Matt Paxton On Hoarding Disorder: 'We All Have Bad Parts, We're Just Able To Hide It...They're Not Able To'
By Chris Stigall
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – Chris Stigall talked to Matt Paxton from the television show "Hoarders" on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT about the show and helping people overcoming the hoarding disorder.
Paxton said more and more is being learned about hoarding and how it develops.
"Hoarding used to be a subset of OCD. That's where is it was psychiatrically, but now it's its own mental disability, so we're at the beginning of understanding this disorder. Literally, we're just starting to figure it out in the last two to three years. Five years ago, even when our show first came on, people just thought 'oh, I just have a crazy aunt that has a lot of cats,' and we didn't realize that it was legit, it's real. People don't want to live this way, they can't help it."
He explained that the hoarding trait develops after a traumatic experience.
"These are cool, interesting people that something bad has happened to. Always there's a tragedy. One hundred percent of the time and usually the more intense the visual, the more intense the tragedy is. Think about the worst thing about you, man, the thing you won't even tell you wife, like the worst thing you've ever done in your life, and then we had to put that in our front lawn every single day. That's what the hoarders have been through. They just happen to have a very visual bad part of their life. We all have bad parts. We're just able to hide it. They're not able to hide it."
Paxton said the first step in helping someone struggling with hoarding is taking the proper approach.
"Don't yell, don't scream, and don't make it worse. Call a professional. If you lead with compassion, '[are you] going say you're disgusting, you're gross, you're awful, or are you going to say, 'hey, you're really nice. This is a cool house. I'd like to see your things,' if you lead with nice, they're going to let you in."
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