throwing away my entire life” isn’t
adequately heard. Unless the
underlying psychological issues are addressed, the problem wont go away with
the truckloads of bits and pieces. As a researcher into hoarding put it, “It’s
not a clutter problem; it’s a perception/thinking problem,” and it doesn’t have
single cause. Contributing facts or stressors have been identified, including
the following: being raises in a chaotic home or one with a confusing family
context, or moving frequently (lots of stuff acts as a sort of anchor),
cognitive processing issues that affect decision making and problem solving,
attention-deficit disorder, anxiety and/or depression, feelings of excessive
guilt about waste (Diogenes felt this), intergenerational and genetic history
(because hoarding runs in families), and may be associated with dementia,
schizophrenia, and OCD, but not exclusively.
Despite some
common misconceptions regarding hoarding as an obsessive compulsive disorder,
it is now thought that the anxiety associated with this isn’t the driving
force. Some hoarders may experience distress and anxiety because of the death
of a loved one, or the loss of important things in their life, or perfectionist
thinking, and hoarding calms their minds, but for others something else is at
work. Hoarding may produce a sense of identity and continuity with the past, a
dynamic that is understandable. Other factors may also be at work, but we can
only know those when we talk with specific people. People are not all the same.
The life of a
hoarder becomes increasingly difficult, but it is a condition of being that can
be effectively treated with counselling and other healing modalities. At least
with television shows highlighting the issue of excessive collecting people are
now more willing to talk about their own problems in this regard and seek the
help they need.
An equilibrium
and a good life may be found between the abundance of stuff and an earthenware
pot. Home doesn’t need to be a storehouse in order to offer stability and
comfort.
