You're listening to *Unpacked: The Truth About Hoarding*, a podcast that goes beyond the mess to explore the heart, humanity, and healing behind hoarding disorder, hosted by Matt Williams.
All right, welcome to *Unpacked: The Truth About Hoarding*. I'm your host, the commonly named Matt Williams, coming to you from high above the Rockwellian Main Street of Irwin, Pennsylvania.
What I'd like to talk about this evening is what not to say.
I want to talk about something I hear all the time. Not from the people I'm trying to help, but from the people who love them: family members, neighbors, well-meaning friends. They come to me frustrated, exhausted, sometimes a little angry, and they tell me what they've been saying over and over.
Most of the time, they're not saying anything cruel. They're saying things they honestly believe will help. But what I've learned, sitting in enough living rooms and listening to enough stories, is that the words that feel like help to the person saying them can often feel like judgment to the person hearing them.
So I'll give you some examples.
This is one I hear a lot: "Why don't you just throw it away?"
Throw it away. I hear that a lot. It sounds so easy, so simple: "Why don't you just throw it away?"
I hear that one more than any other, and I understand why people say it. To someone who doesn't have an attachment to the object, it looks simple. Pick it up, put it in a bag, done.
But "just throw it away" skips over everything that makes hoarding disorder complicated. It skips the anxiety. It skips the shame. It skips the trauma. It skips the real fear that letting something go means losing a piece of yourself.
So when someone hears that, what they often feel is: "You don't understand, and you're not trying to."
Here's another one: "If you loved me, you'd clean this up."
That one cuts deep, because the person who says it usually really means, "This is hard for me, and I need you to choose me over the stuff."
But what the person hears is, "You are broken, and your brokenness is hurting the people you love."
And that's not motivation. That's a guilt grenade. It usually makes the shame worse, which eventually makes the clutter worse.
How about this one: "I'm calling someone to clean this out, whether you like it or not."
Sometimes people say this because they're scared. There's a safety concern. There's a fire hazard. They've run out of ideas, and I get that fear. I really do.
But a threat, even a loving threat, is still a threat. When someone who hoards hears this, they don't suddenly get motivated. They get more secretive. They hide things better. They push you farther out.
The trust that took years to build, or that you've been trying to build, can collapse in a single sentence. And trust is completely necessary for any hope of success.
So what could you say instead?
I've learned that the most helpful way is often the simplest. Something like:
"I'm worried about you. Not the house. You."
Or:
"I don't know what this is like for you, but I want to understand."
Or:
"Can we talk about one small area that scares me from a safety standpoint Just one."
The difference between those sentences and the ones I mentioned earlier is not about being polite. It's about whether you're standing with the person and standing against the problem.
When you're against a problem, you're on their side. When you're against them, they have no one.
So look, I'm not saying you have to be perfect. I've said the wrong thing plenty of times. Early on, I walked into situations thinking I knew what needed to happen, and I said things I regret. I've had to learn the same way everyone does: by getting it wrong and paying attention to what happened next.
But here's what I do know for sure. The people I've watched make the most progress, it's never because someone finally said the right magic words. It's because someone kept showing up, kept their mouth shut when they wanted to lecture, and kept the relationship intact long enough for trust to grow.
That's the work. Not finding the perfect phrase. Just staying present in the room.
So if you've said some of these things, like "just throw it away" or "if you loved me," you're not a bad person. Nothing like that. You were just scared, tired, or out of ideas. That's understandable.
The question is: what happens next?
Do you keep saying the same thing and expecting different results Or do you try something else, even if it feels small, even if it feels like it's not enough?
Because sometimes the most important thing you can say isn't a solution.
It's just: "I'm here, and I'm listening."
Thank you for listening to *Unpacked*. We'll talk to you next time.
Thanks for listening to *Unpacked: The Truth About Hoarding*. For more information or support, visit fighttheblightinc.com. We'll see you next time.