(dramatic music)
- [Terri] If you come into my house,
you're gonna walk on junk.
No, I sleep here, but it's disgusting.
- I don't know how to sleep at night
knowing my mom is living like this.
- She's very embarrassed about this.
So you're okay letting it go?
- [Terri] I can't keep it all.
- She seems she's okay with it.
I will say there's a piece of me that's worried.
(dramatic music)
- I think this was meant to shame me somehow.
- You can only keep those emotions at bay
so long before they come out.
- I wanna get this done!
- [Dorothy] She just couldn't hold it in anymore.
This is the first time I've ever experienced
a person who's hoarding not here.
- I don't get a sense that Terri's on my team.
(suspenseful music)
(intense music)
(light instrumental music)
- My name's Terri.
I've been a certified nurse midwife for 25 years.
If you come into my house,
literally you're gonna walk on junk.
It's that bad.
(dramatic music)
There's parts that are walled off that, you know,
there's empty space behind it,
but thank God I didn't fill that up (laughs) or that up.
(suspenseful music)
Some of the things I like to collect are eyeglasses.
I like kitchen gadgets, I love tools.
Lots of containers to help me clean.
Lots of clothes and shoes.
There's a lot of electronics.
There's just a lot of stuff.
It's just way too much stuff.
I think the worst thing about having a house
you can't even walk through is it's embarrassing.
You can't have anybody over.
It's disgusting, it's filthy, it's gross.
The only thing that can make this worse,
if I had dead animals in here too.
- I'm Maggie and I'm Terri's daughter.
It is tough for me to know that my mom lives this way.
There could be a situation where something falls,
there could be a fire,
there could be a situation
where she needs to get out quickly
and she's not able to do that.
So I absolutely worry about her safety and wellbeing.
(suspenseful music)
- Three years ago I had a fire.
I plugged in a coffee pot and it just started smoking.
The fire department was here
and came in and had to check and see what the problem.
It wasn't an active blaze, it was just smoke.
They gave me a a strong talking to
that if they had to come in here and pull my dead body out,
they'd hurt themselves.
(dramatic music)
Last November,
a policeman came by and gave me a citation to clean up
and if I didn't clean up,
there'd be action taken against me.
- I do worry about future contact with the police
and officials that handle any kind of ticketing with my mom.
So that is something that's possible
and I just am worried that if we don't get ahead of this now
and start the actions,
it's only gonna get worse
and they're just gonna find more reasons to contact her.
(suspenseful music)
- I love to shop.
I love to shop for my family.
I love to shop for my grandkids.
I love to shop for my siblings. (laughs)
Oh, that's a flashlight and a TV.
I tell ya.
I should have a job shopping. (laughs)
That's what I should have, but I don't.
I probably have one of everything in here.
(somber piano music)
In 1996, my hoarding got outta control
when I accumulated three people
that passed away their stuff.
My husband died.
We were divorced, but we were still good friends.
I got all of his stuff.
Then my dad died two months later.
I got all of his stuff
and then my mom died in 2007, I think,
and I cleaned her house.
And so there were certain things.
I mean, I'm sure they're still packed in that room.
My bedroom, it is full of stuff.
Just a mattress, just nothing.
There's no bedside table or chest of drawers.
It's just stuff.
Probably the worst thing about this is the kitchen
and bathroom not being functional.
The bathroom's not operatable because I don't have water.
A couple of years ago we had a hard freeze
and I had a broken pipe and I haven't fixed it.
- I do have guilt for my mom's hoarding
because I do feel like I could have stepped in earlier,
maybe read some signs sooner,
but now I can't turn another cheek.
She deserves better.
She's an amazing lady
and she definitely lives out her purpose in life,
like she's such a good nurse and a midwife
and just everything she does for other people.
- I'm Stephanie and Terri is my friend and neighbor.
We've known each other about 10 years
when we moved in across the street.
Terri is there anytime we need her.
And I have goats, I have chickens, I have livestock.
And Terri has helped me birth baby goats.
- Is this one pregnant? - It might be.
- [Terri] Yeah, it looks pregnant.
- I mean, Terri will be there if I call
and I need Terri's help,
Terri drops whatever she is doing and she will come help.
- Come on!
(goat bleats)
- Terri is just a really generous person.
She's a midwife and nurse in the community.
And I have seen Terri mowing her yard
and if she gets a call that some child has hurt her arm,
Terri will stop mowing her yard
and get in her car and drive to wherever it is,
that the child is.
- Hiya! - Hi!
- Hi.
- [Stephanie] I'm glad you could come so fast!
- [Terri] I'm so glad you called me,
I'm here like that! (laughs)
- She genuinely cares about people
and she will drop whatever she's doing
and put other people ahead of herself.
- I am Joann and I know Terri
because my daughter lives across the street from her.
(suspenseful music)
I think Terri's got a lot of unnecessary things
that don't need to be in her yard.
You know, too many of one thing.
I've never been invited into Terri's house
because I think when Terri gets there,
she's ready to crash
and she just doesn't have a lot of time.
She's on call for,
when you're delivering babies, they come at all hours.
- The reason I chose to follow a midwifery path
instead of being a doctor
was I liked the way midwifes thought.
- Hi. - How are you feeling?
They're more natural and aren't pushing drugs so much.
So I like that.
And I had a baby and I woke up the next morning
and decided I was gonna be a midwife.
I didn't know when.
I didn't know how, I didn't know where,
but I knew that that was what I was gonna do.
When you're a certified nurse midwife
and you're doing a home birth or clinic birth,
you're the laboratory,
you're the dietary, you're the laundry,
you're the housekeeper. (laughs)
You're the nurse and the midwife, you know?
So it's a lot, but I like it.
And they like it because they don't wanna have 27 people
in the room telling them 27 different things to do.
- One thing about my mom's job
and duties to the community is constantly being pulled away
from important situations that,
you know, keep her from getting things done personally.
(dramatic music)
I do believe there's avoidance
in her wanting to come back home
because she doesn't wanna physically see the stuff
and know that she has to deal with it.
- I don't know her personal habits,
I don't know where she goes.
It's not my business to know,
but I will know that she doesn't come home sometimes
for days and days and days and we'll be like,
where is Terri?
- Maggie came and helped me,
but she really didn't know how to help
and it wasn't near this bad then.
It wasn't even like, none of this was here.
Now she's just seen, you know,
that I need help and she's educated herself
and she wants me to be happy.
- If my mom doesn't accept the help
and go through with getting rid of the items,
I'm not sure what's going to be at stake
for our relationship.
I don't know how to sleep at night
knowing my mom is living like this.
(dramatic music)
(suspenseful music)
- It's really embarrassing to have a house like this
because then you're the butt of everybody's jokes
and anybody that walks by your house,
they're shaking their head
and just not knowing why anybody would do that.
But it's embarrassing, it's terrible.
(dramatic music)
(David knocks on door)
- Terri, hi, I'm Dr. Tolin.
How are you?
- Hi, I'm fine, how are you? - I'm okay, may I come in?
- If you'd like. - Okay, great, thank you.
My name is Dr. David Tolin.
