John Hopton for redOrbit.com – @Johnfinitum
Matt Paxton is host of the Emmy nominated TV show Hoarders: Family Secrets, which attempts to help families affected by hoarding disorders. He spoke with to redOrbita about the devastating effects of the condition and improvements being made in public awareness.
RedOrbit: The meaning of the terms “hoarding” and “hoarders” may seem pretty obvious, particularly to anyone who has seen the show, but please could you outline what actually constitutes a hoarder?
Matt Paxton: The clinical definition of hoarding is “a mental disorder marked by an obsessive desire to acquire a significant amount of possessions.” What we see in the field working with hoarders is that something tragic has happened to the hoarder and they look for happiness or self-worth in their things.
The tragedy is what makes a hoarder hold on to their items. That tragedy may include grief, divorce, abuse, loss of a job, or depression. It’s important to remember that hoarding is not a choice, the person struggling with hoarding doesn’t choose to live this way and their brain will not allow them to stop collecting.
Someone not struggling with hoarding tendencies can understand when the collection has become too large and can respect the home’s boundaries. Someone that suffers with hoarding often lets the collection much too large because their brain cannot see how big the collection has become.
RO: What are hoarders’ collections actually symptoms of?
MP: There is always a reason that the person hoards. No one would ever choose to live like that; it’s a horrible way to live. I often hear people say “hoarding doesn’t make logical sense, why would the person save X, Y or Z.” The challenge with that statement is the word “logical.”
Hoarding is a mental disorder and it is not logical. The person cannot help what is happening in their mind. The psychological community is just now starting to research how brain chemistry causes hoarding.
RO: How has working on the show helped you and the public to understand mental illness and the issues connected to hoarding?
MP: The show Hoarders – formerly on A&E, now airing on Lifetime – did help lower the stigma of hoarding. When the show started, the average person didn’t know what hoarding was and thought their loved one was just lazy.
The show has helped people struggling with hoarding know that they were not alone and helped the average American understand the true volume of folks suffering with hoarding. Since the show began airing, I have cleaned over 1,000 hoarded homes around the country with families that learned it was ok to reach out for help. The lessons we learned by working with each individual hoarder has allowed us to create a national program that helps families around the country clean their home with less anxiety and most importantly – keep their home clean.
Being on an Emmy nominated show gave us the platform for people to see how they should communicate with their families and that it’s ok to ask for help.
RO: How have victims of the condition been helped by the show? This could include either the individuals featured or in the broader community.
MP: When the show started only 2 million people were recognized as hoarders and now over 14 million people (5 percent of America) struggle with some level of hoarding.
Hoarding is now a recognized mental disorder by the American Psychiatric Association in the DSM-5 (diagnostic for statistical manual of mental disorders). Because of this designation, more therapy is now available for hoarders and more research is being conducted to truly understand the disorder.
The show helped bring understanding to the disorder, helping thousands of people find a real diagnosis. In 20 years millions of people will receive help for the work that was done in the past few years. I personally receive emails every day from families thanking me for bringing normalcy and understanding to their lives. Believe it or not, sometimes reality TV just helps people realize that they are not alone. And that’s a very powerful thing.
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