That Hoarder: So I am here with Tracy McCubbin. Tracy is the founder of dclutterfly. She has written two books, Making Space: Clutter Free, and Make Space for Happiness. She is also the co-executive director of the non-profit organisation, One Kid One World. That's a lot of achievements in one adulthood! Tracy, how are you? Tracy McCubbin: I'm good love. How are you? TH: I am good, thank you. I am good. So Tracy, I should say, is a professional organiser. And so the reason I got in touch was not just that, but because you're also the daughter of a hoarder. And that is obviously relevant to the podcast. And something you describe in your book is feeling like his stuff felt more important to him than you did. And that's something I've heard from other children of hoarders as well. So how does that affect you when you're growing up? TM: You know, it's so interesting, it took me a long time... So I'm 57… It took us a long time to realise that my father had hoarding disorder. As we were growing up, he was a packrat. He was eccentric. I come from depression-era grandparents. So you know, keeping your yoghurt cups and margarine tubs and rubber bands was the norm. And I also had a great uncle, who was a hoarder. Looking back now, we were never allowed in this house. And my grandmother always blamed it on the war and depression and him losing his wife. So it really wasn't until probably the 90s that we actually realised what was going on. So I think as growing up, not having an understanding, there was a lot of frustration and confusion and there was something I realised, and this is a little… I mean, we're just going to get into it. I just realised recently was there was something about keeping secrets. He moved around a lot, which I think he did to stay ahead of the hoarding. But he had storage units, and he had the car and it was very, like, don't tell your grandmother, don't tell your mom. You know, and I think we were trained, or I was I should speak for myself, my sibling can speak for themselves. I was trained to keep secrets. So you know, it was very much rationalised. And then, as emotional blows came to my father, this is my observation, as emotional blows - girlfriends breaking up with him, losing jobs - it would get worse. So it took until later in life for me to correlate what was really going on. TH: That's really something I've heard from other people as well. You don't grow up thinking, I live with a hoarder parent. You just… it's just your house and your parents. TM: Yes. And for clarity’s sake, this is important, my parents split up when I was 9. So I didn't live with him full time. So we would drop in and drop out and I think a part of him being very nomadic was trying to stay ahead of it. A nd then he went and lived in a big major metropolitan city, took a job. And that's when he was settled and working. That's when we saw it and all of a sudden it was like, Oh, right. But there was a lot of stopping by the side of the road, picking tools off the side of the road and going to the flea market and you know, you just as a kid you just normalise it. TH: Yeah, yeah, my mum's into this. My dad's into that. TM: He fixes cars. That's what he does. Meanwhile, I'd never seen him fix a car but he had all the tools for it, you know. So it wasn't until almost my 30s that I realised, oh, this is something. And I actually had a conversation. And this is a old school name, if anyone knows this, but there was a gentleman named Ron can't remember his last name, but his company, he was called the Disaster Master. And I read an article about him. And this must have been in the 90s, in the New Yorker, and I was like, He's, wait, what? Like, he put it together. And he kind of went through the history of the Collyer brothers and was really the first person to say, like, this isn't just someone being messy. They're not choosing this. So I called him because my dad's apartment was in terrible shape, and we're trying to get him out of that apartment, and I had a meeting with him. And it was like a light got turned on all of a sudden, like, Oh, this isn't on purpose. Oh, he's not using this, like. And I think that that's one of the things that just makes me gnash my teeth to powder is when people are sort of, oh, oh, I'm so hoardery today, or I'm feeling you know, God I’m such a hoarder. And you know, and then that's one of my big things. It's like, this is a disorder. This is something people don't choose to be this way. There is help. There's things that they can do. But I think this idea that they're choosing or they're just a bad housekeeper, or they're lazy, is really detrimental to the people who are trying to work through it. TH: It is because, yeah, people don't live like this for fun. It's not how people plan their lives out. And I did an episode on whether hoarders were lazy, and just listed many reasons that that wasn't the case. And one of those was, if you're lazy and somebody said, let me come into your house and clear it all out. You would say yes, please. TM: You'd be thrilled. Right? If you were lazy, you'd be like, Yeah, I'll make you a cup of tea. TH: Exactly. Whereas if you're a hoarder, it would be the worst suggestion anybody could make. But as you say, those myths prevail. And a lot of the media coverage doesn't help. It's improving in some ways, but a lot of it, I don't like. It forgets, or deliberately overlooks, one or the other that this is a illness situation, it's not a choice situation or a laziness situation. And that's not to say we can't do anything about it. TM: Well, it really is. I mean, it's just this idea of like, well if you’d just got the gumption you'd get it done. And I do agree with you. So your listeners know, I've owned a professional decluttering company for 16 years, and I have, I don't even know, 40,000 hours, decluttering people's homes. I have a staff at 12. I go all over the country helping people. And there is a very different… we worked with someone recently whose house was very full, very big room she couldn't use. But in working with her, I realised Oh, she doesn't have hoarding disorder. She was overtaken by depression. She was completely overtaken by depression, because when we came in and gave her the help, she got rid of it, get rid of it, get rid of it. A whole bunch of things were ruined, because rain had come in. And so I think that… I talk about this all the time, there's clutter. You know, there's your home getting over a certain point due to illness due to… a thing I see a lot is people starting to have neurological issues, people's health not what it once was. And then there's hoarding disorder. And they are very different. TH: Do you think, because you came out of your childhoods super organised... TM: Yeah. TH: Do you think that was a response? TM: Yes. Yes. Yeah. 1,000% It was control. But here's the hilarious thing. So I started my business 16 years ago. I had been a personal assistant, was organising all these other people started to get calls doing it freelance. It just snowballed, blew up. I started doing it… it just always cracks me up. I think I'd had my business for about six or seven years, and I was working with a lovely client who's a Jungian psychiatrist. And we were working, we're sorting paper, going through paper, he has ADHD so it was a different thing. And he was just asking me, as psychiatrists do and I, off the cuff, I was like, oh, and my dad's a hoarder. And