I'm a clinical psychologist and I specialize
in the study and treatment of hoarding disorder.
Well, thank you for having me in and, you know,
my aim here today is just to look around a little bit,
get the lay of the land,
but also talk to you a little bit about, you know,
where we might want to go with this.
I see there's a lot of stuff in here
and I'd be curious to get your sense of
why you think this happened.
- I don't know.
I really, I think I was just busy.
I'd come in, lay things down, go back, lay things down,
go back and I just never, it just got outta hand.
- I'm kind of interested in getting a sense
of how well you feel like you're able to function
in this house, just-
- I don't, I'm not. - You're not.
So I'm just sort of thinking real basics,
like cooking, sleeping. - It's less than camping.
- Going to the bathroom. - It's worse.
It's like camping here, you know, it really is.
- Yeah, how are you doing in terms of
your ability to eat meals here?
- I have to eat out. - You have to eat out, okay.
- Bring food in or to eat, you know,
pick up something and then, you know,
I even have to go somewhere to use a toilet
'cause my toilets aren't working because, you know.
- Where do you go? - I go over to Stephanie's.
- Okay, so you're going over to neighbor's houses
and using their bathrooms 'cause yours aren't working.
Sleeping?
- No, I sleep here, but it's disgusting.
- When you live in an environment such as this,
I think different people have different reactions.
Some people just shut it out
and pretend it's not even there.
In Terri's case, I think what's happening is
that she feels a really intense sense of shame.
She's very embarrassed about this.
She doesn't want people to know about it,
so she keeps quiet about it and doesn't reach out for help.
But of course that just makes the problem worse.
So I'd like to get a sense
of how the rest of the house looks
and I wonder if you could give me a little tour.
Maybe we could start with the kitchen.
Could you show me that?
- Okay, sure. - Okay.
- This is my kitchen. - This is the kitchen, okay.
- Yes. - Yeah, so.
- I haven't cooked in here in years.
- Yeah, it seems pretty clear
that you couldn't actually cook in here.
Now I'm just curious, do you have water in the house?
Do you have running water?
- No, no.
We had a bad freeze here a couple of years ago
and it broke some pipes.
- Well, let me ask about that.
I mean, what do you think
has prevented that from getting fixed?
- [Terri] You can't have somebody in your home
when it looks like this.
- I see, so clutter in the home
is preventing you from bringing somebody in.
- [Terri] Exactly.
- Who can actually fix your plumbing
and then therefore you're left without running water.
Okay.
And I'm just kind of looking
at all the stuff that's in the kitchen, you know,
it seems like there's a lot of stuff
that isn't really kitchen stuff in here.
- True. - Yeah, so what's happening?
What do you think is the process?
- It's just coming home,
sitting it down and going on my way.
- [David] Do you have a sense
of why you do all that purchasing?
What's the intention there?
- [Terri] It's just a feeling of elation.
- So you feel a sense of elation when you buy something?
- Mm-hmm.
- So you really get kind of a thrill out of that?
- Mm-hmm. - Okay.
Are you buying these things for some reason other than that?
- I buy 'em for other people,
but I don't see the other people,
so I don't know why I buy them.
- So you're buying things with the intention
of giving them away but you don't.
- But I don't now, but I did, yes.
- Okay, but you don't really give it away.
- [Terri] Right, I don't really give it away.
- So good intentions. - But not even-
- But not following through.
When was the last time you cooked a meal?
- It was before the fire.
- And how long ago was that again?
- Probably three years. - Three years?
It's been three years since you cooked a meal.
How long has you it been since you had guests over?
- Never, I mean, I don't know.
- She's not opening up to me very much.
I mean, she's not giving me a whole lot of details.
Her answers are pretty short, not clear what that's about.
Now I know that as a midwife,
she didn't get much sleep last night.
She's been very busy.
So maybe she's just kind of shut down for those reasons.
But my hope is that as I get to know her,
as she gets to know me,
we're gonna be able to talk more about these things
because you gotta talk about it in order to change it.
I wonder if we could take a look at the bedroom.
- Okay.
- I'm interested in sort of seeing where you sleep.
- It's the worst.
- Okay, well, let's go take a look.
- [Terri] Okay.
- As I'm touring the house with Terri,
it's very clear that this house
is completely non-functional.
This is a very densely packed house.
I mean, to get anywhere,
you're having to walk over piles of stuff.
So it's very clear that this is a serious problem
that's been going on for a really long time.
- Here's the bathroom that I only use in an emergency.
- Can I look at the bathroom?
- Sure. - All right.
So it's very full here, right?
- Very full. - Okay.
And you don't have a working? - No.
- Toilet, no water here. - No.
- Where do you bathe? - At the clinic.
- At the clinic, okay, okay.
All right, so it seems like very hard to function in this.
- Yes. - Okay.
- It's not functional. - Yeah, I see that.
So this is where you spend most of your time?
- [Terri] Yes.
- And it looks like you've just got,
kind of got a little corner of the bed here.
- Yes, the whole, yeah. - Okay.
And you eat in here, you watch TV in here, okay.
- Sleep in here. - It seems sad.
It seems like kind of a sad existence.
Does it seem that way to you too?
- Well, I don't want it this way, so yes.
- Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, I really, I feel for you,
and I'd like to see
if there's something we can do about this.
- Me too.
- The general impression I get of Terri
is that she's a very sweet and very giving person.
She gives to her community as a midwife.
She's really invested in taking care of other people.
She's not so invested in taking care of herself.
You know, one of the things that I kind of have learned
about you is, you know, as a midwife,
you're very involved in the community and I just,
it seems like you give a lot to other people,
and it seems like you're always there for the community.
And I wonder whether you've done so
at the detriment to your own wellbeing
and whether you're ready to prioritize
your own wellbeing now.
- Yeah.
Yes, I am.
- Yeah.
Yeah, because you're important too, right?
All those babies are important,
and I know there's a lot of work that you do,
but you're important and you deserve,
I think, to live better than this, right?
- I know I'm better than this.
- Yeah. - I get it.
But...
- But it's been hard for you to get control of it.
I definitely get it, yeah.
I think Terri's major coping strategy has been avoidance.
So she avoids sorting, she avoids discarding,
and much of the time she even avoids being in her house.
So her strategy has been to just block it all out.
But of course, that doesn't solve the problem.
And in fact, it just makes it worse.
One issue that I do want to talk about
is just kind of pragmatically
about how we're gonna work this out is,
I noticed that you were late this morning,
and I just wanted to kind of get a sense of, it's okay,
but I wanted to get a sense of what that was about
and see if there's an issue
that we need to deal with going forward.
- No, first off, I woke up sick this morning,
five o'clock this morning.
I was sick. - Yeah, I'm sorry for that.
- But then I got to the clinic at seven
and I was getting everything done.
I just kept feeling worse and worse.
And then we have a board meeting at nine o'clock
on the first Friday of the month,
and normally everybody's there at eight o'clock.
It's just the way it is, you know?
- Yeah.
- Not today, I mean, straggling in at 9:15, I'm like.
- Hmm. - I've got places to be.
(David chuckles)
- I got you.
