The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

Transcript

The Selfish Path to Romance. Download Chapter One for free at DrKenner.com and @amazon.com

Eric, you're dealing with your mom.

Yes.

Yeah, tell me what's going on with her.

Well, she's a hoarder big time, like rooms that aren't usable. She keeps cups from fast food restaurants. I mean, just it's all garbage.

Okay, she has a problem.

Is it?

How old is she?

She's 56?57.

Oh, she's relatively young. So it's not necessarily Alzheimer's or some dementia. Has she been doing this for a while?

Yeah, a long time, and we've tried, and it's driving my dad nuts. And I just thought if I could do something maybe to get her to admit or go get help it might be kind of nice.

Okay, and that's a wonderful idea to do that. The question is, how do you do that? Because hoarders typically?do they want help or not?

I don't think so because I've mentioned it to her, and she just tells me there's nothing wrong and that I'm just being a pain in the butt.

So okay, can you describe your home?the home she lives in, excuse me, not yours. I don't know if?

It's just a small two-bedroom house with like an extra, as we call it, Arizona room and garage and a storage shed. That shed, my old bedroom, the Arizona room, the living room, the dining room is all full. There's a path to the living room. The only piece of furniture that's usable in the whole building is their bed, and it's, you know, there's stuff piled up around it.

What do they do for the bathroom?

That is?my dad keeps that nice and clean.

Okay, so there's one clean room. Dad has his zone, his territory.

Yeah, in the garage pretty much.

Is it any risk of any rats or any insects, I don't know, because of the cups and stuff?

You don't know. So it could be a health hazard?not only physical hazard, it's a fire hazard, right? If she's got paper cups and stuff all over the place from fast food places. Tell me what else she hoards.

Just tape, I mean, all kinds of stuff. It's just unbelievable.

Okay, give me just a sampling. I have paper cups, but people hoard different things. Sometimes people go ahead?

Markers, pens, papers, boxes, empty boxes, old bows, all kinds of stuff.

Okay, so basically it's a lot of crap, yes, but it isn't to her. These are her possessions. These are her treasures. Do you understand the meaning behind them for your mom?

Nope.

You don't. But has she done it your whole life? Or was there a certain time when she was a normal mom and then suddenly, you know, suddenly she started hoarding?

Yeah, it just, it's gotten worse over the years.

Okay.

I think it's always been that way.

Okay. There is a sheet. There is help on the horizon.

Hey, I gotta interrupt this because we've got to pay some bills. 30 seconds, that's it. A very quick Ave, and then Alan will be back.

Romance. I wish I knew more about what girls want from a relationship. Boy, I wish I knew more about what I want. Where's that ad I saw? Here it is?The Selfish Path to Romance, a serious romance guidebook. Download Chapter One for free at SelfishRomance.com and buy it at Amazon.com. Huh. The Selfish Path to Romance?that is interesting.

Okay, I think it's always been that way. Okay, there is a sheet. There is help on the horizon. There's a book called Buried in Treasures, okay? And it's a cognitive behavioral therapy book by Gail Steketee?S-T-E-K-E-T-E, I think that's how?no excuse me?S-T-E-K-E-T-E, okay. And that would be a help.

There are programs available. There are actually support groups. I live in Rhode Island. There is a support group at our local hospital. I went to one of their meetings on hoarding, and they have support groups for people. They actually have therapists that go into the homes and help clean them out.

One of the cardinal rules is if you try to force the person who's hoarding, you are going to make therapy so much harder if you?they resist any attempts to just clean things up, or you know, accusing them or arguing with them or yelling at them?that typically backfires.

Has your dad tried that? Or have you tried that?

No, not really. We tried to be nice?blah blah?but it's getting to the point where there's no more nice. It's got?

Well another thing is you can declare it a health hazard and then she has no choice. For example, a landlord can give them an ultimatum if, you know, if it's that sort of a situation. You said she's in an apartment. Was it an apartment?

No, it's a house.