he was like, Oh, well, this is why you do what you do. And I was like, I was like, What do you mean? No, I'm just good at it. And he's like, this is why you're good at it! And I think the other thing is that, for me, I try not to get emotional... I can't help my dad, I have tried. I can't help him. He 83. He's stubborn. I have very much... And so I think I've channelled a lot of that desire into helping clients. TH: That makes a lot of sense. And I'm not surprised that feels emotional. That is really hard. And while it's great that you've channelled it, you've been able to channel it elsewhere, it's still really hard. TM: It's still a wound and it's one of the most difficult things, it's one of the most difficult things, I think. And I've had conversations with other children of hoarders, and I think we walk a very fine line between feeling terrible, as you said, no one would choose to live like this. It's gotten in the way of his relationships, it's gotten in the way of everything. And you do have this empathy, but you're so angry, you're so angry on the other side. Because there is a, and I'm going to say this word, this is my opinion. You know, there's this innate selfishness to it in a way that an alcoholic is obsessed with that… Everything filters around the managing of the stuff, the rules around the stuff, that change, that you don't know. So you feel like you're putting all this energy in, and you're not getting anywhere. So it's very it's I've never been angry or in my life than I have with my father. TH: And I understand that as well. Even as a person with the disorder, I fully believe that we also have to be accountable for it. Not assigning blame, but just saying this is super difficult for the people around you. And there's no, there's no getting around that. And they think trying to deny that is naive and irresponsible really well. TM: And I would imagine that in an acceptance and an understanding and an understanding that you don't live in a vacuum, that this is one thing… But this is, again, my own personal experience with working with hoarders and my father. That if you're not getting help, you can't see that it's affecting other people. If all of a sudden you see that it's affecting other people. There's sometimes more of an impetus to get help. TH: Yeah, I agree. I agree. So something I really like about your approach is that it's not about colour coding your wardrobe. TM: Look at my bookshelf! TH: You’ve got lots of red books, I like that. I don't know if that's a theme. It's more about what clutter means to a person. And that makes it far more relevant to hoarders than approaches that are focused on folding or boxes. And I'm sure I'm not alone in having picked up books about how to organise your home or something and it's just been so far from what I need, it doesn't even relate. Whereas your approach is a lot more… it feels like it could apply to somebody with slight clutter, or it could apply to somebody with quite severe clutter. How did you settle on that as an approach? TM: I think twofold. I think one, I'm probably defined as an empath. I think I was born that way. You know, I really think growing up with my grandmother, my Scottish grandmother and like, off the boat, adorable. My German farming grandparents. Growing up around people who lived through wars, my grandmother, both of them, and the Depression, there was there was pretty early on, I was able to see like, Oh, this is being saved out of an idea of practicality. I remember my grandmother talking about drawing the lines up the back of her leg because they couldn't afford stockings. So she'd take an eyebrow pencil and… And then looking at my father, like his just complete inability to let anything go. And pretty early on, one of my very first organising jobs, somebody had called me because he had inherited his grandparents’ estate, and he had basically been diagnosed with HIV in the late 80s, early 90s. He thought he was going to die. He didn't deal with anything. The drugs came out, his life was saved. 15 years later, he had to unwind a terrible mess, paperwork, property. That came in, we did it, it was amazing. Got everything settled. But he spent half the sessions laying on the floor, like in tears, because he was reliving… it wasn't just a matter of like, Oh, I've got to go through all bank statements, like, Well, that was the year my grandma died. And so, really early on, I was like, this isn't about the stuff. This just isn't about the stuff. And I don't know if I was imbued with that vision, if my experiences added up to me. And look, I can put things in pretty bins. I have a staff at 12. I have two women who work for me who can make it look like a magazine cover. It's not how I live. It’s not how my house is. And if that's a house that you want, knock yourself out. It also takes so much work! Nobody understands! I have people who pay me a lot of money to make it look like that. That's not what I'm interested in what I'm interested in.... I mean, I am because I love doing that for clients. What I'm interested in is how does your house work for you? Do you come home and do you feel comfortable? Can you share your space? Can you… you know, one of my greatest accomplishments in my business? I worked with a woman who had I would say mild hoarding disorder coupled with some always… My observation always is the emotional blows ratcheted up. The loss of somebody, a breakup, that just, it just elevates it. So we did her whole house and apartment she did great. A couple of weeks later, she called me and she said, I want you to know that a friend called and said they were down the street, and did I want to meet for coffee. And she said for the first time in 12 years, I could have a friend over for coffee. She said was my house perfect and ready to be photographed? I was like, who cares? She said, but I was comfortable to open my home. That's what I want. And by the way, I will also say this, if you don't ever want to have anybody over you don't have to do that. TH: If you're just antisocial and that's fine, be antisocial! TM: Yeah, so it's really about, I think I you know, just not this isn't about being wrong. And this isn't about there's a right way to do it. There's not a right… it's your home. But if it's not working for you, if you know there are rooms that you can't use, if you're constantly managing your stuff, and it's keeping you from participating in the way you want to then it's not working. Do you want to be a Dehoarding Darling? You can be now at http://www.overcomecompulsivehoarding.co.uk/darling If you love the podcast and want a bit extra, you can finally sign up to be a Dehoarding Darling. Members will get an exclusive monthly post with an additional top tip, some podcasts and music recommendations and a personal update from me about how things are going. Find out the full details at http://www.overcomecompulsivehoarding.co.uk/darling So you have identified through your work, and summarised in your first book, seven emotional clutter blocks. And these are things that people get stuck emotionally and I guess that kind of manifests in keeping hold of stuff. TM: Yeah TH: First of all, is it normal to relate to most of them? TM: All the time! All the time. And also as your life changes, sometimes you'll go through different ones. It was really interesting when I started - so a billion years ago when me and my little station