WEBVTT - An Object Lesson 0:00:00.560 --> 0:00:02.800 From how Stuff Works dot com. This is the Stuff 0:00:02.840 --> 0:00:11.680 of Life. Welcome to the Stuff of Life. I'm your host, 0:00:11.760 --> 0:00:14.040 Julie Douglas, and today we have a companion to the 0:00:14.120 --> 0:00:17.600 previous episode on eternity in the ways that we try 0:00:17.640 --> 0:00:22.479 to immortalize ourselves, like creating a digital avatar or a 0:00:22.600 --> 0:00:27.120 time capsule. This episode is about the objects we might 0:00:27.160 --> 0:00:30.680 put into a time capsule or a storage unit, or 0:00:30.760 --> 0:00:33.000 even a box of memorabilia that we just can't seem 0:00:33.000 --> 0:00:36.760 to get rid of. Why do we hold on so tightly? 0:00:37.800 --> 0:00:40.879 In some ways, our stuff is ourselves. It tells a 0:00:40.920 --> 0:00:43.960 story about who we are, and hey, if it sticks around, 0:00:44.120 --> 0:00:47.720 maybe we will too. It becomes a kind of talisman 0:00:47.840 --> 0:00:52.599 against death. But that doesn't explain why some of us 0:00:52.640 --> 0:01:01.800 develop pathological attachments to things. Ruined that movie with Tom Hanks, 0:01:01.960 --> 0:01:04.200 he got attached to the ball and he named it Wilson. 0:01:04.240 --> 0:01:07.360 I think that was part of his survival mechanism, is 0:01:07.440 --> 0:01:11.080 to feel like he had a connection to something or someone. 0:01:11.360 --> 0:01:15.240 And so people often who have been hurt by individuals 0:01:15.280 --> 0:01:19.200 throughout their lives through by people, turned to objects and 0:01:19.360 --> 0:01:22.240 or even animals to feel like they have a sense 0:01:22.240 --> 0:01:25.920 of connection. That's dr Rebecca Beaton, a psychologist and director 0:01:26.000 --> 0:01:29.679 of the Anxiety and Stress Management Institute. We talked to 0:01:29.720 --> 0:01:33.319 her about why we project ourselves onto objects and how 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:38.120 these projections can morph into insidious relationships with our belongings. 0:01:38.800 --> 0:01:41.920 But first, let's explore the mounting evidence that most of 0:01:42.000 --> 0:01:45.480 us have a lot of stuff, perhaps too much stuff. 0:01:45.560 --> 0:01:47.280 That's the whole meaning of life, isn't it. Trying to 0:01:47.360 --> 0:01:51.120 find a place for your stuff. Sometimes you've got to move. 0:01:51.240 --> 0:01:54.160 You gotta get a bigger house. Why too much stuff? 0:01:55.800 --> 0:01:58.960 You've got to move all your stuff? And maybe he's 0:01:59.000 --> 0:02:02.720 put some of your stuff in storage. Imagine that there's 0:02:02.720 --> 0:02:07.160 a whole industry based on keeping an eye on your stuff. 0:02:07.160 --> 0:02:10.320 That's from George Carlin's appearance at Comic Relief in nineteen 0:02:10.400 --> 0:02:14.120 eighties six. His observation of our quest to accumulate was 0:02:14.240 --> 0:02:18.520 spot on. According to the Self Storage Association, it took 0:02:18.560 --> 0:02:21.400 the industry more than twenty five years to build its 0:02:21.560 --> 0:02:25.280 first billion square feet of space ah, but it added 0:02:25.320 --> 0:02:29.200 its second billion square feet in just eight years between 0:02:29.800 --> 0:02:33.000 two thousand and five. In nine six, Carlin was tapping 0:02:33.000 --> 0:02:38.280 into a preoccupation with storing our stuff. This preoccupation is 0:02:38.480 --> 0:02:44.240 very much an American thing. Household throughout the United States 0:02:44.240 --> 0:02:47.000 have used self storage at least one in the last 0:02:47.120 --> 0:02:49.799 ten years or so. The latest numbers showed that nine 0:02:49.840 --> 0:02:52.480 point five percent of all US households have a self 0:02:52.480 --> 0:02:55.480 storage unit that they're actively using, and that comes out 0:02:55.520 --> 0:02:58.120 to a little less than eleven million people in the 0:02:58.200 --> 0:03:02.120 United States right now, and Canada and Australia have somewhat 0:03:02.440 --> 0:03:05.240 really United States resident here are the ones that really 0:03:05.240 --> 0:03:08.880 you felt storage more than in any other country. That's 0:03:08.919 --> 0:03:13.160 freelance writer and editor of Midwest Real Estate News Dan Rafter. 