"Hoarding" is Horrifying

Have you ever been flipping through channels, stop on one of the many random TLC programs and stay there for a while, not realizing until the next commercial break that you've been making a face of confusion/disgust/shock for the past ten minutes? That's happened to me more times than I'd like to admit, but when TLC airs shows about a "Tree Man" (a man who literally has massive tree-like growths all over his body), 700 pound people, a family with 19 KIDS AND COUNTING, and a man with THREE WIVES, it's hard to keep a normal expression while watching.

My most recent discovery on TLC is a disturbingly fascinating show called, "Hoarding: Buried Alive." Hoarding is an obsessive compulsive disorder in which people acquire items of no real value, but are unable to to let them go, severely cluttering their home to the point of it no longer being a functional living space. I think these photos say it all.

The first episode I happened to see involved a couple that had been hoarding something like 15 rabbits (among all of the other unnecessary crap around them). They were literally living in a layer of rabbit feces covering their floor. I was HORRIFIED, and I felt bad for the rabbits living in that environment with no choice in the matter. Of course, I'm incapable of understanding the kind of anxiety these people feel when the thought of throwing away their stuff goes through their mind. But I will never be able to wrap my head around the fact that these people are more comfortable and at ease with this clutter around them than with it not. When they are confronted about the problem many of them become belligerent and have a meltdown. To me, the way they are living is absurd, but it's a behavior they are unable to stop.

I have seen a couple of episodes since and what's interesting is that in their regular day-to-day lives, you would never guess that some of these people are hoarders. They seem perfectly "normal" in every other way, and then a friend comes over to visit for the first time and they can't believe what they're seeing.

I am a neat freak. I can't handle things being out of place, and I absolutely can't stand clutter. If I was growing up in a house full of hoarders and I was unable to find a clear walkway through my living room, I just might have a heart attack. Watching people live this way made me anxious enough. I wouldn't say that this is a show I "like," however, it is interesting to say the least. Hoarders live in a whole different world, a world I really knew nothing about until I saw it with my own two eyes. And what I saw was not cute.