waggon - I started to hear the same stories that people would tell me: I paid really good money for that. You know, I know I've never used it, but I had really good Oh, my mom died and she gave me that. Or someday I'm going to become the world's expert fly fisherman then I need… And I was like these are the same story. They have a little different taste. And I started, I was like, Oh, these are pretty universal, like, these are pretty universal. So I just started keeping track. And then I started being asked to speak, and I would talk about them in out in public, and I would see all these heads nodding, and people coming up to me afterwards and say, I'm a number four, um and that I was like, this is something. And it's really amazing. Because I think we all have them, right, I think we all have them to varying degrees. I mean, I am, I say this all the time, clutter block number three, which is avoiding my stuff. That is me. Do not leave me a voicemail, I will not listen to it, I will send it to my assistant to listen to. Text! I will look at that I don't open it, I have a stack of mail, I got to open, I run a very successful business. I don't do it there. But in my personal life, because of everything I’ve been known to avoid, I've been known to avoid. So I think that one of the things about writing the book about the clutter magnets was I wanted people to see that this narrative exists. And in identifying it, you can go Oh, right, I'm holding on to this thing, because I paid really good… My favourite example is an exercise bike, as I'm staring at one in my living room. You know, I have a client who joked in this day, there was a giant treadmill in the middle of their bedroom, giant! And I was like taking up all this space making their bedroom very unwieldly. And I said, do you use this thing? And he said, Oh, every day. To hang my clothes on! TH: The most expensive clothes hanger! TM: Exactly! And I was like, Oh, right. We all have that. And so for me, I think I think of decluttering and organising. It's very fluid. You know, I think that it changes as time goes on. A big part of my company's work is that we help people after parent, mostly parents, but after parents have passed away, cleaning out houses and you know how you feel about that, versus when you're say a young parent is very different. And so I am not sure if you saw the headlines. And but I feel it's worth speaking about here. Marie Kondo, as everyone knows who she is, did you see? TH: I saw! She is now no longer… I can’t remember how she put it. She has some clutter now. TM: Well, the headline I saw she is quoted as saying, I've given up on being tidy. I'd rather spend time with my children. Which I'm like, great. That's what you should be doing. But I thought it was so interesting. She was so dogmatic and it had to be one way. And you asked one question, that gate and I'm like, yeah, be careful about that corner you're painting yourself into. You'll get a giggle out of this. I had a client once who said is guilt-tinged sentimentality the same thing as sparking joy? TH: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So could you run us through the emotional clutter blocks that is quite hard to say? Just a quick summary of what they are. And, and that kind of thing? TM: Sure, basically, yeah, absolutely. So again, they're these universal stories that we've all made up to justify why we can't let go of things that we don't need, like things we don't need us or want anymore. So clutter block number one is my stuff keeps me stuck in the past. This is relics of your childhood. This is clothes you don't fit into any more. This is you know you get divorced, and you kind of keep everything about your marriage. This makes you look backwards and not forwards. It tells you your life used to be better. And I'm not saying again, I have to say this because people are like you telling me to throw away my memories. No, I'm telling you that if your closet is full of clothes that don't fit you because Hello gravity happens. It's called ageing. You're being stuck. So Clutter block, number two is my stuff tells me who I am. And this one's really interesting. Because this goes everything from people who… these are shoppers, people who buy designer labels and I'm I have a Gucci bag and I have a Louis Vuitton to bargain hunters. They're the other side, like there are many... I got this on sale. I'm such a good bargain hunter. You know, but that this means that you're, it's all about the consuming. TH: Yeah. I'm very much on the bargain hunter end of that and something you said in one of your books that really stood out to me. I can't remember exactly how you… Oh, here we are. A sign of that clutter block was brand flaunting, or bargain flaunting. And I thought you know what? I don't brand flaunt because I'm not really interested in brands. But I am always the person if someone says, Oh, I like your shoes. I will go they cost three pounds in a charity shop! I can't not flaunt bargains. TM: And let's unpack that, because I think that's very interesting. So grew up in England, right? I'm going to make assumptions. So there is a nationwide… what happened during World War Two, the being thrifty. You know, the puritanical, like, Church of England, like, there are so many. And that's one of the things that I think, is so that a lot of organisers miss is you also have to take the historical into it. Are your parents immigrant? That's going to have a way different effect? You know, one of the things that I see a lot is, I work with a lot of people who are Jewish, and it's like, if someone in their family at this point a little bit further, but not when I started a generation ago, part of the Holocaust, pictures are the most important thing because you lost all of them. So sometimes you can trace this back historically, and say, like, oh, right, I was raised to be thrifty. It was a virtue, which I do believe that it is, and shopping at the thrift store is good for the planet, but is my virtue all of a sudden becoming a vice? TH: Yes. And it's interesting. I listened to an interview, on a podcast with a lawyer, nothing to do with anything related to this. It was about his career. Very interesting guy. And his parents came to the UK from Pakistan. And he was saying that he grew up here, he was born here. And they always had, like suitcases ready to go. Even though they haven't been anywhere for 40 years. They always had suitcases because they might have to leave. And it's interesting how even in a context of nothing to do with clutter or stuff or anything like that. It made sense to me. Whereas I, my parents were born just after the Second World War. So grew up, certainly in their younger years with rationing, food was rationed. My grandparents got married in the war, they were that kind of in their 20s. And so had to ‘make do and mend’ to a ridiculous degree. There are hangovers, aren’t there, from all of that history? TM: Absolutely. I don't know if you're familiar. There's a stand-up comic here in the United States, who's named Ali Wong, and she's half Vietnamese. And she had this joke. It was her mother and her mother escaped with her family out of communist Vietnam. And she has a joke that her mother is a hoarder, which I think probably more she's an immigrant, which is a different mentality. But she says I asked my mom, like, why do you need all these yoghurt containers, and her mom was