0:03:13.680 --> 0:03:17.560 In he reported that the American landscape was studded with 0:03:17.600 --> 0:03:22.960 nearly fifty thousand self storage facilities, eclipsing familiar landmarks like 0:03:23.080 --> 0:03:27.360 McDonald's to become one of the most common roadside buildings. 0:03:28.160 --> 0:03:31.480 Turns out we use self storage for lots of reasons, 0:03:31.639 --> 0:03:38.160 but most boiled down to change in the form of death, divorce, downsizing, 0:03:38.240 --> 0:03:43.240 and dislocation. Dan Rafter isolates three high profile examples of 0:03:43.240 --> 0:03:47.800 people who paid money to store their extraneous goods. For Reynolds, 0:03:48.000 --> 0:03:50.520 the actor came up a lot. Apparently he was a 0:03:50.520 --> 0:03:52.560 big user of self storage, and one of his self 0:03:52.560 --> 0:03:55.840 storage units he had stored the canoe from delivering and 0:03:55.880 --> 0:03:58.960 then Joe Jackson. Michael Jackson's father had a storage unit 0:03:59.000 --> 0:04:02.680 and he had about two seventy unreleased recordings from Michael 0:04:02.720 --> 0:04:04.920 jacks and stored away in there that he had forgotten about. 0:04:05.560 --> 0:04:09.600 We're just one I found. I had read that there 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:11.800 was a storage locker. A person who owned it had 0:04:11.800 --> 0:04:14.360 passed away, and they went inside and they found something 0:04:14.360 --> 0:04:16.560 wrapped in tinfoil, and when they opened up, they thought 0:04:16.560 --> 0:04:18.080 it was me, but it actually turned out to be 0:04:18.120 --> 0:04:25.200 this person's amputated leg. And want problem there? I have 0:04:25.360 --> 0:04:30.400 a one humans. It's from manasal got me grows down. 0:04:30.640 --> 0:04:33.880 Here's what I found out about the third example. Sometimes 0:04:33.920 --> 0:04:36.920 people default on their self storage payments and their items 0:04:36.920 --> 0:04:40.640 are auctioned off. In two thousand and seven, Shannon Whisnant 0:04:40.960 --> 0:04:43.599 bought the contents of a storage unit and discovered a 0:04:43.760 --> 0:04:47.479 severed foot inside of a grill, and, as detailed in 0:04:47.480 --> 0:04:52.080 the recent documentary Finders Keepers, a legal battle over ownership 0:04:52.240 --> 0:04:55.680 ensued between Wizman and the man to whom the foot 0:04:55.800 --> 0:04:59.880 originally belonged. John Wood was just like three years ago, 0:04:59.880 --> 0:05:02.560 and that's just one hurdle light has thrown at him. 0:05:03.320 --> 0:05:06.719 Over by stating dump truck electro charity. I've been an 0:05:06.839 --> 0:05:13.159 unbelievable character, isn't it. It's an example of layering an 0:05:13.160 --> 0:05:16.640 object with meaning and in this case, ultimately coming to 0:05:16.720 --> 0:05:21.000 represent for both men the idea that if they possessed it, 0:05:21.000 --> 0:05:24.960 it couldn't make them whole. Tricky logic, for sure, But 0:05:25.040 --> 0:05:28.400 the more you learn about their individual stories, the more 0:05:28.440 --> 0:05:31.400 you come to understand that the root of their logic 0:05:31.680 --> 0:05:34.360 is steeped in trauma. I lost my