Everyone has a different definition of clutter. To some people clutter is anything that is out of place. If a coffee cup is left on the kitchen counter - it's clutter. To other people, clutter means you can't walk through a room. Everyone views clutter differently.
Just as the saying goes "one mans trash is another mans treasure. Or some people would define that person as a hoarder.
Who's right ?
According to the dictionary, clutter is a “confused or disorganized state or collection”.
A
confused state? Yes, you can have clutter of the mind. But most people
think of clutter as just “stuff”. A collection of random objects
scattered all over the place. That’s a nice and simple definition. It
could just be that you hadn’t bothered to pick up after yourself and
have stuff everywhere.
Then we get to a more serious and a more cluttered situation and we could end up with chronic disorganization.
Chronic Disorganization also has a definition:
- Chronic disorganization is having a past history of disorganization in which self-help efforts to change have failed
- an undermining of current quality of life due to disorganization
- the expectation of future disorganization.
This
means that you have been disorganized for many years. And it has
started to affect your quality of life. You can’t find things. You are
constantly late because you can’t find things. You are embarrassed by
your mess.
It’s a little more than just basic clutter.
A
person can be organized in one area of his life but not in another.
They can be organized at work but be disorganized at home. They can be
organized by how they manage their time but not with how they manage
their stuff.
Then we go up another level and get to “hoarding”.
What exactly is “hoarding”? According to “Frost & Hartl’s (’96) definition of clinical hoarding:
1) the acquisition of, and failure to discard, a large number of possessions that appear to be useless or of limited value
2) living spaces sufficiently cluttered so as to preclude activities for which those spaces were designated
3) significant distress of impairment in functioning caused by the hoarding
Some
people have an obsessive need to acquire things. They tend to develop
an emotional attachment to things that many of us would consider trash.
Family and friends of hoarders don’t always understand that “hoarding” is an “illness”
and that the hoarder needs professional help. They sometimes feel that
by just going in and cleaning out the house (sometimes even when the
hoarder doesn’t know that they are going to do it) that everything will
be “o.k.”. Once the mess is gone, problem solved. But that can actually make it worse.
Hoarding
is a complex issue. An issue that not even the mental health community
can agree on. An issue that there might not be a cure for.
It’s a problem that many people won’t admit they have and one that might cost them their family or even their life.
A problem that is more common than you think.
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