Do You Think You Can Find Three?
After questioning the therapist about the connection between hoarding and OCD, he called me into his office at the end of Shane’s session.
“There are different reasons for hoarding,” he said. “Sometimes it’s about needing to hang onto things just in case they’re needed later. Other times it’s more about a sentimental attachment. And sometimes it’s just about things being where they are, and feeling like that’s just where they go.”
He said that he thought Shane might have a few of those things going on, but not all of them, and that he thought Shane was willing to work on them. Then he gave Shane some homework to do.
“Maybe you could give away just a very few things every day for a week,” he said. “How many things do you think you can find?”
“I don’t know,” said Shane.
“Do you think you can find three? Three things a day?”
“I guess,” he said.
So Shane’s homework was to find three things a day, for a week, with which he could part.
One night, I got a pen, a pair of free sunglasses from the pediatric dentist, and a finger-sized rubber chicken. Another night, I got two rubber bracelets and a bookmark. More sunglasses and pens piled up. Some old CDs appeared. One day, I got some very old clothes.
After the homework had been in full swing for awhile, Shane said, “I’ve realized that I don’t have that much stuff that I want to give away. I just have a lot of stuff that needs to be in the garbage.”
I agreed.
But he didn’t actually want to put things in the garbage. Shane just wanted to point out that he knew that some of his stuff is garbage.
It’s been a few weeks now, and I still get the garbage. It just keeps coming – in teeny, tiny piles of three. The things sit next to the steps, where I collect them, and put them in a more appropriate place.
Shane’s room looks exactly the same.