like, I'm not going to attempt the accent, but her mom says you never know when you have to dig your way out of Vietnam, and she was like, she's not wrong. I think that that's such a good point that we were taught these traits and or we inherited them and they served a purpose. They really did. You know, I can't, in my household, it's a funny thing, but so butter comes in a little piece of paper and my partner will just throw it away. And I'm like, No, we put it in a baggie because when we make a cake, there's butter all over that piece of paper. Do you know how much butter that is. He just looks at me and I'm like, my grandmother who lived in the Depression, like it's a bit you know, it's a bit. But then I think when you're dealing with hoarding all of a sudden it's like, there's 30 of them. And you're never using them. Yes. Right like that. That's that's when you start to go. That so clutter block number three, as I said, was avoiding my stuff. You know, this is paperwork, people this is. And the thing about this clutter block that I always find interesting is the people who suffer from this one, I shouldn’t say suffer, who have it. tend to be very smart, tend to be very, tend to be very successful in other ways. And it's like, Ugh, I just can't deal. I just can't deal. And it catches up with you. You got to pay your taxes. You got to pay your electric bill. Clutter block number four is my fantasy stuff for my fantasy life. This is the thing where you are going to become someone different than you are. My little niece is eight. And she called me up to announce that she is now a knitter, she's knitting. That's what she wants, she needs me to get all the yarn, she wants all the things for knitting. And my sister-in-law called me and she goes, Just get her like two skeins of yarn and what she's like, I just think it has like a little bit of a fantasy on her part. I was like, Yeah so. So buying or keeping that it's never going to happen. And this one's important, because I want people to really understand that, guess what, you're still a really good person if it doesn't happen. You're still great. Like, we all don't have to do everything, we all don't have to open an Etsy shop. Clutter block number five, this one I have been all about. I'm not worth my good stuff. So this is a house full of like, I don't use the China because it's not a special occasion, I don't burn the candle, I don't put the blouse on. You know, I've worked with so many people whose parents have passed away. And we'll open cupboards and closets where there are things that have never been used, never, from their weddings 30 years ago. And I just think if today's not special, when is? And again, when we talk about historical, this is carried over from when people when there was much more of a class system and an upper class had staff and then the middle class came along, and they aspired. And you set a table this way. And so a lot of this stuff that people don't use are relics of that. And I'm like, use it, use it. TH: There's a bit in the book that made me laugh about scented candles, having a cupboard full of scented candles. And then you said something like, what occasion are you waiting for that requires scented candles? It’s true TM: It's so true. And that's really interesting. I did research for the second book, and I learned about this thing. This phenomenon called this specialness spiral. Isn't that fascinating? So for the listeners, basically what happens is you purchase an item that is not a common every something, blouse or a candle, and you bring it home and you're you want to light that you have the urge to light the candle and you stop yourself and you go, this isn't a special day, I can't burn this candle. You immediately imbued that candle with more weight. And then every time you go to burn it, you're like oh, but that's the special candle. That's the special candle. And then 10 years goes by and all you have is an unscented jar of wax. I posted about the specialist spiral on social media. And this woman did a video about it. She owned the candlemaking company and she was like this is what I'm talking about. But she calls it the Queen candle. And so she tells the story that she had a candle in her house that she refused to burn because it was very fancy. And her husband said, what are you waiting for the queen to come over? And so then she started to refer to that. And I was like, exactly like, who's coming over? So I really, this one is… we do it with everything, like we're saving it. And when there's no guarantee there's tomorrow, just wear the blouse you love or just don't leave things in the wrapper. TH: Even with stupid stuff, I am getting over a cold. So I have tissues everywhere, I have boxes of tissues. And then I spilled some tea. And I wouldn't use the tissue to wipe it up. Because these were my cold tissues. And they were more expensive than the cheap tissues. Because they're like soft for your poor nose. And I was going I need to wipe up the tea, but I can't find the cheap tissues. And then thought, Oh, come on, you're being ridiculous. And thankfully, I was able to spot it. And I have some friends who got a bottle of posh wine. When they got married, somebody bought them some really expensive wine. And they didn't open it till their 10th anniversary. And it had turned to vinegar. It was just undrinkable. And it was such a shame. And yet we all do it to some… whether it's to a daft degree with tissues or, or that kind of Yeah, the crockery Oh, well, we got that as a gift. We can't use that. I bought my parents some champagne once and they said they were saving for a special occasion. And I said, just drink it tonight. Just enjoy it tonight. TM: I love all of that. And Champagne. Champagne. Don't get me… like drink it, drink it. You know, in France, you go to somebody's house and that bottle of champagne. You just have a little glass and off you go. Just treat that champagne. I mean, I can't, I can't tell you. But I think that I want to do a little bit of a deep dive on that tissue example because that's a really good… when all of a sudden a virtue becomes a vice. Because, yes, don't use the expensive tissue to mop up a spill if you use six boxes of it, right? Like all right, like if it's a big spill, you're not using the expensive tissue, you're going to go get a dish cloth. But if it's one and then all in, like, all of a sudden it gets this grip on you and you think… I am getting married soon. And I did some shopping with a friend of mine who's a stylist, for outfits for the wedding. And it was great. And we bought this casual, cute, super cute casual. And we were talking about the specialness spiral. And I said I just feel like all these clothes. All these these few pieces that came and I'm like, I want to keep them special. She's like, Absolutely not! Put it on, wear it out the store, wear it out the store, and I was like, right wear it out the store, like I put my old clothes in the bag and went out and so I think that use the good stuff. Use it, use it, use it, use it. And then if you're not like if you're like I'm not comfortable, or I'm never going to do that, then get rid of it. TH: Yes. Because if you're not going to use it, you don't need to own it. TM: No, you don't need to. Clutter block number six is a tough one. This is the hardest. And this is probably a big focus of my business but it's: trapped with other people's