- Of course, I'm not telling them about this.
I'm not bragging to anybody about this.
- [David] Yeah.
- And so, you know,
I couldn't really say I have somewhere else to be, come on.
I mean, you know?
- [David] Understood, you were kinda stuck.
- I'm accountable to them too. - Okay.
You know, the tricky piece here is of course,
I want you to feel a sense of control over this process.
- Right, right, right. I understand.
- I don't want you to feel like things
are being done without your consent.
- I know, I know, but it's the situation I put myself in.
- Okay, so we gotta do what we gotta do.
I understand this isn't her fault, but at the same time,
we do seem to have quite a crisis here.
And if we can't prioritize it, if we can't make the time,
and if we can't capture Terri's attention and focus on this,
I don't know how far we're gonna get.
(dramatic music)
(suspenseful music)
Well, good morning everybody, and Stephanie and Joann,
it's nice to have you here. - Yeah.
- Thank you for being here. - You're welcome.
- So Stephanie, you are Terri's neighbor?
- Yes.
- And Joann, you are Stephanie's mother?
- Yes. - Okay.
And you all are friends and that's nice of you to be here.
I really appreciate it. - Thank you.
- Let me ask,
how long has it been since you've been inside this house?
(suspenseful music)
- I've never been inside.
I've never been inside. - You've never been inside?
- I've never been inside. - Never been inside, okay.
- [Joann] No.
- Terri, I wonder if you could speak to why that is.
- Because you can't get through the door.
(Stephanie laughs)
- Okay, okay.
- Because I've chose to live like this.
- Hmm.
It's an interesting word that you use, choose.
Yeah, what feels like a choice to you?
- Well, nobody else did it, so it was my choice to do it.
- Okay.
- Nobody made me. (laughs)
- Hopefully now you're choosing to do something different.
- Right, right, right. - Okay, that's terrific.
- So I thought maybe a good first step
would be for Stephanie and Joann
to go take a look in the house
and see what we're looking at,
and then come back out and talk to us.
Would that be all right with you?
- Well, what if they change their minds?
- Well, okay, that's always possible.
- (laughs) We won't change our minds!
I won't change my mind, I promise.
- But, you know, I think this is an issue where
a lot of people in this position get kind of ashamed of it,
and they don't want people to see it,
and they worry what people are gonna think of them, but.
- Exactly.
- You know, maybe it's time for us
to kind of challenge that a little bit and go,
okay, maybe Stephanie and Joann will be supportive here.
- They will. - Okay.
(somber instrumental music)
- [Joann] Oh my!
- [Stephanie] Okay, this is not what I expected.
I thought she had floor.
Ah, Terri.
- Yeah.
- I don't even have words right now.
I don't know that I've ever been
without words to quite this extent.
- Stephanie, you wanna come see the bedrooms?
(exhale)
Isn't it amazing to think that somebody can buy so much?
(Stephanie sighs)
Poor Terri.
Yeah, I want out.
- You want out, I know.
I've said in the past,
people should be free to live the way they choose to live
as long as it's not hurting someone else.
And until today, I really did believe that.
I don't know if I believe that anymore,
because she was hurting herself and she knew it.
And so I don't know what I could have done before,
but I feel like I should have tried
to do something to help her.
You should have told us, Terri,
we would've helped you so much sooner.
Come here.
And we're gonna fix it, and we're gonna make it right.
And everybody has problems, everybody does.
And you're making it right.
And I admire you so much.
I admire you so much for being so strong and bright.
I really do and you know that.
And we're gonna make it right.
- Yeah, you got help. So let people help you though.
- Yeah.
- What I want to do is have everybody meet together,
including with Dorothy, the organizer, and her team,
so that we'll talk through what we're gonna do this morning
and how we're gonna make it through the day
and what kinds of things we're all gonna be doing, okay?
- [Terri] Okay.
- Good morning, everybody!
- [Group] Good morning!
- I'm Dorothy Breininger.
I'm a professional organizing expert,
and I specialize in hoarding.
Thank you for being here.
We have quite a group, don't we?
- Yes. - Let me tell you who's who.
First of all, we've got Terri,
we're gonna be working with you and for you today.
We have your lovely daughter, Maggie.
We've got Stephanie, Joann, friends and neighbors.
Of course, we've got our certified boss organizers,
and we've got Dax with his Mr. Junk team and Dr. Tolin, yay.
So a lot of people supporting you.
You ready for that? - Mm-hmm.
It's already bringing up tears, isn't it?
Dr. Tolin? (laughs)
Normally I'd say something,
but I'll just hand it over to you for a minute.
- Okay sure.
Well, let me just check and see.
How are you feeling right now, Terri?
- Embarrassed. (laughs)
- You know, that's a theme that I think
has come up a lot in our conversations, right?
A lot of embarrassment, a lot of shame.
Can you say a little bit about that?
What do you find embarrassing here?
- That I chose to live like this.
(light piano music)
- I wonder whether this is really a choice
versus something that you kind of slid into, you know,
maybe even against your best intentions.
- I just believe in responsibility for your actions,
and I took this action and I'm,
I wanna be responsible so I don't repeat it.
- I do too.
- [Terri] I don't wanna push it off on anybody.
It was all me.
- I hear you, I hear you.
Maggie, how are you feeling right now?
- I'm very emotional. - Yeah.
- Super excited, grateful mostly
that you guys are all here to help
showing just empathy that, you know,
that this could happen to any of us.
- Sure.
Trying to get her back on track and support her
like she's always supported me.
And just, you know, be a better daughter as well
and step up to the challenge.
- I'm glad, Maggie,
I'm glad that you're,
that you're really enthusiastic about it, yeah.
And Stephanie and Joann, what are your thoughts about this?
- I am so inspired by Terri
because I feel like we all have something
and that she's acknowledging it and asking for help.
- Yeah, Joann?
- Well, I'm just hoping that when she sees it all done,
that she will appreciate what is there
and you'll keep it that way, I know you will.
- All right, whew.
(group laughs)
That's some stuff, everybody.
Really thank you for your candor and your honesty.
And now it's the time for the plan.
Like, how are we going to do this?
It looks like there's eight tons worth of stuff in there.
And I don't say that just like, flippantly.
There's a lot in there.
The first thing we're going to do is go in the front door,
and that's where Mr. Junk is gonna be.
We're gonna be out here collecting what comes out.
You'll review it or say it's trash
and you're gonna get it to the right location.
I know we are ready, like we're ready.
(group laughs)
All right, are you all ready?
- Absolutely. - Okay, everybody, let's go.
(dramatic music)
- How about this?
- I don't need that.
(dramatic music)
- I don't know, just get rid of it.
Just get rid of it, really I don't wanna look at it.
Just go.
- Here we are in the first 10, 15 minutes,
I'm watching Terri sort and she's toss, toss, toss, toss.
Like, wow, this is unusual.
Hey, Dr. Tolin. - Hello.
- I wanted you to come over. - Okay.
First of all, Terri's doing very well.
- Terrific. - Letting things go.
And I love it whenever a client says, in this case,
Terri, what should I do with this trash can?
And it is came from the living room.
What it looks like on top is trash.