leg in the 0:05:34.400 --> 0:05:38.240 plane crash, and I lost my father. After the crash, 0:05:38.520 --> 0:05:41.200 they send you home campf con and nobody says anything 0:05:41.279 --> 0:05:44.240 about the indiction. That's what about killed? And I would 0:05:44.240 --> 0:05:46.640 have just kept on what I was doing. It's really 0:05:46.680 --> 0:05:52.320 all I had was that leg. Trauma is front and 0:05:52.400 --> 0:05:54.839 center when it comes to Dr Beaton and her clients, 0:05:55.200 --> 0:06:00.479 particularly those who suffer from hoarding disorder. A lot of 0:06:00.520 --> 0:06:04.279 people who are are connected to things to the point 0:06:04.360 --> 0:06:09.880 of causing functional impairment in their lives, either socially or emotionally, 0:06:10.720 --> 0:06:14.960 uh with their occupations or there they've come to the 0:06:15.000 --> 0:06:20.000 point where they are actually hoarding, have experienced tw more 0:06:20.000 --> 0:06:24.599 trauma than the average person. That's a lot of trauma, 0:06:24.920 --> 0:06:27.479 and these generally have to do with people hurting them 0:06:27.680 --> 0:06:36.400 or loss of individuals. Did you you need look no 0:06:36.520 --> 0:06:40.080 further than an infant whose physiological development is wholly dependent 0:06:40.160 --> 0:06:43.120 on a connection through touch to see that the need 0:06:43.200 --> 0:06:47.080 for attachment is hardwired into all of us. Our nervous 0:06:47.120 --> 0:06:51.240 system does not operate in a vacuum. We have to 0:06:51.720 --> 0:06:56.840 regulate our nervous system by connecting with other individuals. There's 0:06:56.839 --> 0:07:00.320 actually a whole theory about the vague nerve that you've 0:07:00.360 --> 0:07:04.400 got to stimulate your vague nerve in order to process 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:10.360 emotions uh intellectually, cerebral e and in order to activate 0:07:10.400 --> 0:07:13.680 our entire system to work properly. And you have to 0:07:13.760 --> 0:07:18.000 have human connection with somebody that's safe and secure. So 0:07:18.160 --> 0:07:21.960 there there's these biological reasons for connection, and when somebody's 0:07:22.000 --> 0:07:24.880 not connecting to humans, they've got to find something to 0:07:24.920 --> 0:07:32.240 connect to. It's an elaborative processing problem, a kind of 0:07:32.280 --> 0:07:36.080 cognitive processing that deals with assigning meaning and importance when 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:40.160 making decisions. It's the reason why someone who hoards assesses 0:07:40.200 --> 0:07:44.120 an object differently, with a wider net of associations that 0:07:44.200 --> 0:07:47.280 allows them to see details and uses for things that 0:07:47.360 --> 0:07:50.920 most people would never conceive of. There's an acronym ount 0:07:50.920 --> 0:07:54.080 there which I don't like because it's not very positive. 0:07:54.120 --> 0:07:57.440 But it's sick S I, C K. And the part 0:07:57.480 --> 0:07:59.880 I do like is what it stands for is S 0:08:00.200 --> 0:08:04.440 this for sensitive, I is for intelligent, C is for creative, 0:08:04.480 --> 0:08:08.760 and K is for kind. Most people who hoarde have 0:08:09.080 --> 0:08:11.480 all those attributes. They tend to be very intelligent. I 0:08:11.480 --> 0:08:15.400 mean often in times they have advanced degrees. Then you've 0:08:15.400 --> 0:08:18.320 got the creative component, where you know they just see 0:08:18.560 --> 0:08:22.160 so many options in one small item, and they they 0:08:22.240 --> 0:08:25.680 want to do something creative with each of these objects. 