Archive for the 'Musings' Category

I hoard journals but not much else, however a recent article on the subject piqued my interest. It appeared in the “Well Blog” section of The New York Times and was entitled, “Children of Hoarders.” It discussed children of hoarders who are left to their own devices to make sense of growing up in homes where having visitors was challenging because of all the inanimate objects laying around, resulting in a difficulty in navigating through clutter.

I have always been fascinated by the psychological studies people choose to undertake. Randy O. Frost, a psychology professor at Smith College for two decades has been studying the act of hoarding. (Now doesn’t that sound as if he is a hoarder of information?)

His study of hoarding surmised that children of hoarders often display a tortured ambivalence toward their parents, primarily because they have little choice but to live amongst the junk. “They grew up in a difficult environment and naturally came to resent it,” says Frost.

The Mayo Clinic defines hoarding as an excessive collecting of items and the inability to discard. Typically these items appear to have little or no value to others whether they are clothes, papers, notes or other items. Sometimes hoarding can cause a significant impairment to move around a residence or office.

I am thankful that neither of my parents were considered pathological hoarders, however, I think my father had a tinge of hoarding in his blood in response to the Nazis taking away all his belongings at the onset of World War II. He did not hoard all over the house but did have “sacred” hoarding locations which were confined mainly to his desk, closet and the garage.

You might ask, what can be done about hoarding? Here’s a summary of some suggestions offered in a 2008 article on Oprah.com and offered by Dr. David Tolin:

1. Not being able to think of a use for an object doesn’t mean you need to keep it.
Ask yourself not whether you can use the object, but whether you really will use the object. A good rule of thumb is that if you haven’t used an object in over a year—you probably can live without it.

2. More is not necessarily better.
Get rid of the extras.

3. Categorize items into piles.
Make a pile of things to keep, a pile of things to donate to charity, a pile of things to sell or give away and a pile of things to throw away.

4. Follow the “OHIO” rule: Only handle it once.
“If you pick something up, make a decision about it and then put it somewhere it belongs…if you find yourself handling things again and again, moving things from one pile to another, stop yourself. Refocus and move on,” says Tolin.

5. Don’t overthink.
“If you have to go through a long and complicated decision-making process for each and every item before you get rid of it, you’ll never get free of the clutter,” Dr. Tolin says.

6. Be brave.
“Beating compulsive hoarding requires you to face things that are very scary,” Dr. Tolin says. Those who gain the most are those who are willing to risk the most.

7. Understand what you’re afraid of, and recognize when your fears are irrational.
“Ask yourself: What’s the worst that can happen if I throw this out? Try making a prediction about what will happen if you discard an object. Then discard and see if that bad thing really happened.

8. Be patient.
You will not be able to overcome hoarding overnight.

9. Be strict with yourself.

10. Know when to ask for help.
Compulsive hoarding is a potentially serious mental health issue and some people might need professional help to cope with hoarding.

My mother was the opposite of a hoarder. She never kept anything, including all the journals I filled up as a child. That’s the flip side and I am quite upset about this! In the writing classes I teach I stress the importance of keeping old journals because you just never know when they will come in handy for a current project. This kind of hoarding is just fine, in my eyes, vz as a writer!