- Yeah.
- But she doesn't know what's in there.
- Yeah.
- And Terri says, go ahead and tell 'em.
- I said, I don't need it.
Just take it, I don't wanna look through it.
- Wow.
How did you make that decision, Terri?
- It wasn't a big process. (laughs)
- I'm really impressed by that,
'cause I think a lot of people
might feel compelled to go dig through it.
Now, I'm just really impressed
by the fact that you're not doing that.
- Me too. (laughs)
- I'm just wanting to get this done as quickly as possible.
- Fair enough, as do we. - It's very painful.
- What are you finding painful about it?
- Just all of it.
- I get a sense that she wants me to know that this is hard,
but she doesn't really want me to intervene.
- I just, I just wanna get through it as quick as possible.
- The problem is that you can only keep
those emotions at bay so long before they come out.
And if you haven't dealt with them,
they're gonna come out sideways
in ways that are really unhealthy.
So I'm gonna keep poking at Terri
and see if she's willing to open up to me.
(dramatic music)
(suspenseful music)
- [Dorothy] So we'll leave the key,
we'll leave the tools in here for her to look at.
- [Helper] Okay.
- There's never been a time
where we've run out of things to give to you to sort.
- Yay! - Never.
We're gonna go back in
and try to fill up these tarps before they sort it,
because we're the ones who are behind.
- We should work faster, people!
- Yeah. (laughs)
- You know, we wanna start sort of right to left here, okay?
(bright music)
- And this is some kind of.
- [Dorothy] Terri,
you want us to keep all the milk glass, right?
- I think you can donate it.
Yes, I don't, I don't.
- Okay, watch this.
What? (laughs)
- Yeah. - Wow.
I just, (laughs) I'd like to share with you Dr. Tolin.
- Yeah.
- Early on when Terri and I talked.
- Yeah.
- Milk glass was something that
was really something she wanted to keep.
- Yeah.
- But that was a few days ago.
- Hmm. - Right?
- Yeah. - And now.
- And I changed my mind. - Oh.
- And look at what she's saying.
- All right. - Let it go.
- I don't need it.
- How did you change your mind, Terri?
- I can't keep it all.
- All right, so you're okay letting it go?
- [Terri] Yep, I wanna let it go.
- [Dorothy] Okay, and we have a bunch
that we've saved over there,
but we're gonna put it over in the giveaway.
- Now, let me just check, Terri.
You're not gonna wake up tomorrow morning
and go, oh my God, what did I do?
- No, I don't, I think I'll be okay.
- I'm just not, I've not experienced this.
- I'm so tired of it.
It's an albatross.
- Just never, never, never
have I experienced someone say no.
Even something I love goes.
- Yeah. - New for me.
- Yeah, but I think very healthy for Terri.
So far, Terri's doing a good job.
She's making the right decisions.
- Off we go. - Nice job, Terri.
- [Terri] Thank you.
- So on that level, I'm happy.
I just kind of want to watch out for her emotional wellbeing
and make sure that she doesn't end up
feeling a lot of regret, that she doesn't backslide,
that this doesn't turn into a power struggle.
- I wanna check this. - Thank you.
(light piano music)
- Notice. - You can get in.
- You can actually get in. - So exciting.
- And then you have what we call a safety path.
- Oh my goodness, right?
Yes, that's huge, absolutely.
- When I've asked you a couple of times, how you doing?
You say emotional. - Yes.
- And yet you've got the biggest,
brightest smile on your face.
- (laughs) Yeah.
Just the amount of support I feel
has been tremendous from strangers.
- Yeah.
From what I would imagine,
you're the one that's had a lot of pain
and suffering around this.
- Yeah.
- Because you've been going at it
and going at it for so many years.
- Yeah, yep, absolutely.
It's been very emotional.
- So I'm just gonna ask one more question
and then we'll get back to the organizing
because it's just me being curious.
- Yeah.
- Because for me in my life,
I put off most of my life to take care of my mom.
She's 89 and I'm caring for her now.
And it's like 70% of my time,
even though I run a full-time business.
- Yeah.
- And I want for you to have a life for yourself.
- [Maggie] Mm-hmm.
- Do you?
- It's hard because I do feel guilt
that it's gotten outta hand like this.
Doing what I can to make it better for her
is just my natural way of, like,
taking on maybe a little bit more than I can chew, but.
- I can see you have. - Yeah.
- I can see you have.
You still, you must have a life to live.
- Yeah.
- That you just get to have it
any way you want without concerns.
- Right.
- Do you hear me raising my voice?
- [Maggie] Yes.
- Like that's me protecting you.
- [Maggie] Yes.
- I want you to have a life. - Yeah, okay.
- Too much? - No, not at all. (laughs)
Not at all. - I see that.
- I feel like I put a lot of effort
into my mom's hoarding situation,
but I'm hoping that this will allow
a lot of freedom for her and myself,
that it's not a burden on us anymore.
(dramatic music)
Denise, can I stop you for one second?
- [Denise] Yes.
- Can I ask permission that everyone here
is allowed to sort and make decisions for you?
- Yay! (clapping) - Okay, great.
Terri says, family, friends, go ahead.
Make decisions without me.
I trust you.
So here's one for Joann.
- Thank you. - Here's one for Stephanie.
Like, I don't know how to cope when I have someone
who is so willing to let their stuff go.
- Toss, please. - Okay, you got it.
- Thank you.
- This is just not something that happens.
I'm not used to it and she's just delightfully easy.
- Okay, I don't need it.
- Here we are at the end of the day, right?
All of our teams have these red faces
and sweaty bodies from doing all of that work.
But it's very gratifying for us.
It looks like we put in, believe it or not,
nearly two months worth of work
just in the entryway hall and living room.
You know, if you add up all of our hours
and the number of people we have,
we total up to almost two months worth of work.
- Wow. - In that little space.
- Amazing. - And we've got a lot to go.
- I know, right? - It's just a dent.
Now, there's some things that we need to talk about,
which is I believe, Terri,
you are not going to be here tomorrow.
Is that correct?
- That's correct.
I can come at 3:30 when I get off work.
- Yeah, and so normally I would go, ah!
But you did a pretty good job today
in terms of letting friends
and family make decisions for you.
So I'm going to ask you, Terri, we wanna keep going.
Is it okay?
- Yes, absolutely. - That we keep going.
- Imperative. - Imperative.
Wow, that's trust.
Dr. Tolin, what do you make of this?
- My concern, just having talked with a lot of people
and worked with a lot of people who have this issue,
is that sometimes you give up control, which is terrific,
and let somebody else make the decision for you.
And then you see it and it hits home and you get upset.
But you know, Terri, I get the sense
that you're feeling like you can roll with it.
You feel like you can trust the people
who are here to support you.
- Yes. - Yeah, that's wonderful.
So I'd be really interested in checking in with you
when you come back and take a look at it.
- Okay.
- [David] To see how you're feeling about it.
- Sure.
- Okay, so please take, you know,
any sort of measures to relax, have tea,
get some sleep for tonight.
We're wrapping it up, good job.
- Chill out. - See you in the morning.