stuff. The lighter version of it is you get a gift from somebody you don't like the gift that you get and you’re wracked with guilt. And that was a big controversy on social media because I was like, I think you should be able to return gifts people give you. And everyone's like, but you know, I'm like, if I buy you something and you don't like it, and you return it and my feelings get hurt. That's about me. Like I'm giving you a gift. I hope I got it right. But if I didn't, you know if I got you a cookbook on how to grill meat and you're having a plant-based diet, go get a different cookbook. And so, that was a lot of my time. But really this one is more. I mean, it's definitely about that. But it's also really about when people in your life pass away and you inherit it. And you're told that this is old, and it's worth money, and it's a family heirloom. TH: It was important to the person who's died. So you feel it should be important to you. TM: Yes, yes. And so you feel this weight. I was about a book event once and this woman said, and I'd never heard it so clearly, she was wrought. And I don't know, something like four people in her life had died in the last two years, like just unimaginable. And she had these storage units, and it was full of all everybody stuff. And she was paying all this money out. And she said I just am so tired of being a museum for the world. And I was like, right? And the thing to remember about this is that a lot of times, we actually don't want the stuff. We don't want to lose the connection. That person was dear to us. And people have said this, when we're decluttering. Or especially if it's got somebody's handwriting on it. They're like, I feel like I'm losing them all over again. And so for this, if somebody's listening, and they're going through this, is the stuff that you're saving, serving you or view? Or is it getting in your way? TH: I know, even with gifts, which is definitely less emotionally wrought than when somebody's died. But even with gifts, I struggle to get rid of gifts, because I feel like it makes me ungrateful, or I feel like I'm rejecting the person who gave me the gift. But as soon as I turned it around, and I thought, if I gave something to a friend, and they didn't love it, I wouldn't want them to feel obliged to keep it in their house forever. And so I said to my best friend, look just out of you know, apropos of nothing, if I ever give you something, and you don't really want it, it is absolutely fine to give it to a charity shop or give it to somebody else, don't feel you have to keep something. And she said the same back to me. And we both fully agreed that we wouldn't want the other person to feel they were stuck with something. And yet we can still feel still feel guilty if we're the person who has something in their hands and you think, Oh, this doesn't match my style, or I don't like this kind of coffee, or whatever it is, you can still feel like oh, but such and such bought it me. I should definitely keep it. TM: But don't you think the focus is that that person thought of you and they gave you a gift. Like it doesn't matter! You know, somebody very dear in my life, who I often celebrate my birthday for geographical reasons. always gets me a Chocolate Cherry birthday cake. I don't like it. I don't know, somehow they think that's the cake I like or that's the cake they like, I don't know. I eat a piece, you know, what matters? Is it this person, they get me we are celebrating my birthday together. If I want a piece of cake, I'll make a cake. I'll go buy a piece of cake. So I think in that situation with the guilt… but I will also say I think part of the guilt comes because there are people who are very dogmatic of like, I got you this and you should like it. And I'm like, that's all about what the second book makes space for happiness is about, that they're invested in what they're buying, and they're their personality… and so we've been made to feel guilty you're ungrateful. Yeah, I did this thing for you. TH: You hear of people saying, Oh, my mum's visiting so I better get out that clock she bought, because if it's not there, she will say where's the clock? TM: Yeah, TH: And the thing when somebody has died, obviously that's even more emotionally intense. When my grandparents died, I, for various reasons, I couldn't go to the house with the rest of my family to help sort things out. And so somebody said to me, if there's anything you want, tell me and I will pick it out. And so I gave a lot of thought to kind of what, for me, would summarise my grandparents and I picked two things. And I now have those, and they're great. Whereas had I gone into the house, with my family, everything would have been meaningful. And everything… I would have wanted it all to come home with me. And I was lucky that I didn't have to do that. And obviously not everybody's in that position. But I think if you can do it almost as a thought experiment, if I couldn't go to the house but I had to say to somebody else, pick out two things for me, what would you pick as really symbolising that person for you? And the rest of it's kind of extraneous, isn't it? TM: I think that's so I think that's so great. That's I'm going to commandeer that exercise. TH: Do! TM: Because I think it's great. So I, my grandmother, my little Scottish grandmother was my heart and soul. We were very close and spent lots of time together. And she lived to be 101. And I was so lucky. And I lived a couple hours south of her so especially the last five years of her life, I was once a month, twice a month. Very, very close to her. So at the end of her life, my father moved in. And then when she passed, he took over the house, it was the house he grew up in. Which is the house that he hoards in, that's where he keeps his hoard. So my most treasured Safe Place is a hoarding site. And it's very difficult. So I've gotten almost nothing. I got her wedding ring pretty early on. I wear it every day. She had a typewriter, she was a secretary at her church, and just this typewriter, and I just wanted it. I'm never going to use it. I want to use it as an art piece. I just wanted it. And for years my father was “I don't know where it is. So I can't… I'm getting it fixed. Oh, nope, I might need it”. And things have escalated in the last six months with my father, we had to move him out. And the city came in. The worst thing for a hoarder. The worst thing for a family, the worst thing for the city, it all happened. And my brother took the typewriter. Because it was outside in a pile. And he still can't let it go. You know, he still can't let it go. And it's the struggle and like you It's the thing I think about her, she taught me how to type on it. You know, it's really… but I think that's a great exercise of like, what is the, if you just said to somebody if you couldn't, and you just said grab me X, Y and Z. It's really only a couple of things, really only a couple of things. And I think you bring up a good point. We're helping a woman right now whose mother died very close to her. She can't go in the house. She just can't. And she's found out about us and called us and is able to hire us and we are able to like… and she's… and if you can't go in and if you know, have a friend go in or ask a sibling. Set yourself up for success, not failure. TH: Yep, absolutely. Absolutely. So people have heard a summary of the various clutter