0:08:26.000 --> 0:08:30.559 They anthropomorphize items where everything has feelings. They are really 0:08:30.680 --> 0:08:34.680 kind individuals. Certainly you can see you can find a 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:37.640 hoarder that has become sort of hardened over time that 0:08:37.679 --> 0:08:41.760 doesn't come across very kind at first, but usually underneath 0:08:41.800 --> 0:08:49.200 it all there's a soft center. This is perhaps why 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:52.200 there's an irrational fear of letting go of an object. 0:08:52.679 --> 0:08:56.800 And it looks like this. Now you have seen countless hordes, 0:08:57.640 --> 0:09:02.520 if you've stepped inside people's homes hundreds, yes, yes, when 0:09:02.559 --> 0:09:06.319 you go in, do those hordes tell you a story? 0:09:06.320 --> 0:09:11.160 More specifically about what's happening absolutely, because every hoarder is 0:09:11.200 --> 0:09:13.040 a little different, and there they could. I mean, at 0:09:13.040 --> 0:09:14.400 some point, I think they're going to come out with 0:09:14.440 --> 0:09:17.520 different types of hoarders because you have more of your 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:22.360 addictive hoarder where they are addicted to shopping that cannot 0:09:23.080 --> 0:09:28.640 stop acquiring or dumpster diving. I've seen that and they 0:09:28.880 --> 0:09:32.679 have just bags of things they've never even opened up everywhere. 0:09:33.480 --> 0:09:37.200 We're just just dumped in places because they're all about 0:09:37.240 --> 0:09:40.320 the acquiring and there's no rhyme or reason to where 0:09:40.360 --> 0:09:44.400 everything is. Then you have the hoarder who is hiding 0:09:44.440 --> 0:09:47.320 behind a bunker. You walk in and there's a wall 0:09:47.440 --> 0:09:52.760 of clothes or stacks of boxes blocking certain areas, particularly 0:09:52.760 --> 0:09:57.520 like entrances or windows, or blocking off certain rooms because 0:09:57.559 --> 0:10:01.560 of memories in those rooms. A marriage that went sour 0:10:01.679 --> 0:10:03.720 in the bedroom is the first place it gets hoarded. 0:10:04.040 --> 0:10:12.720 The hoard basically just tells a story what happened. So 0:10:12.800 --> 0:10:15.400 how common is hoarding disorder and how much of it 0:10:15.520 --> 0:10:20.000 is genetic? It is actually becoming more and more common. 0:10:20.559 --> 0:10:25.000 It's become a disorder now officially and our our manual 0:10:25.160 --> 0:10:30.680 psychiatric disorders a few years ago that people are realizing, oh, 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:33.720 that's what my aunt is doing, or that's what my 0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:37.120 grandma was doing when I was growing up, because we 0:10:37.160 --> 0:10:48.360 didn't really understand it before. Three to five percent of 0:10:48.400 --> 0:10:51.520 the population has hoarding disorder to the point where they 0:10:51.559 --> 0:10:55.439 meet the criteria for functional impairment of some kind due 0:10:55.520 --> 0:11:00.400 to the hoarding. People diagnosed with hoarding disorder have an 0:11:00.400 --> 0:11:04.240 eighty four percent chance of having a first degree relative 0:11:04.320 --> 0:11:07.320 who also has hoarding disorder. We know that there's this 0:11:07.400 --> 0:11:11.280 hereditary component, there's also learned behavior involved. We want to 0:11:11.280 --> 0:11:14.320 think about the nature nurture question. If you've got a 0:11:14.360 --> 0:11:17.800 first degree relative of a parent that's hoarding, they're teaching 0:11:17.800 --> 0:11:20.760 a child how to hoard as well. So you've got 0:11:20.760 --> 0:11:23.880 this propensity one way or the other, and then the 0:11:24.080 --> 0:11:26.360 