Hoarders!

I would like to take a moment to talk about one of my favorite shows!  HOARDERS!  I specifically am fascinated with the one on A&E.  I watch this show enough to know the names of the Doctor's names and the other people that help out in the show. 

I am going to take a moment to tell you all why exactly I like this show. I find it is very curious that the casual observer woud think these people's problems are simple to solve yet in reality the problem is deciptively complex.  To most people, to solve the problem the guy just has to clean up after him/herself.  That is not the case.  The hoard itself is a physical manifestation of someone having a disorder(s).  You can clean it up but the people will immediately hoard it up if they don't get the mental help they need. 

The episodes are all different and each case have different challenges.  One thing that makes it even more fascinating is that not all of the people can clean their house which reflects reality.  Not everyone has a happy ending.  Sometimes, the house is so fucked up they can't go back!

Each episode has common thread:  taumatic event(s) causing the person to hoard.  It may be a divorce, problem marriage, death(s), drug addiction(s), and depression or a combination.  After these events, apparently if you don't get help, your brain makes an alternative reality.  The other common thread is that their families are severely dysfunctional to the point where they are clueless how bad a member of the family is living.

What makes me sad is when these people involve children and pets.  There was this episode where this guy loves rats.  So his pets got out of their cages and then OVERTOOK the house.  There were rats EVERYWHERE.  In the walls, attic, all over the place.  There was another episide where the owner's house was overrun by rabbits. 

Some people are attached to every single item.  For some reason they associate the item with someone or some event and relive that event by touching that object.  They are scared to throw out that possession because they don't want to forget that memory. 

Some people can't distinguish garbage.  Some people find self identity with their possessions.  In their logic the more stuff they have the "richer" they are.  Some people get a high off purchasing good deals and they keep on buying to keep that high.  Some people grow up very poor and never want to end up like that again, so they save everything "just in case". 

Lots of times, the people are just depressed and don't take care of themselves, or their house.  They just give up on life.  They just throw their trash anywhere and forget about it.

What blows my mind is the fact that most of these people are cool with sleeping with feces nearby.  Their noses get used to smelling shit all the time that they don't notice it!  That is just a testament of the human body adapting to the surrounding.