blocks and probably nodded along to quite a few of them. What do they do once they recognise themselves? I know that's a big question, but… TM: Actually, it's, you know what? Knowledge is power. All of a sudden, one of the things that I tell people when they're starting their decluttering journey. And is, its awareness, like where do I get stuck? The first thing I tell people is like, just spend a week in your house and go like, this isn't working, like closet isn't working. I'm using my bathtub to store linens, like, I can't take a bath like I using all of a sudden, like, this isn't working. Okay, why is my kitchen not working? The kitchen isn't working because I have an air fryer and an Insta pot and a crock pot. And I have 10 small appliances. And I'm one person, and I don't use any of them. Right? So, but why can I let go of them? Because I paid good money for them. Oh, clutter block number seven. So you know, it's starting an awareness and starting a conversation and realising Oh, this is why I'm stuck. Because I've told myself a story. And the interesting thing is really, when you dive into it, there's a lot of science behind this. You know, and I wanted to say this when you were talking earlier about being a bargain hunter, part of why people are a bargain hunters is we get a hit of dopamine when you get a bargain, because we are we are disposed, right, we're hunters and gatherers. So when we were nomadic and living in tribes and you found a apple tree in the wild, you got a huge hit of dopamine to grab that apples. Well guess what? You get that same hit of dopamine when you go to Target as if you killed a woolly mammoth. You know, so there's a lot of like, we're predisposed for a lot of this stuff. So being a bargain hunter, you get a little hit of dopamine, you're like, Oh, look at me, I'm a bargain hunter. And then it wears off. And you're like, Well, I gotta find another bargain to get the next hit. And a next hit. And that's one of the things in the second book make space for happiness? Can I go over that here are other things you can do to get that same head of dopamine. TH: That's so important. Because, yeah, it feels great. If, say, I get something in a charity shop, you can say, I've helped a charity, and I've recycled and I've got a bargain. Aren't I a good person? And that's quite an addictive… Of course, everybody wants to feel like a good person. Or you know, or just in the supermarket, you get a bargain. And you think haha, I've got what over the big giant supermarket! TM: Yeah, take that, Ralph’s! TH: It was them who priced it that way, so I haven’t won! TM: Exactly. You know, I like to say if everything's on sale, nothing's on sale. But I think that it's important, I think, especially if people are dealing with hoarding disorder, in the way, but you know, one of the successes, one of the great things that the 12 step programmes do, especially Alcoholics Anonymous, is meetings are a place to go instead of the bar or the pub, right? So part of that is like, oh, five o'clock, after work, I would have gone and had a pint, I'm going to go to a meeting instead. If you're making these big changes, especially if you're dealing with hoarding disorder, you also have to fill that time, right? You can't just get rid of it and think it's not… because it's taken up so much time and energy. So what can you do? And the first book is about decluttering. And the second book is about acquiring and the second book, I tried to give people like, how can you get the same feeling? Like you, like I help the charity shop and I did this… can you get that same feeling if you go to the local animal shelter and scratch the kitty’s bellies? Like do you got that same? And so I think people need to really understand that, if you take something away, there's going to be a void. And that's when people relapse, to use a big word. But I was listening to somebody, a rockstar, talking about his sobriety and, and he was talking about relapsing. And he said he went into… he was like, I got really bold and I was like, I didn't take bring my tools. And I you know, I went to a place where all my triggers and all my things and I relapsed because I didn't set myself up. And, you know, I do think, I'm not alone in this, I'm going to say something bold. I do think that there is an addiction quality to hoarding disorder. TH: I agree. I agree. And I think if you don't look at the big picture, if you're going to the shop because you're really lonely, and the woman in the shop’s really friendly. And you always have a nice little chat, then the problem is the loneliness more than the stuff you're buying. And if you can address the loneliness… TM: And if you think about it, our stuff is a buffer, right? It keeps us. I had a friend who was a smoker back when we used to do that. And she said to me, and I always thought of this, and I think this applies to hoarding and collecting and clutter. You know, she said, the thing about smoking for me, she said I'm never lonely. She's like, I'm never home on a Saturday night by myself. I'm out on my porch having a cigarette. She said, I'm never uncomfortable at a party. I just step outside to have a cigarette. And I was like, Oh, my goodness, I don't have to confront my social anxiety, because I'm out having a cigarette, and I look cool. And so I think that we have to understand that that there's chemical wiring about hoarding disorder, but also it's giving you something and so can you get that from somewhere else? I just had a great, we just took a client on, who's just lovely. She was lovely, lovely. And she self-professed been shopping like a drunken sailor. And in talking to her, she retired from her job of 35 years, which was a very social job. The pandemic hit, she stopped going to church, stopped going to church and Bible study, which had been two parts of her life. And she stopped playing bridge. TH: Yeah. TM: And I was like, Well, no wonder you think the UPS guys your best friend. Like, this is how you got here. Like, before we talk about anything, can you go back to church in person? Can you do that? I was like, wear a mask, if that makes you but go back, like, get back. You know, we're social creatures. And I think, and I think it's a really, and again, I say that I'm not a therapist, I've just been doing this for a long time and I’m the child of a hoarder. But I think that there's a very interesting, it's a very interesting line with people who have hoarding disorder that whether it's social anxiety, or they feel lonely, that they start collecting to feel safer, but then the collecting and the way that their houses and the way that they're living, it isolates them further. It does almost the… it's like, oh, this is going to make me feel better. But then it isolates them either further, and then they spiral down. TH: Yeah, yeah, that makes complete sense to me. I'm quite unusual, amongst people who hoard in that I have a really good social network, I have really good friends. And I know that that's not typical. There's a lot of people who hoard who are very isolated. And it's immensely difficult. And if you feel lonely, so you bring stuff home, and then you've got so much stuff, you can't envisage making a new friend, because you can't invite them round. It's really a vicious cycle, isn't it? TM: It really is. And again, to go back to the science of this, we know that community adds to longevity, we know that