- All right, nice job. - Thank you.
- Get your rest. - Thank you.
- I've done this a lot
and I don't think we've ever had a case
in which the homeowner left for a day
and entrusted a family member
to just make all the decisions for a day.
This'll be a new experience for me,
but she seems insistent that she's okay with it.
She trusts Maggie and she wants her to do it.
So, okay, we'll try it that way.
But I will say there's a piece of me that's worried.
(dramatic music)
- This is the first time that I've ever experienced
the person who's hoarding not here.
Like, not just not here for an hour or two.
I've seen that before, but like, I'm gone.
I have to leave, I'm going to work. (laughs)
We had to figure out, can we go on?
Can we do this work without Terri?
And the answer is yes.
Like she's totally committed.
She wants this done.
She says this is the way it is.
I've made a decision.
Everybody can do it for me.
(dramatic music)
Good morning to you.
- [Group] Good morning.
- Dr. Tolin. - Good morning.
- I'm feeling a little awkward
because we're minus the actual person who hoards,
(group laughs) - Yeah.
- Yeah.
- And I'm a little kind of like, okay.
- I'm really excited to get the day started.
I'm just kind of also looking forward
to taking on the responsibility
because I am an adult and I'm her daughter and I should,
if anybody's gonna know her the best,
it's probably gonna be me.
And knowing what she can live without
and what she'll probably most likely want to live with.
- Okay so the plan is we wanna go through
and get this area behind us clear.
And then we're heading into the kitchen.
So today what we're going to do is line up tarps
so that you know, everything from this tarp
is from the kitchen.
Everything on this tarp is from the bathroom.
- Okay. - All right.
- That's good.
- And then our teams are there
to just run it where you tell us to run it.
- Okay, perfect. - Okay?
- Yeah, sounds good.
(dramatic music)
- The whole all the way to the wall.
- Yeah.
(dramatic music)
(metal clangs) (debris clatters)
- Ultimately, she does know she needs the change.
She knows that she needs to deal with it.
So I don't know if she's just not wanting to admit
what it was really that's causing this.
(dramatic music)
(suspenseful music)
- Somebody told me that Terri was showing up
and here she comes in this white doctor's kind of jacket
walking in and she's taking her lunch hour to be with us.
- Hey Terri, how you doing? - Hi, how are you?
- I'm okay, I'm okay, welcome back.
- [Terri] Thank you.
- I know your family and friends have been doing a great job
of making decisions and getting rid of stuff,
but I'm also interested in getting a sense
of how you're feeling about that
because this is giving up an awful lot of control.
- I know.
- So how you feeling about that?
- Just, it's just the way it is.
- Okay.
But that's not quite what I asked.
- Well, you said how do I feel about it?
- Yeah. - I said it's the way it is.
- Yeah, yeah.
Any emotional reaction to it?
- I mean,
I want it cleaned out.
- You do, I know, I know.
Yeah, so far are you finding this process easy, hard?
- Oh no, it's very difficult. - It is.
- But there's no use whining and crying, you know?
- I'm not asking you to whine and cry, but-
- I didn't say you were.
- You know, but open it up a little bit.
- I didn't say you were. - Okay.
- I just meant that I'm just not that personality type
that I'm gonna sit here and argue about every little thing
and stuff like that, I just don't.
- Okay, just looking for you to let me in a little bit
and just let me understand kind of how you're feeling
because I'm interested in understanding
what's going on inside you too.
Whenever you're trying to help somebody
with a mental health issue,
collaboration is really important.
It really has to be two people coming together
to try to figure this out together.
Right now, I don't get a sense that Terri's on my team
or maybe a better way of saying it
is I don't think Terri's letting me be on her team.
If you can tell me a little bit more
about what's going on inside you.
If you can tell me a little bit more
about your thinking process and your emotions.
I think ultimately that helps me to give you better counsel
and better advice about
how to manage this problem going forward.
- And I wish I was the kind of person
that could do that for you, but I'm not.
- [David] What do you mean?
- I'm somebody who,
who I kind of put wear my heart on my strings
and I kind of say what I think
and I mean what I say and I'm not BSing anybody, I just,
and so I'm telling you, hey, I've made up my mind
that I'm okay and I'm at peace
and I'm okay with them making decisions and all of that.
And I wish I could give you what you want,
but I don't know what it is because I'm not feeling it.
- Okay.
- You know, I'm feeling that
I'm good with everything, you know?
- Terri keeps saying I've answered all your questions,
but when you think about it, she really hasn't.
She's given me some rehearsed answers
that are basically the same thing over and over again.
I'm embarrassed, I take responsibility,
let's get it done.
But that doesn't really help me
to understand why she does this.
And until I can figure that out,
I'm not in a very good position to help her.
(dramatic music)
(suspenseful music)
- If you come into my house,
literally you're gonna walk on junk.
And it's embarrassing, it's terrible.
- How long has it been since you had guests over?
- Never.
- Okay, this is not what I expected.
(dramatic music)
- Seems like very hard to function.
- Yes. - Okay.
Tell me a little bit more
about your thinking process and your emotions.
I think ultimately that helps me to give you better counsel.
- And I wish I was the kind of person
that could do that for you, but I'm not.
(dramatic music)
(energetic music)
- Good. - Yeah.
- All right, here we go. - One, two!
(energetic music)
- So it's beautiful.
It's unbelievable.
- How do you feel when you look around
and see the house as it's being worked on now?
- Good.
- Yeah, it's a good feeling?
- What do you think of your house?
I mean, it's your house.
- Right. - You can see your house.
- Right. - What do you think?
- I said good. - It's good.
- It's great.
- So come this way,
we're gonna go into the kitchen next, okay?
- Wow!
- Dorothy, I noticed that you've taken out the refrigerator.
- It was un-keepable.
- What do you think happened there, Terri?
I mean, what was the story there?
- I couldn't get to it.
- Yeah, it was very hard
just physically to get to the refrigerator, yeah.
- I'm gonna slide in real close to you right now.
I'm sliding in close 'cause I'm the one who cleared it out.
Oh god!
I have a mom who's 89.
If her fridge looks like that,
it makes me think something's very wrong with my mom.
Only Dr. Tolin can work that out with you.
There is a little something there
that has you not see it for yourself.
- Oh no, I'm perfectly knowledgeable
that I caused all of this.
- I know you are.
- I'm the only person that brought anything in this house.
- I got it.
- I put everything in that refrigerator
and I kept it in there, me.
I just don't know what I have to do
to tell you guys that I see it.
You keep saying you don't see it.
And I'm like, I don't know how to tell you I see it
and I'm sorry and I'm ashamed and I'm embarrassed
and I don't know what to,
what words to get that across to you.
- What I really want to try to understand
is how this happened.
- What happened was I work sometimes 23 hours in a row.
- Yeah, but- - Or 36 hours in a row.
- [David] Yeah.
- I come in, I drop things down, and I've left 'em there.
- Yeah.
- [Terri] And I've never even looked at 'em again.
- Right.
- And then I did it again the next day.
- [David] Right.
- And I get it again, and that's how this happened.
- Well, I hear the behavior.
