Originally Posted by Chicken lady
When I am angry, I tend to start vacuuming or mopping or dusting. It is a healthy way to get rid of anger.
When I am angry, I tend to start vacuuming or mopping or dusting. It is a healthy way to get rid of anger.
Today's hoarders show on TLC was a really dirty house. Fecal matter and garbage everywhere.
Shocker!
It was the second house that they had hoarded until it was destroyed. Of course, they were able to Buy! a house afterwards.
Someone on another forum told me that hoarders never change, or rarely, even with therapy and medication. That made me feel both sad and angry, and you know? I don't believe it. I think people can change. I don't ever like to think any situation is hopeless.
So I decided to look up the latest stats since in the past very few recovered. Meds still don't generally work well and it said that with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy about 30-40% of hoarders were helped to varying degrees. I know that part of the problem is that a good CBT therapist can be hard to find in certain parts of the country. Of course there is also the cost and it won't be a quick fix. Some of the latest studies are also showing that their brain scans are different when asked to bring in all their mail for a week and then sort while they are being scanned on what they will keep and throw away. Also the article pointed out that if someone was an alcoholic and you threw away all their booze and left their house nothing would have changed. So while you can clean the house if no treatment is pursued or it fails then they will resume their hoarding. It is also linked to brain injuries, depression, suffering a terrible event in your life, obesity, etc. It really is very sad.
I agree it is very sad and that it is very hard to treat. It divides families. I'm glad when it is true hoarding, there is now a psychiatric diagnosis applied to it so insurance may cover the meds and therapy. I couldn't find a CB therapist that would come to the house around here. Which kind of makes hoarding therapy pointless.
At this point it is really, really hopeless. I know that sounds bad but that is what the research shows.
They are working on some medications that they think might help, but even that has been really slow-going and had many setbacks.
The above quote can be misleading. It is not like these folks have clean houses even after CBT has "helped."
It might mean they have a goat trail to the back door for emergencies or they have working smoke alarms.
Yes you are absolutely right. It really sounds like a very small percentage ever have neat/clean homes.
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