Oh, house. Okay, I'm sorry. You said an Arizona room and I'm not familiar with those. And typically hoarders collect gradually. There are different types of people who focus more on acquiring things. I know we have a family member who just buys and buys and buys and buys and buys.

Other people just hold on to things and they can't discard them. It's not that they actively go out there and buy things, but they can't discard them.

I mean, but she does both and it makes it a total mess. You can have a doctor step in and possibly tell her that, you know, look at the things in the house. She needs a path. She needs to clear around her bed as a safety thing.

You know, maybe a medical doctor she might listen to.

But if you get the book Buried in Treasures, I think that will help you. And there are also some websites that you can go to, okay? It's an anxiety disorder?that's what it's considered. You can go to the Obsessive Compulsive Foundation at OCF?excuse me?OCFoundation.org, and you'll find the book Buried in Treasures there.

I mean, you can just Google it and it will give you some ideas too. But sometimes you can even have the fire? you can just say, ?Mom, let's do this. Let's make sure it's still safe and maybe we can just call in the fire department and let them tell us what's okay to keep and what's not, and what?how to make it safer.?

And the thing is, the goal in managing it is to get her to throw things away. And I have seen pictures of the homes where the therapists have gone in, and the therapists have used a non-judgmental approach, and they have helped people remove things from their home to get rid of it. But they have to challenge the ideas that are making these possessions so valuable to them?whatever obsessive compulsive ideas they have that they have to hold on to these things and acquire more.

That's what they need to challenge. They have to get to the core ideas and you and I don't know what's in your mom's head. So that's where cognitive therapy comes in.

Okay.

Okay. So thank you very much and I wish you a clean home for your mom.

Here's an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance, the serious romance guidebook by clinical psychologist Dr. Ellen Kenner.

And here's a little more from Dr. Kenner:

?Where do you live??

?I told you?with my mother.?

?Where does she live??

?170/9 Street in the Bronx.?

?All right, I'll take you to the subway.?

?Like hell you will, you'll buy me a cab.?

?Why do you dames have to live in the Bronx??

?You mean you bring other girls up here??

?Certainly not. I'm a happily married man.?

And that's from the movie The Apartment. And certainly not I'm a happily married man?but he's bringing other girls up there. And what does that do to his mind? What does that do to his relationship with his wife? With his relationship let's say with his kids?

He's leading a double life. And for anyone who's had an affair and it hasn't been out in the open, that's what affairs typically are?they're not out in the open. They know the strain, they know the anxiety, they know the frustration of trying to live a lie. And the lies keep growing and growing, and really, they're creating a situation of self-torture for themselves and they're doing a lot of damage to the people around them.

Lies leave trails. They leave emotional trails, and they leave physical trails. Physical trails?you have cell phone numbers, you have lipstick in the car, you have absences, times when you're not home in the evenings?every Thursday night my husband's gone. They also leave the emotional scars?my husband's acting so differently, or my wife's acting so differently now. And you know, she hasn't hugged me in a long time.

And it's very, very painful. So if that's what you're engaged in, you can always give me a call. We can talk about how to disentangle yourself from lies, because the one thing you want to recapture is your self-esteem, your self-respect. And you have a lot of work to do after you've done some damage to it.

For more Dr. Kenner podcasts, go to DrKenner.com and please listen to this ad:

Kenner and co-author Dr. Edwin Locke:

To become a better romantic partner, understand where emotions come from. Every emotion is caused by a specific type of subconscious evaluation or appraisal. Here are some examples:

Happiness is the emotion stemming from the appraisal that you've achieved or are making progress toward your most important goals and values. For example, romantic love satisfaction is a narrower, less intense form of happiness, usually stemming from gaining or holding a particular value. Love results from a highly positive evaluation of another person based on their desirable qualities. Hope stems from the appraisal that a desired value will be achieved.

You can download Chapter One for free by going to DrKenner.com, and you can buy The Selfish Path to Romance at Amazon.com.