Yeah, that's what you did.
But I'm still not fully understanding why.
- Okay.
- [David] Why did it go that way?
- Because I didn't- - Yeah, but.
- I didn't get a housekeeper
when I knew I couldn't do it myself.
- Yeah, right.
But Terri, being busy and not having a housekeeper
doesn't explain this.
You see that, right?
- Over and over and over again.
Yes.
- What do you mean?
- It does explain that I over
and overdid exactly what I told you.
I just shop, come in and put it down
and never look at it again.
- Right, I kind of get a sense
you don't really want to talk about this.
- No, I do, I do.
I wanna talk about it.
I'd like to be all better.
I'd like to be psychiatrically perfect. (laughs)
- Okay. - But I-
- Then let's work on that. - I have been.
- And in order to do that- - I have been.
- Well, you have been,
but you're kind of stiff arming me a little bit
and I think that's something
that we are gonna kind of need to get passed
if I'm gonna be of service to you.
You can see how cutoff and defensive Terri is
when I ask her why this happened
and her answer is that she's busy
and she doesn't have a housekeeper.
But that doesn't even come close
to explaining this situation.
We need to understand that
there's a mental health issue going on here
and we need to understand that, dissect it,
figure it out, and then work on it.
- Okay, so I know we've held you
probably longer than you expected.
You're just here on your lunch hour.
But we know you're going back to work.
And then in the meantime, just checking one more time.
Maggie's making strong decisions for you
as are Stephanie and Joann.
The dumpsters are filling.
We have another one coming.
Are you okay with this?
- What happens if I'm not? (laughs)
- We're in trouble. - Exactly.
- We're in trouble. - So I'm okay with it.
- You know, if I had trouble.
- Because I'm not gonna object to anything.
I already made that decision. (laughs)
You know what I mean though?
But I wanna get this done.
You know what I mean?
- I do.
I do.
And just so you know, one second.
What you just said to me
is everything Dr. Tolin is looking for from you.
- I've said it.
- It came out, it's coming out.
- I know, but I've said that.
I've said that I'm embarrassed.
I hate this for my kids.
I hate it that she has to be here, I hate it.
I hate she's using her vacation to do this.
I hate every bit about it, but I need help.
- [Dorothy] I got it.
- And I was left here for 15 years without it
and nobody was watching and then I just did it.
You know what I mean?
- Got it.
I could see a little chink in Terri's armor
just open up a little bit more.
So much so that she could barely
hold back the tears anymore.
- I really appreciate everything you're doing.
I don't want you to think I'm not grateful.
- She did cry,
but she needed to get off the property and back to work
'cause she just couldn't hold it in anymore.
(Terri sniffles)
(suspenseful music)
Good morning.
- [Group] Good morning.
- We're in for another lovely day.
Thank you for bringing
such wonderful weather to this project.
I thought I'd check in on Maggie and Stephanie
and on you, Joann, how is your sleep?
How are your bodies?
You were rocking and rolling yesterday.
- I'm fine. - You're fine.
(group laughs)
- She's good. - Yeah, I'm excited.
I'm in shock just how much has been able to be cleared out
and the organization that's gone into it.
Just eye-opening and just very exciting.
- Well, let me check in with you, Terri,
and just sort of see, you had kind of a most of the day off.
Well for us at least.
You were working,
but you weren't here to see a lot of the stuff come out
and some people respond great to that.
Some people not so much
and I just wanna see how you're feeling about it.
- Good, good.
I went in yesterday.
That was the first time I went in
when we visited at my lunch hour and yeah, it's amazing.
It's amazing.
- Okay, so you were happy with what you saw?
- Absolutely. - Okay.
- Terri, because you were here at lunch yesterday,
you saw what we had done up until we got to the kitchen.
But we've done a lot more since then.
As you can see, we've got mega piles out here
that still need to be reviewed.
We brought in another dumpster.
It's completely ready to go.
I think we'll fill that.
We may need another.
Let's make it happen.
(workers chattering)
(dramatic music)
- What is it? - Fondue set.
You wanna donate it?
- Yeah. - Okay, I thought.
- She says trash everything in here.
Everything goes.
I have to say that Terri's making good decisions.
She's not keeping a lot.
In fact, she has about a tarp's worth of stuff
that she's keeping.
I'd say maybe a thousand items at this point.
Out of what we decided was half a million,
maybe a million items.
That's not bad.
We can open up the garage, okay?
(dramatic music)
Wow!
(light instrumental music)
(workers chattering)
Okay, Chief, this is what the kitchen looks like now.
- Oh, a lot cleaner.
The fire was actually,
it had to do something with this outlet.
This was all stacked up.
We had like a little bit of room
to where we could get around.
We had one guy that was taking the door off.
He had to take doors off the front.
- Yeah.
- And then had to get down on his knees
and shoot the water back up underneath here
to get to the seat of the fire.
We had to crawl on stuff to get to here
and it was full from this area all the way back.
- If you didn't get to this when you did.
- Yeah.
- And the whole house was full,
like floor to ceiling full of stuff.
- We would've been fighting it from the outside.
There was no way we could have come in.
- What about the safety now?
How do you feel like, from what you're seeing,
knowing that the whole house was floor ceiling full,
including the kitchen?
- I think as long as she doesn't get back to that problem,
what I'm seeing here, it's safe.
Of course it needs cleaned up.
But you folks have done really well
with getting her house in order.
Now she needs to get herself in order
and I think it'll work.
- Okay, thank you. - No problem.
- Thanks so much for coming. - You're welcome.
- I really appreciate this. - You're welcome.
- That's good news. - Good, good news.
- All right, come on.
(bright music)
Okay, 20 people one hour to complete the garage.
This was a real win of your total involvement.
And I just wanna say.
- [Group] Terri, perfecto!
(group cheering)
- So you have an open garage.
We're gonna put a few things back in.
- I'm so excited!
- Are you going to park your car in the garage?
- Wouldn't I?
It's winter. (laughs)
It's winter in Missouri, we need a garage.
I'm so happy.
- Okay, when's the last time you parked it in there?
- Never.
- Oh, okay, so this is a real win.
Very good.
Anything you wanna say, Dr. Tolin?
- Let me just check in.
How was it for you, Terri?
I mean, this is a lot of stuff going out.
I always want to check in and see how you feel about it.
- Glad it's gone.
- Okay.
Easy, hard?
- On a scale of one to 10, probably a four.
- Okay, so a little hard, but not too bad.
- [Terri] Yeah, a little hill, yeah.
- [Dorothy] Question number one.
It's pretty grimy, it is pretty nasty.
Can I just let it all go?
- I don't know if there's anything in there
that I need to keep other than the scales.
- [Dorothy] What I'm going to do.
- I donate the scales
and you can get rid of everything else.
- [Dorothy] Wow, really?
- Well, but unless you find Mona Lisa
under there or something.
- [Dorothy] Okay, all right.
So maybe you wanna just stay right, you know,
over here and I'll have my team come in
and start clearing everything out.
- Okay, okay, okay.
- [Dorothy] But one thing that I have to do,
you know what I have to do, right?
- Make it safe.