loss on top of it sort of sets it off 0:11:27.040 --> 0:11:34.240 exponentially throughout the years of life. Hoarding also tends to 0:11:34.320 --> 0:11:38.120 show itself in adolescents but then manifest later in life. 0:11:38.480 --> 0:11:43.439 People who have hoarding disorder tend to either begin the 0:11:43.679 --> 0:11:47.080 disorder in childhood or adolescents have just a touch of 0:11:47.080 --> 0:11:49.520 it where they're just a little bit, you know, more 0:11:49.559 --> 0:11:53.760 attached to things than the average person. But what happens 0:11:53.960 --> 0:11:56.120 is throughout the course of life, they have more and 0:11:56.160 --> 0:12:00.000 more trauma and more stressors. They have a lot more 0:12:00.120 --> 0:12:04.720 loss and so they show up with hoarding disorder generally 0:12:04.760 --> 0:12:08.640 around age fifty five. That's the mean age. One thing 0:12:08.679 --> 0:12:12.080 that surprises a lot of people is the fact that 0:12:12.120 --> 0:12:15.280 there are more men who hoard than women. That always 0:12:15.320 --> 0:12:17.760 seems to come as a shocker. I do think that 0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:20.760 men are more reluctant to get social support, They're more 0:12:20.800 --> 0:12:25.160 reluctant to ask for help, and they also historically have 0:12:25.280 --> 0:12:27.599 had we're talking about, you know, a mean age of 0:12:27.640 --> 0:12:30.880 fifty five. Historically they've had the burden of being the 0:12:30.920 --> 0:12:34.520 provider in the family. That's changed, of course in modern times. 0:12:34.559 --> 0:12:36.199 But we're talking to, you know, people in their fifties 0:12:36.240 --> 0:12:40.439 and sixties right now. Those folks the idea of providing 0:12:40.520 --> 0:12:42.440 was on their shoulders, so they've got to make sure 0:12:42.480 --> 0:12:52.120 they've had that item just in case they needed. Dr 0:12:52.200 --> 0:12:54.720 Eaton says that for small hoards, it can take up 0:12:54.720 --> 0:12:57.280 to two years for someone to work through their stuff. 0:12:57.800 --> 0:13:00.520 I think of a web of associations gold up like 0:13:00.559 --> 0:13:04.200 the knots and a pile of wires or necklaces. Those 0:13:04.240 --> 0:13:07.160 associations that bind the object to the person have to 0:13:07.200 --> 0:13:11.280 be teased a part carefully, and because language is freighted 0:13:11.320 --> 0:13:16.000 with emotion, it's also important to use select words. You 0:13:16.080 --> 0:13:20.720 have to use certain language around letting go to because 0:13:20.760 --> 0:13:22.920 if they've had a lot of loss, letting go is 0:13:22.960 --> 0:13:27.360 probably not the appropriate word. Um Finding a new home 0:13:27.400 --> 0:13:30.560 for it almost always works. So if you can find 0:13:30.559 --> 0:13:32.920 a charity that they really like, somebody's going to be 0:13:32.920 --> 0:13:36.040 able to use the item on a daily basis. That 0:13:36.480 --> 0:13:38.520 if you you can. You know if they say if 0:13:38.559 --> 0:13:41.520 they love animals, that they find a charity that benefits animals, 0:13:41.880 --> 0:13:44.319 and most of people who hoard love animals, by the way, 0:13:44.320 --> 0:13:47.080 that just goes along with it. There's so many components 0:13:47.280 --> 0:13:51.199 of non acquisition. Teach them how to organize, Teach them 0:13:51.200 --> 0:13:55.680 how to find new ways of keeping the memory or 0:13:56.000 --> 0:14:05.720 working with the items so they can actually part with them. 0:14:05.720 --> 0:14:08.720 Without this understanding, someone trying to help could do some 0:14:08.880 --> 0:14:12.280 serious damage by rushing in and bagging up with facey 0:14:12.480 --> 0:14:18.000 as useless items. It is such a complicated disorder. I 0:14:18.240 --> 0:14:22.040 encourage people to learn about it. Two, if you're a 0:14:22.080 --> 0:14:23.960 professional and you want to work with people who who 0:14:24.000 --> 0:14:26.680 are you need some serious training. This is not an 0:14:26.720 --> 0:14:30.400 easy disorder to work with. The one thing I would 0:14:30.440 --> 0:14:33.960 want people to know is this is truly a mental disorder. 