community adds to your health, we know that, you know? And I talk about it a lot in the second book about how we substitute shopping for showing up for our friends. You know, retail therapy, and let's go shopping and have a glass of wine. And I do this exercise in the book where I say think of the person who’s passed who you miss the most. For me, it's my grandmother. I magine I got one day with her, like something happened and she popped in for a day. What would I do with her? Well, I wouldn't go to the mall! I wouldn't go shopping! I would sit her at my table and I would make her a cup of tea and we'd migrate to a little glass of scotch and we you know, I would ask her the recipe that I never asked her that how are gone forever. She made this stuff called mom's stuff. I don't know how to remake it, you know? And so I think that people can't underestimate the power of community and the power and that when you're dealing with stuff, what are you protecting yourself from that you feel is a perceived threat? You know, what are you hiding from? What don't you want to face? And you know, it's all real. It's all real. It's trauma, it's abuse, it's everything. And I think that when you can identify with help of a mental health professional then all of a sudden you're like, oh, I don't need this stuff anymore. TH: In your second book, you talk about the impact of lockdown on our acquiring habits, which I thought was really interesting and really relevant. Can you tell us a bit about your thoughts on that? TM: Yeah, so my business was an essential service, because we help people move. That's one of the services we offer. So we start working right away. So I worked through the whole pandemic. And I just was driving around Los Angeles, and I was like, Amazon truck, Amazon truck, Amazon truck, like, like, piles of packages. And like, You're not going anywhere, what are you buying? And I think that people felt so out of control, it's like, well, if I have a spiralizer, if I have the right instapot, there'll be world order again. And our community got taken away, we didn't see people. I remember at the height of it, like car around the corner. So I wasn't driving, I could walk home, and I took a little can of wine. And I FaceTimed with my best friend because I was like, I just want to meet you at a wine bar, and I want to wear cute shoes. I don't want to bitch about my partner. I'm like crying on FaceTime, like, the thing that we would do. I didn't have community in this way. And I was very lucky, I was living with my partner. And I had someone. But I mean, I have friends who were single or not and just like it was so hard on them. So hard. And I think many, many, many, many, many of us turned to shopping and turned to acquiring. TH: Because there was a lot of focus on certainly in this country, people bought all the toilet paper in the country. Hundreds of packets, and tinned food and that kind of thing initially. And there was a lot of focus on that. But I feel like there's been less focus on all the rest of the shopping we all did. Of which I am as guilty as anybody. TM: Yeah. And again, my point of view was always like, let's not beat ourselves up. Let's understand. Like, we were being marketed to - we are being marketed to - 24 hours a day. You know, in the olden days, when I was growing up in the United States, you had three TV channels, you had three of them. You knew when the commercials were, you went to the bathroom, you got a glass of water. Now it's like every single every social media, you're being marketed to all the time. We were lonely, we were terrified. We were “am I going to get sick? Am I not going to get sick? Is the person that I love going to die?” Like, it was nothing and we just turned to shopping because it was so easy. TH: And I think boredom as well. TM: Boredom! Yeah, of course. And remember, you get a little hit of dopamine. Ping! You get a little hit of dopamine. And so how can we give ourselves that same feeling without the shopping? TH: So what kinds of things do you suggest as dopamine alternatives? TM: I always giggle it's just the stuff that our grandmothers… exercise. Take a walk. Take a walk and here's the thing, taking a walk, you're going to see your neighbours, you're going to have a hello with someone exercise. Community. Can you go volunteer somewhere? In the second book, I, I came across this. Dr. Laurie Santos. This is actually great for people. There's a woman here, Dr. Laurie Santos. She has a podcast called The Happiness Project, which is fascinating. It's about the science of happiness. Fascinating. TH: I recognise her name. But I’ll subscribe to that. TM: Yeah, it's great. But she also, through something called Corsica, she taught a class at Yale, which is now available free. So you can take the class. It depends on how you like to learn. For me, podcasts are better. The course I was like… I kind of I got through it. But like one of the things she said, when you write a handwritten thank you note, you increase your dopamine for 30 days, the residual effect of a hand written, thank you note. TH: Wow. TN: And somebody was saying to me the other day, they said, Oh my gosh, my mother must write 10 a week. And I was like, How old is your mother? And she's like, she's 95. And she's still volunteers at the hospital. And I was like, there you go. So community, volunteering, being of service. In a way, to go back to what you said about shopping at a charity shop, I'm helping that it's like, can you do that same thing without consuming? And then also, whatever you call it, and the science is there, people, the science is there. A gratitude practice, counting your blessings, however you want to name it. But that act of waking up or before bed, being grateful. It works. It works. It's science, it works. You can't feel in need if you're like, Well, I have a roof over my head. And I was able to turn on my faucet and clean water came out of it. Like if you're in that space, all of a sudden, you don't need as much. I’ve got plenty! So it's really the simple things, which is great. That's the great news. It's not this complicated. Gotta go live on an ashram for six months. And give up Diet Coke, which I will never do. TH: It's good stuff. TM: I don't know if you have in the UK, but we have these mini cans in the United States. And I'm like, perfect. Just a mini can of diet coke. TH: We have a drink here that I think you don't have called Pepsi Max. Which, you have Coke Zero, don't you? Yes. It's kind of the Pepsi equivalent of that. So it's the sugar free. But we have a cherry flavour Pepsi Max. And it's just magic stuff. So good. TM: I gave up Diet Coke for lent a couple years ago. And I put it up on social media. And everyone was like, Oh, I gave it up years ago. But I can still hear the bubbles. I can still... TH: I'm an ex smoker. And I still… I think I'm seven years now since I had a cigarette. But I still, if I walk past somebody smoking I'd still like, let me breathe that in! TM: So that must have resonated you with this about smoke what my girlfriend said about like, I'm never, I'm never lonely when I'm smoking. TH: Yeah. Something I noticed that I hadn't expected. Obviously, most things about giving up smoking are great. Mostly it's nearly all positives. And then I went to a conference. And I realised that at conferences, when there are 300 people in the room, you don't know who to speak to, or