- [Dorothy] Yeah, but apart from that,
what do I need to call your attention to here?
- The filth, the toilet.
- [Dorothy] The toilet, right.
- I haven't tried baking soda and vinegar,
but I did read up
and it said that that would take that stain away.
- [Dorothy] Okay, it's more than a stain, right?
There's stuff in there.
- Oh, there is? - Yeah.
- I haven't gone in there.
- [Dorothy] When you lift the lid,
there's a heavy odor, okay?
- Okay, yeah, I imagine that 'cause I don't have water.
- [Dorothy] So the toilet
has not been working for two years?
- Probably, I can just replace it too.
- The toilet? - I can get it replaced.
- [Dorothy] Okay, but the point is,
even it's gonna be replaceable.
But I'm gonna do the one thing that really annoys you.
(dramatic music)
(Terri laughs)
But it's up to me to do it.
That's not okay. - I know.
- That's just not acceptable. - I know, I know.
- Ever. - I know.
And that's exactly how I grew up though.
I just want you to know. - I understand.
- I grew up with a two holer
and I grew up with a slot pocket,
so it's really not that odd to me.
- [Dorothy] I understand.
- But I know it's gross for every other single person,
(laughs) except my siblings and, you know,
people that grew up like that.
I'm just saying to you, I'm just pointing out.
I know it's gross to everybody.
- [Dorothy] All right, so you're used to it.
You're used to it.
- It's not that odd to me, but it's gross as hell.
I get it and it smells horrible.
- [Dorothy] And I regard you as a very high professional.
- I know.
- [Dorothy] So while you grew up in that.
- Right, and some of my patients have this.
- [Dorothy] Yeah.
- They don't have running water.
They don't have electricity at all.
- Yeah. - And so, you know,
like I said, it's just not that odd to me.
But I don't want it that way. (laughs)
I wanna take a shower.
- You wanna take a shower? - I wanna take a shower.
- [Dorothy] Okay, I understand.
Okay, well, we're here to just make this all happen.
But if something goes wrong in your house again.
- I'll have a plan. - You have a plan.
- I'll have, I will have a plan.
- [Dorothy] You're not gonna let this happen again.
(somber piano music)
I feel ya.
I'm really sorry it's like that.
Thanks for addressing this.
I feel no resistance from you.
This is the first time
where we've talked about something really hard
and you were just open and not so quick to just defend it.
But you just really let me talk
and I let you talk and it was really good.
Thank you so much.
- Thank you. - Okay.
- You're fixing me.
(both laughing)
You're fixing me.
- [Dorothy] Oh, I dunno about that, baby.
- Thank you.
(suspenseful music)
(debris clattering)
- [Dorothy] Why don't you take a spot right over here?
- Oh yeah. - Okay?
And the guys are gonna come right on in and start pulling.
So bring in the cans.
Come on in.
Everything's going.
No need to sort, no need to sort.
Straight to the dumpster.
Another person in? - Yep.
- [Dorothy] Go for the big bins in there.
Then shovel the rest out.
Got it? - Yep.
- You're good, Terri? - Mm-hmm.
- [Dorothy] Okay.
Donate? - Donate.
(dramatic music)
- [Dorothy] So normally when we use shovels
it's because it's all dirt.
- Sure, sure, sure.
- [Dorothy] This is, you know, was pretty good stuff.
So what's your experience of watching,
like it's a lot of good stuff going.
It's just going straight to the trash.
- I know, I did it.
- No, no, I know you know. - I know, I know.
- I get it. - I know.
But I'm the one that did it. - Yeah, yeah.
- I know, you're saying acknowledge it and I'm like,
yeah, I know, I did it.
I put 'em in there.
- [Dorothy] You did.
Of all the rooms in the house,
which one was the room that filled up first?
When it first started happening?
- Probably I walled that off.
- [Dorothy] You walled off the living room for,
was there a reason you think?
You haven't, you don't know.
- It's gonna take a team of psychiatrists, Dorothy.
(dramatic music)
- This is what really opened my eyes
as far as my mom's safety.
I don't want my mom sleeping like this anymore.
- What kind of threw me for a loop,
I've seen it before that people don't sleep on sheets
and she works in such a sterile industry, you know,
where you have to be so sterile, so clean.
- Yeah.
- And she's not doing that service for herself.
- Right.
- What bubbles up for you?
- Um, just sadness for her.
That she feels like she let it get this way and that,
you know, if there's something in her childhood
that's bubbling up now as she's gotten older,
but it's just, you know, it's just surprising too
'cause again, it's not how we grew up.
- Do you know what happened in her childhood as well?
- I know some stuff, yes.
Yeah, I'm pretty, she's pretty open about,
some trauma and stuff.
So that's where it's like,
I think this is creeping up in her life now.
- When I'm talking to Maggie, she says, you know,
Dorothy, I don't know if it's past trauma.
I don't know what it is.
And I go, ding, ding, ding, ding.
Trauma, trauma.
I need to have Dr. Tolin come in.
The word trauma just came up.
- [David] Yeah, in what context?
- Just knowing that my mom's childhood
was nothing like mine.
And that she definitely went above and beyond
to make our childhood a lot better than what she had.
And that, you know,
it wouldn't surprise me
if some of her trauma from her childhood,
I can imagine some things that she never dealt with before
are starting to sneak up now.
- Do you feel comfortable
sharing details about what happened?
- I know that her parents did not treat her very well.
So whether physical or emotional abuse, things like that,
that she always just compartmentalized and dealt with
and just knew that she wasn't gonna be like that
when she was a mom.
And she really wasn't ever, she was the best mom ever.
- Yeah, and yet I think what you're describing,
it makes sense to me
and I wonder if that helps explain
some of the stuff that we're seeing.
- Right. - You know, I mean,
I think you've heard me kind of push back a little bit
with your mom about this sort of
defensiveness thing that she seems to be doing.
And I wonder if maybe that's a piece of it.
Maybe she got really good at closing off her emotions.
- Right, absolutely.
Yeah, I'm sure.
- Which I get, you know, as a coping strategy.
- [Maggie] Right.
- But the problem is when you stuff all that stuff down
and you don't really deal with it,
it kind of comes out sideways.
- Yeah. - You know?
And it does tend to come out
in your life one way or another
and maybe the way that it started coming out
was in unhelpful behavior
and inability to really kind of process what's going on
and kind of think about it.
Is that kind of in the right ballpark?
- Yeah, I mean,
you don't know when it's gonna affect you.
You know, if you haven't dealt with something,
you don't get to choose when
all of a sudden it's hit your trigger, you know?
- Yeah, well, I appreciate that information.
I mean, that helps me as I'm sure you know,
my frustration is I'm having kind of a hard time
really getting to know your mom,
but that helps me to understand her a little better.
- Yeah.
- So I certainly appreciate that.
- Awesome. - Yeah.
- Absolutely.
- I think what we wanna do is have your mom come in.
- [Maggie] Okay.
- And have the both of you sort of work in here
since it's a little bit more of a delicate area.
- [Maggie] Okay.
- Maybe start in this area.
- [Maggie] Okay.
