TSH Writes About...
Concerns
Concerns with Family members
You may be in a situation where you are concerned about a family member or friend who doesn’t live with you. Your adult children may live in a home bursting at the seams with baby clothes and toys. Your older parents may be living in a home that is too big for their needs or has too many stairs for their current physical health but the amount of furniture and books makes it impossible to take the next steps. Or a friend’s home is so cluttered that you don’t want to visit and you feel certain that he is overwhelmed and doesn’t know where to start.
This is a very delicate situation. Even though you may mean well, you can risk offending someone you love, so tread lightly. Remember that shame and embarrassment are linked to your own state of disorganization, so it’s likely they feel the same way. And, those negative emotions can make us highly sensitive to criticism, so even a gentle comment can backfire.
Helpful Tip: Share your own story and how you plan to work toward being more organized. Don’t bring it up while you are standing in the middle of their disorganized home, but bring it up while you are both relaxed and enjoying time together. It’s likely that they will say something along the lines of, “I could use some getting organized myself!” They may say something like, “I have tried to get organized, but it never works.” Although it’s tempting, don’t use this opening to shift the conversation to them. Acknowledge their comments, but stick to “I” statements. “I also felt I could never get organized, but I’m going to try an approach that I feel may work for me.” or “I thought about getting organized for a long time before I felt ready to take this step. This is my plan..” Share your strategy and listen to their feedback with interest.
You have planted seeds and have nourished them with compassion. Don’t be surprised if they decide to make steps to get organized right along with you!
There are circumstances that require more than just compassion and support.
You may love someone who you think may have a chronic disorder such as hoarding. Hoarding is a diagnosable medical condition that involves a list of criteria. Just having a home seemingly packed to the rafters with things doesn’t mean hoarding is occurring. In many cases, a person with a hoarding disorder will be especially resistant to any help. I dislike the term “hoarder” because I feel it reduces the essence of a person into their disorder as their identity. Just as with any illness, we are so much more than our diagnosis.
Some studies suggest that for a person with a hoarding problem, individual items become an extension of a given memory, becoming a barrier to decluttering and in fact, continued hoarding becomes the response to any situation. Every newspaper holds the memory of the news, food wrappers keep track of what was eaten. Everything is potentially useful and to discard anything is to risk losing a memory of a moment. Even if I have no idea why something is needed today, tomorrow I may realize just how badly I needed that item.
However, if a person is living in a home that is dangerous or if their home will not allow them to take care of their basic needs. Although this is a very abbreviated criteria, one measure that has helped me is to determine whether someone is unable to prepare or store food or if they are unable to use the bathroom to take care of basic functions such as using the toilet or washing themselves.
If someone you love is in this situation, a call to Adult Protective Services or Senior Protective Services may be in order. While you are usually able to remain anonymous, this is a step to take when you have legitimate concerns about someone’s well being.
If the concern is seen as worrisome, a social worker will usually visit to determine next steps. It does not mean that someone would be removed from their home. Community social welfare agencies work with professional organizers who specialize in hoarding disorders with special training in this population.
Resolving a hoarding problem usually requires not just physical intervention, clearing the dangerous clutter, but behavioral health therapy as well.
Hoarding disorders are closely aligned with the range of disorders on the obsessive-compulsive disorders and similar types of interventions have proven to be helpful. In part, therapies are designed to train individuals to respond differently to objects and to reduce the importance placed on them.
People do get better, there is hope.
Getting organized is not easy. It’s not fun. There is no good reason to do it unless staying disorganized for the rest of your life, and passing that mess on to your kids and family, is a future that is more bleak than doing the hard work of getting organized now. Need help getting started? Schedule a Complementary Serenity Call!