how to approach people. And then you go out for a cigarette, and you speak to the other smokers, because there's a group of five of you, so that's easy. And suddenly, I was at a conference not going out for a smoke. And I was a bit lost. I didn't know who to... I didn't know how to have a conversation that in that vast arena, compared to the limited number of people outside. TM: Isn't that fascinating? You know, we're looking for our tribe, and we're looking for the commonalities. So you're, Oh, we you know, we met at the… Pre pandemic I used to go out for exercise classes. And there's this place in United States called SoulCycle. And it was a thing and everybody went and I’d see somebody in SoulCycle gear and you had someone to talk to. You’re like, You look familiar to me, do you take someone so-and-so’s class? And all of a sudden you had a commonality. And I think what you said earlier, and I don't think that we can… like this is so important that like what is the thing underneath? Is it social anxiety? Do you feel lonely? Are you grieving? Like, there's a thing, and when you can remove all the clutter and see the thing, then you address it. And it's like, oh, you know what? I mean, it's a million things: oh, what I thought was a normal childhood was actually trauma. And I need to deal with that, and so that's what it's about, let's strip it away, let's strip the stuff away, and get to our essence and work on that. TH: So the big question is always… often, I get messages saying, I just don't know where to start. I don't know where to start. I f you could give people a point or two, to just start, where would you suggest they start? TM: So I always start with if you think you have hoarding disorder, you know, always start with a mental health professional. There's an amazing I'm sure you've talked about on here, the very high success rate with something called cognitive behaviour therapy to help people. I used it to get over my fear of flying. It's genius. You don't have to talk about losing your dolly when you were six years old. It's a very… TH: It’s focused, isn’t it? TM: It’s focused, yeah, TH: I've had it and got some skills that, several years on, I still use daily. TM: Yep, yep. I, every time I'm on a plane, and I feel like coming up, I say to myself, as long as the flight attendants are still serving coffee, we're good. And that calms me down, it calms me down. So that I would start with that. So that's always a great place to start. Of course, I would suggest reading, especially my first book, making space clutter free. It's an audiobook, there's lots of ways to consume it. Awareness. And then, I have them up on social media. And also if you go to my website and sign up for my newsletter, I have a PDF of 25 things you can declutter in under five minutes. So little categories. And I think it's a great place for people who are really struggling to start, because two reasons. One, it's bite sized. It’s not your whole house that that you don't have to start, I don't tell you to start with the family photos. And in starting with these bite-sized chunks, you can start to observe like, Oh, this is… and I use this word lightly. Like, this is a meaningless object. It has meaning to you. That's not what I’m saying. But like, I should be able to go through my junk drawer and get rid of all these rubber bands, like because they're broken. So in doing these little bite-sized chunks, you're going to start to have an awareness of what comes up. Oh, wow, this is incredibly hard for me. Why is it incredibly hard for me? TH: That's amazing. So interesting. It's given me a lot to think about and reading your books has as well. And so if people want to find your website, your social media, your books, where can they do that? TM: Absolutely. So my website is tracymccubbin.com. By the way, one of the things I love doing my family, Scottish and Irish, so every time I do something based in the UK, I get a little DM from someone who's like I think we might be related! Makes me so happy. There's a woman outside of Dublin. I'm like trying to get to Ireland to see her. So if you have a McCubbin or a McGilvery in you, please reach out. So my website, you could sign up for the newsletter. I don't clutter your inbox. Social media. Instagram is a big place. I'm just at Tracy McCubbin. I put about three or four up a week. Very, very, very, very, very supportive, super supportive community. I shut grumpy people down in three seconds. I got no time for it. So that's a great place. I'm over on Tiktok, it's a bit of a hellscape. But I stick around. And then the books are available everywhere. I know that they're I don't know what your equivalent is. Amazon. In the UK. We have Barnes and Noble here. Do you have Barnes and Noble there? TH: We have Waterstones is probably the big… TM: Yep. And audible.com, which I know is international for the audio book, which I read. But I'm around, I'm here, I loved having this conversation, I loved. And I have so much respect for you for diving deep into this because it's not easy and I have watched people's whole lives go past them, and not so I have so much admiration and respect for you. TH: Thank you so much. That really does mean a lot. It's good to hear. And thank you. You're doing great work and you've got a lot of insight. TM: Some days it's a blessing, some days it’s a curse. Isn’t that with everything? Well, hopefully I am eyeing the UK, talking about some book stuff, so maybe you and I can share a Diet Coke. TH: Absolutely. And I will introduce you to Cherry Pepsi Max and see what you think. TM: Excellent, excellent, thank you so much. TH: Thank you. I've been thinking of how many of us have to keep our hoarding secret. In a sec, I'll get to the top tip of the week, but just for a moment, let's talk secrets. I certainly keep my hoarding secret, and I've been wondering about the effect that these secrets and this shame has on us and our mental health. I am thinking of doing an episode about the secrets we keep about our hoarding and, if you feel comfortable, I want to hear your hoarding secrets. I've created a form to submit your secrets anonymously - I won't know who sends what. If you want to tell me your secret for a potential future episode, go to http://www.overcomecompulsivehoarding.co.uk/secret Now, back to your top tip. So my top tip this week is from the It's All Clutter podcast. And I will link to the It's All Clutter podcast in the show notes. But this is not new advice, but still good advice, always worth reiterating. Do not buy boxes or bins. They're not going to work. We're not containing clutter, we have to declutter to get organised. Think about it this way: if you had less stuff, it wouldn't matter if it were organised. If you could see everything that you had all at once, organisation would not matter. We have to declutter before we can organise. So, absorb it. I will too, I promise. Okay. Thank you for listening and I will speak to you next time. Thank you for listening to the Overcome Compulsive Hoarding podcast. You can find more online at overcomecompulsivehoarding.co.uk You can find me on Twitter @ThatHoarder. And on Facebook at Overcome Compulsive Hoarding with That Hoarder. To find out more about how you can support this podcast and the overall project, go to overcomecompulsivehoarding.co.uk/support and do subscribe to this podcast, so you make sure you don't miss any future episodes.