Free The Secret Lives of Hoarders: True Stories of Tackling Extreme Clutter by Matt Paxton, Phaedra Hise

after she retired. As long as someone was there working alongside Lucy, she was on it. She was hyper-focused on cleaning, and she could get through a room more quickly than most hoarders I’ve worked with. But on the days that nobody was helping her, and she had boxes to sort through on her own, she got too distracted to do the job. Unfortunately, she would go shopping instead.
    Lucy would go shopping and load up on craft items, not stopping to think about the reality of what she really had time to do. “I can crochet a hundred fifty baby blankets this year,” she would tell herself. “I know I only made three last year, but this year will be different. I have to buy all this yarn now so I can have my materials on hand when I’m ready to get started. If I go ahead and buy the yarn, then that will motivate me to actually get it done! And these cookie sheets are on sale; if I buy them, I will finish the blankets faster since I also want to make cookies. I know! I’ll give cookies along with the blankets! I just have to stay focused and I can totally do it.”
    Lucy’s ADHD drove her hoarding in that she was distracted by too many hobbies and bought endless supplies for each one. Also, she didn’t keep track of what she already had, so she was buying duplicates.
    Lucy was smart, and she wanted to stay clean. This wasn’t about laziness or a lack of education. Lucy’s brain just worked differently. Hoarders like her have got to treat the ADHD first, usually with a combination of medication and therapy, or they just won’t be able to master the processes required to stay clutter-free.
    The connection to ADHD is an easy one to make. Someone who is easily distracted and has difficulty sticking to a plan could become overwhelmed by keeping track of his or her possessions.
    Dr. Chabaud has found that with ADHD, it’s difficult to tell which comes first. For example, do people start hoarding because they have ADHD issues, can’t focus, and overbuy when shopping? Or is it that a hoarder is so confused by the collecting compulsion that his or her brain starts to get easily distracted in other areas?
    Because Lucy was easily distracted, she just wasn’t going to reliably follow through with things like folding laundry, washing dirty dishes, or even getting basic housekeeping done. And once she fell behind on those tasks, she felt so overwhelmed that she had no idea where to even start.
    The hallmark of ADHD is that the “executive function” part of the brain doesn’t work very well. This is the brain’s “boss,” essentially, driving the person’s ability to sort, prioritize, and categorize tasks. A hoarder with ADHD can’t really make rational decisions about what to do. This hoarder also tends to fight structure and order, preferring to be spontaneous. Organization can look too controlling to a person with ADHD, like it might stifle the person’s creativity and impetuous nature.
    Throwing items away seems risky, because in the ADHD world things are always getting misplaced. If an item with sentimental value gets lost, the memories might disappear with it, so the hoarder prefers to just keep everything. The most important items—whatever the ADHD person is holding at the moment—go “right here on top” of the piles. That’s how the piles grow. Everything in every pile is in some way important to a hoarder.
    Also, ADHD hoarders have trouble thinking through “what-if” scenarios. For example, how likely is the hoarder to actually fix that broken clock radio? What are the chances the hoarder will actually find the missing pieces to the board game? More important, with whom is the hoarder going to play that game? These scenarios probably aren’t going to end satisfactorily, but someone with impaired executive function in the brain can’t weigh the likelihood of that.
    Finally, another hallmark of ADHD is the