Everybody lies

photo by mtsofan

I have just seen a scary thing. To understand why I find it scary you have to know one thing about me: I am not a pack rat.

Indeed, I am probably a little too good at throwing things away, because I have often found myself needing something I threw away 2 weeks ago and having to buy it again. But generally you could say that I just like my life to stay unencumbered by too many possessions.

Lately I have been on an uncluttering mission again. I go through not only my own room, but through the whole house and look for things nobody really uses anymore. And then I either throw them away, donate them or try to sell them on ebay (usually not for much money, but just to get rid of them). I just feel better when I look around my room and only see things I really use and need. Luckily my mom is with me on this, but my dad has a bit of a problem with letting things go.

But as annoying as this “we better keep this as we might need it one day”-habit of my dad is (often he is actually right about the “need it one day” part), it is NOTHING compared to other people’s problems.

I have just watched a short film by Martin Hampton about hoarders. The film is called “Possessed” (found the link via Get Rich Slowly) and it is really - and I mean REALLY - scary. I have been watching it with mounting horror and a dropped jaw.

It portrays 4 different people with huge hoarding problems.

I can kind of understand the first one (he’s hoarding mainly books and videos) and even the second one (he buys lots and lots of stuff, sometimes several times over, without actually using any of it as far as I could see). Their flats looked awful and I wouldn’t have wanted to live there, but mainly they’re suffering from weak impulse control, so I can in a way relate.

The third person was a woman and there is no other way to describe her than: seriously disturbed. She’s keeping everything. Every. Single. Thing. Empty bottles, used tissues, every trash imaginable. *shudder* You couldn’t pay me enough to step inside that appartment. How can anybody become so disturbed? It really boggles the mind.

Compared to that the fourth guy was almost a relief, because it apprears to me that he is mainly just a slob, too lazy to throw anything away and get his stuff in order.

Suddenly even my annoying flatmate in Leipzig, who clearly has the beginnings of a hoarding problem, seems like a well-adjusted person. Yes, he does keep a lot of useless stuff, but at least he keeps it only in his own room (which I have never entered) and in the big closet in the kitchen. As long as I do not have to deal with it, he can go on doing that for all I care. I hope to be out of his life quite soon so I won’t have to watch his descent into a real hoarder existence…

But watching that film made me itching to embark on another uncluttering round of the house tomorrow morning. And I definitely have to show the film to my parents. Even though they won’t be able to understand what’s being said I know they will feel just as shocked as I was by this.