0:14:34.720 --> 0:14:41.160 This isn't the fact that they're stubborn or messy or dirty. 0:14:41.160 --> 0:14:43.600 That this is a mental disorder, and that there's so 0:14:43.720 --> 0:14:47.760 much trauma generally involved. These individuals are in a ton 0:14:47.840 --> 0:14:54.600 of pain, and to have more compassion for them, we 0:14:54.720 --> 0:14:58.040 all cling to something for comfort, and then something started 0:14:58.040 --> 0:15:01.400 in childhood with a favorite phrase, edge blanket or a 0:15:01.440 --> 0:15:05.880 worn toy. What we now know as transitional objects meant 0:15:05.920 --> 0:15:08.880 to bridge a child's inner world with his or her 0:15:09.160 --> 0:15:12.400 outer world. So it's easy to see how someone could 0:15:12.440 --> 0:15:15.480 turn to objects over and over again as a source 0:15:15.520 --> 0:15:20.960 of stability and contentment, especially if we recast our understanding 0:15:21.000 --> 0:15:25.120 of hoarding disorder as a processing disorder. After all, we 0:15:25.160 --> 0:15:29.200 accept that there are synithets people who senses are crisscrossed, 0:15:29.360 --> 0:15:32.000 like someone who perceives a deep blue color when she 0:15:32.040 --> 0:15:35.640 sees the number eight, or another person who hears guitar 0:15:35.760 --> 0:15:40.080 music and his ankles suddenly tickle. Is it possible to 0:15:40.160 --> 0:15:44.200 accept that people who hoard might inhabit a similar realm, 0:15:44.320 --> 0:15:48.600 one triggered by trauma, in which a simple lifeless object 0:15:48.640 --> 0:15:52.960 becomes animated in the imagination and takes on a rich 0:15:53.160 --> 0:16:04.000 emotional life. The Stuff of Life is written and co 0:16:04.160 --> 0:16:07.760 produced by me Julie Douglas. Original music and sound design 0:16:07.880 --> 0:16:11.680 is by co producer Noel Brown. This episode also features 0:16:11.760 --> 0:16:16.720 music by the artists Mad and Fields, Ohio. Editorial oversight 0:16:16.880 --> 0:16:22.400 is provided by Heavy Protection Jerry Rowland. So what is 0:16:22.440 --> 0:16:25.080 it that you can't part with? And why the one 0:16:25.120 --> 0:16:27.760 thing I have kept from my high school years. It's 0:16:27.920 --> 0:16:30.400 kind of help me as a sort of a geeky guy, 0:16:30.480 --> 0:16:32.840 but I played the clarinet in the high school band, 0:16:32.960 --> 0:16:35.440 in the marching band, and I haven't played it since 0:16:35.560 --> 0:16:38.600 graduating in school. But I really enjoyed being in the band, 0:16:38.680 --> 0:16:40.080 so I haven't been able to get rid of that. 0:16:40.960 --> 0:16:43.600 For me, it's a mound of pyrite with a silver 0:16:43.800 --> 0:16:47.120 wizard perched on top. It's sat on my dresser between 0:16:47.160 --> 0:16:51.080 the ages of thirteen and eighteen and represents all the awkwardness, 0:16:51.200 --> 0:16:58.240 wonder and terror of being a teenager. Email us your 0:16:58.280 --> 0:17:01.960 story about your object of action at the Stuff of 0:17:02.080 --> 0:17:05.000 Life at how stuff works dot com and if you 0:17:05.040 --> 0:17:07.280 like what you hear, make sure to drop a review 0:17:07.359 --> 0:17:10.240 on iTunes and you can also find us on Twitter 0:17:10.320 --> 0:17:21.320 and Facebook as the Stuff of Life.