So, there's this show on A&E called "Hoarders" which I've watched a couple of episodes of online. It's a spinoff, I think, of some other A&E show...Intervention, perhaps?...and the title says it all. Now, how people come to be on this reality show is that they are facing serious, serious consequences for their squalor and clutter (about to be evicted, children being taken away by social services, spouse leaving, etc) and they agree to be filmed in return for professional help. And it is skeery, because most of them--at least in the episodes I've seen--who are actual hoarders seem to be beyond help.
You've had your children taken away, you have a professional cleaning/junk removal crew plus a therapist plus an organizer (for free!) at your disposal, and you *still* cannot decide whether you should throw away a Big Gulp cup from your pile o' trash? That level of mental illness combined with lack of awareness of same? It makes your mouth drop open, it does.
The one true "success" story I saw was a gentleman who lived in a little apartment for formerly homeless people who was facing eviction if he didn't clean it out. They never came out and said it, but there were plentiful clues that he most probably has schizophrenia, and it was easy for me to understand what his story was: he'd probably had a significant psychotic or depressive episode from either being off meds or on meds that weren't working, his living situation went to hell, then once he was better (and he was obviously better: clear, lucid, and with appropriate affect) he still didn't have the initiative, self-help skills, or wherewithal to get everything back to clean and orderly. [There's a post way back in the beginning of this blog called "shame" that details what happened in *my* house when D was very very ill. Psychosis does not generally equal cleanliness.] But once the gentleman got the A&E crew in, he was just so grateful and cooperative and psyched, and he pitched right in, cleaning and purging, no excuses and whining about why he *couldn't* throw away the fifty 2-liter Diet Pepsi bottles surrounding his bed or a magazine from 2002. You could tell the organizer lady just loved him, too: she surprised him with a new little desk/office area in his tiny apartment to put his computer on, so he could write. It was very touching.
So, yeah, this guy was probably the most clinically "crazy" of the people profiled, but he was way, way more sane than the ones who are true hoarders. One of the people on the show I watched tonight was a local fellow, from Beverly. (Shout out!) He hoards hardware and construction supplies and books and magazines. His live-in girlfriend of 25 years *broke her arm* falling down the stairs nine months before filming because he had so much stuff piled up on them that he wouldn't let anyone move, and he still hadn't moved any of the shit. Now, I dunno, but when you are more concerned about your piles o' crap than your life partner, that's pretty crazy. And hard, frankly, to be sympathetic about.
And, lemme tell you, the reactions to this show on the interwebs ain't showing much sympathy for most of the participants. The commentary on TWoP, for example, is pretty vicious. I try hard to remind myself that these people are, indeed, mentally ill, as much as I am, as much as D is, and if I would like people to have some compassion for people like me and D, I should likewise extend my compassion towards these Hoarders participants. It's just that putting *things* ahead of your partner's safety or your ability to care for your children seems so counter to any normal standards of human decency. It's so hard not to judge that.
But I know people judge depression the same way. I've seen people say what a selfish and narcissistic disease it is, and seen people get really, really angry and frustrated with depressed people. And like I know from experience that depressed people can't just snap out of it, I intellectually know that hoarder lady can't just throw away that fucking big gulp cup without trauma.
So, whatever. I dunno. It's just a very fascinating pathology to me. The show's a trainwreck you can't look away from.
xoxo
4 comments:
Hi Andrea. S here. Left a message on your aol email, don't know if you still use it. Could you check it and get back to me? Much thanks.
One more reason not to watch TV...turning psychosis into a circus. In the Middle Ages, villagers used to pelt the crazy people with filth to drive them out of town, and not much has changed in 600 years, has it? And just like then, it's the "sane" people who cover their hands with shit to express themselves.
Not that I'm bitter or anything.
The thing is, I *think* the premise of the show is that it's supposed to be heartwarming, not just a freak show. Basically exploitive, sure, like any reality TV, but the people are willingly exploiting themselves for gain. But, yeah, I think it's supposed to be like The Biggest Loser or Intervention or whatever, where the audience is supposed to be rooting for the person to lose 200 pounds or kick drugs or stop gambling or whatever their huge problem is and either end up cheered that they did or sad that they didn't.
And this show is a total fail at that, because at least in the ones I've seen, there's only been the one guy (the one who probably isn't actually a hoarder) who was actually likable and was successful. The rest are so unpleasant and so unable to recognize their own dysfunction *even though they asked for help* and seem so manipulative and so beyond reach, that even if you're a empathetic person like me, you just get angry watching them. Which moves it, unfortunately, back into the provence of "freak show."
And, trust, I'm the woman who cries at the "I'm an Oxycontin Addict" episode of True Life every time she sees it. (I should probably be embarrassed by that.) The junkies are way more easy to root for than the hoarders on this show. Weird.
I think I'll take the Middle Ages, thx. Sorry, A&E.
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