Hoarding: How it impacted my life | BBC Ideas — Transcript

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1. 0:00A mental health professional once said to me,
2. 0:02"Just stop buying two newspapers a day,"
3. 0:05as if that simple advice was going to be a solution
4. 0:08to my decades-long problem.
5. 0:10I am a person with hoarding behaviour
6. 0:12and I feel the urge to buy and keep newspapers.
7. 0:16Hoarding is a huge problem in our society,
8. 0:18affecting around 1.4 million people in the UK alone.
9. 0:22Yet it's largely hidden from view, and as in my case,
10. 0:26it can ruin lives, relationships and your sense of self.
11. 0:35My life stopped in 1999 when I lost two children -
12. 0:39one child in a miscarriage and another to a cot death.
13. 0:44I blamed myself.
14. 0:46These unimaginable losses,
15. 0:48compounded by an earlier traumatic experience,
16. 0:51suddenly made it impossible to function.
17. 0:54At first, I could not let go of my children's clothes,
18. 0:57milk bottles, everything they had touched.
19. 1:01Then I began to buy newspapers and magazines,
20. 1:04obsessively searching for articles about babies who had passed away,
21. 1:09trying to understand why these bad things happened
22. 1:12and to accept that I was not immune.
23. 1:15Eventually my world got smaller and smaller.
24. 1:19Although it felt like a safe nest,
25. 1:21I was confined to a square of space in my house,
26. 1:24surrounded mainly by stacks of newspapers and magazines.
27. 1:28And for all the feeling of safety that hoarding gave me,
28. 1:31it took away so much more.
29. 1:34I isolated myself from those close to me -
30. 1:37my husband, my other children and friends.
31. 1:39I stopped inviting people over, always making excuses.
32. 1:43Most of my house was inaccessible.
33. 1:46I lived off sandwich meal deals and canned drinks.
34. 1:50My house had also become a fire hazard,
35. 1:52endangering not only me, but potentially my neighbours.
36. 1:56The thing to remember is that no-one wants to live like this.
37. 2:00I tried to seek help, but most professionals
38. 2:03didn't have enough awareness or experience with this behaviour.
39. 2:07Housing authorities regularly sent officers over
40. 2:09to help clear up my house.
41. 2:12But as well-intentioned as these interventions often were,
42. 2:15they only magnified my shame.
43. 2:17As soon as I touched some of the items,
44. 2:19I felt the need to retell my story, which was incredibly painful.
45. 2:24It wasn't until I finally received the right support
46. 2:27that I came to realise that all this stuff is my trauma,
47. 2:31and I understood why clear-ups were so triggering,
48. 2:33and why they're not a solution to the hoarding problem.
49. 2:37Only about 5% of people with hoarding behaviour
50. 2:40ask for help, often because of shame.
51. 2:42Other times, people simply don't realise they have a problem
52. 2:46or lose sight of just how negatively this impacts their lives.
53. 2:50For many years,
54. 2:51I felt too vulnerable and ashamed to seek help again,
55. 2:55until I faced eviction, and at that time
56. 2:57I thought it was the worst thing that could have happened,
57. 3:00but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
58. 3:03I met a wonderful team of people who work tirelessly
59. 3:06to understand this behaviour and raise awareness about it.
60. 3:10For the first time in my life, I felt like someone was on my side.
61. 3:15I started to attend group support sessions,
62. 3:17where I realised that I wasn't
63. 3:19the only person in the world who hoarded.
64. 3:21Some of the shame I carried had been lifted
65. 3:25and with time I was able to start letting go
66. 3:27of some of the things I held on to for so long.
67. 3:31I threw a lot away and kept some in storage.
68. 3:34Small steps.
69. 3:36Simple pleasures mean so much to me now -
70. 3:39a hot cup of tea with buttery toast in the morning,
71. 3:41being able to keep my favourite ice cream in my freezer,
72. 3:45which I can now access.
73. 3:47Hoarding is often associated with older people,
74. 3:50but in truth, it doesn't discriminate.
75. 3:52It can affect anyone.
76. 3:54Over 90% of people who hoard have at least one other condition,
77. 3:58such as obsessive-compulsive disorder or bipolar disorder.
78. 4:03I have been diagnosed with OCD and post-traumatic stress disorder.
79. 4:07If you're worried about your own behaviour,
80. 4:09there are support groups that can help.
81. 4:12For me, it was starting small,
82. 4:14working on sorting and throwing things away 15 minutes at a time,
83. 4:19otherwise it was too overwhelming.
84. 4:22Imagine stacks of newspapers that you need to comb through -
85. 4:25it's hard to know where to start.
86. 4:27If you're wondering how to broach the subject
87. 4:29with someone you're concerned about,
88. 4:31you can use a hoarding clutter scale designed
89. 4:33to compare someone's home with
90. 4:34a series of images to help start the conversation.
91. 4:38Always include a person in every decision and offer a choice,
92. 4:41so change doesn't feel like something that is done to them.
93. 4:45How we talk about hoarding matters hugely.
94. 4:48I don't say, "I'm a hoarder."
95. 4:50This can be a very stigmatising word,
96. 4:53when in fact hoarding is not something that defines me.
97. 4:57What it actually is, is a coping mechanism,
98. 4:59a need to protect myself from the world.
99. 5:02I hope that one day everyone will be able
100. 5:05to see past the behaviour and understand that
101. 5:07people who hoard are not lazy or dirty,
102. 5:10but rather deeply wounded human beings
103. 5:12who need support and understanding.