I’ve clearly inherited my father’s minimalness gene. Whew.
Last night’s episode: Chris and Dale. (It’s all I can do to not refer to her as “Chip.”)
Chris needs counseling. Badly. Very very badly. I can’t even imagine how traumatic and horrible it must be to lose a child, but clearly she hasn’t made progress toward moving on. She needs help with that. I liked her no-nonsense mom, and I think she might be instrumental in getting Chris to counseling.
That said, I think she’s a hopeful case. The transition to full-on hoarding was triggered by a specific event, and she recognizes that. As the clean-up guy said, she hasn’t been doing it for as long as many others, so the behavior hasn’t become ingrained. And in stark contrast to people like Betty, she was willing to say “I don’t need it.”
I fully understand her need to look at every single thing, however, and I’m not sure it’s so much an OCD thing as an understanding of her own habits of disorganization. If she knows that she chucks things that she definitely wants to keep into boxes along with stuff that she can let go of, then it only makes sense to look at each thing. It’s not like she was examining each plate in great detail. Her process seemed workable, but slow, so two days was simply not enough time for the project.
It was so cool when her daughter was sitting on the bed wiggling her feet around in excitement. And I actually teared up when they said that her daughters had frends over.
I was chatting with a therapist I know the other day and asked her if she’d seen the show. She hadn’t, but she told me that hoarders are generally considered the absolute hardest cases to deal with. She said it’s extremely frustrating because it’s so rare to be able to make any significant progress with them. I wonder whether Chris might be a case where progress is possible. I hope so.
Next up: Dale
I felt better about this episode than some previous ones. Chris desperately needs counseling, and I’m glad that the hoarding has only been going on a few years, because kids growing up knowing only that level of mess really is terrible and can do damage to them as well. I was worried about her younger daughter sounding like she wanted to keep everything (like when they were going through her clothes), and then I realized it’s probably like being shown a closet full of practically-new-to-her clothes and being told she can’t keep some of it - of course she wants it all, it’s “new.” She probably hasn’t seen a lot of that for a couple years. Movie night for the older daughter, sleepover for the younger - what awesome progress.
Dale worries me as he was just so focused on more “junk”-like objects and dumpster diving. His apparent projection of blame for damaging his valued objects was worrisome too, but that was probably a defense mechanism against all the stress he was feeling over things being tossed out and picked over. I’m glad to hear that he’s working with a therapist and an organizer; if he wasn’t I would bet he’d go right back to dumpster diving.
I just watched Bob and Richard. Bob might change, especially if Betsy stays a bit more aggressive towards his hoarding. He at least sees that camping out in the backyard in 30 degree weather might be a problem, especially for his kids! The bedbugs made me feel all crawly and itchy.
Richard, on the other hand, isn’t going to change. I know he said he was interested in talking to a therapist, but I’m not sure he will be able to follow through.