- I think this is important,
not just because they need some working time together
and it's important for them to see together what's going on.
But if Terri does go backward in her hoarding,
then Maggie's going to need to know some of the tools
on how to make the decisions.
Say, come on, Mom, we're gonna make decisions.
Let's get this cleaned out.
So it's important not just for now, but for the future.
Here's what I'd like for you to do is
we're going to support you two
as you kind of work this area.
- Okay.
- Since this is a little bit more personal to you.
If it's trash, it goes in one of these bins.
If it's something you're gonna keep, put it in those.
Yeah, and then we'll put it in the keep zone.
- Okay.
- Keep? - Uh-huh.
- Okay, this is keep.
Maggie, I want you to go ahead and start pulling.
- [Maggie] Oh.
- [Dorothy] I'm assuming you're still
allowing Maggie to make decisions, yes?
So just make the decisions and send it to us.
I'm gonna leave you to it.
- Thank you. - Good luck.
- I'm throwing all of this away.
Throwing all of this away.
(debris clatters) (Terri shouts)
Doing good, giving away stuff.
Lots of junk.
Give away that stuff.
(debris clattering)
Can I have another bin, please?
(bright music)
(suspenseful music)
Can we get rid of this guitar?
- Yeah, but I think we have.
I don't think you should dump it.
- You think someone's gonna refurbish it?
Or gonna restring it?
- You have to put strings there.
- Huh?
- Yeah, the only thing wrong with it is putting strings in.
Otherwise, all the parts were there.
- And it's a good?
- [Terri] Is that what you were asking?
- But it's a good quality? - Yeah.
It's a nice little beginner.
- It's a good quality guitar for them to start with?
- Maggie, stop!
- Teresa, I get to ask!
- You know the answer though, that's the thing.
- Well, it's not good quality.
It's got dings all around it.
It's got stuff on the thing.
It's just like...
(dramatic music)
(suspenseful music)
- We did get a lot done.
We exchanged the dumpsters.
We're filling up another one.
We've done the rest of the dining room.
We got to the bathroom, we got into the bedroom,
we did the garage.
It is a lot of work that's been done.
I don't know if you're ready for the day,
but we certainly are, yeah.
- Yes, of course. - This is day four.
This is where we get to do what we hope to do,
which is provide you with a clean, safe home, right?
Well, I should ask you what you wanna talk about first,
Dr. Tolin, before I lay out the plan.
- Oh, that's nice of you.
Thank you, Dorothy.
So as I've alluded to before,
we're kind of here to do two different things, right?
We're here to clean a home.
The other piece that we're here to do
is to try to get sustained behavioral change,
which means you and I have some talking to do, Terri.
My thought is that I wanna spend some time
talking with you about this issue
and we're gonna have to talk about things
like not just behavior, but also thoughts and feelings.
And that helps us to sort of figure out,
not just that the problem happened,
but helps us to understand why it happened
so that way maybe we can come up with some ideas
about how we can make sure it doesn't happen again.
Would that be all right with you, Terri?
- I think we've been doing that, Doctor, but yes.
- [David] Okay, well.
- I think we talked about how I'm insane about coming home
and buying stuff and buying stuff and buying stuff
and dropping it down and not putting it away.
- That does happen,
and I don't think that's the explanation.
- Okay.
- [David] So I think we need to go
a little deeper with that.
- Okay.
- Thank you Dr. Tolin. - Sure.
I wanted us to kind of come out here
because I did want to acknowledge all the efforts
that you've been making to get organized.
There are about 650 bins that are here.
When you look at it all this way, what do you see?
I mean, do you?
- I just see the same thing you do, Dorothy.
I see a lot of bins and an attempt to try to fix it.
- So I am going to ask you to go through the bins.
- I bought them, I know them.
I see them. - Okay.
- I recognize every one of them.
- Okay, got it.
- So I don't need to go meet them over again.
I think this was meant to shame me somehow.
- What I like to do when I'm organizing
and someone has a collection of shoes,
bags in Terri's case bins, boxes, baskets, containers.
I like to lay out the collection
so the person can come through and make quick decisions.
Keep, toss, keep, toss.
Terri's interpretation?
I'm trying to shame you.
It's not to shame you.
I want you to pick out bins that you wanna keep
and we wanna use them in your house effectively.
And then we wanna get rid of everything else.
So that's my aim here.
- Okay. - Okay?
(suspenseful music)
Can you see these baskets?
- I don't want 'em. - Thank you.
- [Terri] Boom, Dorothy, boom!
- You made 650 decisions in about 10 minutes.
That's supreme.
Your decision making has been quick throughout.
I just wanna point out another kind of achievement.
- Thank you. - Okay?
- Thank you. - Not shame, my little girl.
You're doing a good job.
- Thank you.
(dramatic music)
- Well, Terri, thank you for taking time to talk with me.
I thought and I've been kind of looking forward
to this conversation and, you know,
I think it's helpful for us
to just take a little bit of time away from the work
and just kind of talk things through a little bit.
- It's part of the process.
- It is part of the process.
- I understand. - Yeah.
One of the things that I want to kind of point out,
this really can't be just about cleaning the house.
I mean, I think that's really important,
but I also want you to sort of see this
as probably the beginning of a mental health journey
that I really want you to go on and we'll start it here,
but obviously, there's no way we're gonna finish it.
But I want to kind of sort of start to figure out
what's going on so that
that way you've got at least in your head,
kind of a to-do list of these are the elements
that I really want to work on when I go to therapy.
Fair enough?
- Mm-hmm. - Okay.
It seems like there's kind of two issues here.
One is that a lot of stuff is coming into the house,
but the other is not.
It sounds like not much is going out of the house, right?
- Right.
- [David] So it's hard for you
to let go of things, it sounds like.
- Right.
- And I wanted to kind of get a sense of, you know,
what do you think prevents you from discarding?
- I don't know. I don't know.
I can't answer you, I don't know.
- But you were overwhelmed? - Yeah.
- Okay. - Yeah, definitely.
- But that happens.
- It just got outta control.
- If we kinda look back in your life, sometimes, not always.
We find that there are things that have happened to a person
that might help us explain
why they engage in the behavior that they do.
I mean, do you have any thoughts about that in your life?
- Well, I think in my life,
you could have this subtitle of,
do you want A, B, C, D, E or F?
- I'm not sure I follow.
- That there's many times that I've been traumatized.
- Okay, so I don't there's...
(Terri chuckles)
- You've been traumatized.
- [Terri] Yeah, not as an adult.
- Okay, as a kid? - Yeah.
- Can I ask? I mean, what happened?
- No, I just, there was just a lot of trauma.
- Okay. - Lots and lots of trauma.
There was pedophiles, there was physical abuse,
there was mental abuse, there was neglect.
There was drugs, pharmaceutical drugs.
There was alcohol.
My mom had an affair the entire time
that she was married to my dad, and not just the affair.
I mean, I remember the nighttime escapades
and the hiding of the car and taking back roads.
So nobody'd see us go to his house and all that.
My dad was a drunk and a pedophile.
- Oh goodness. - And tried to rape me.
- [David] Oh, wow.
- You know, so there's, like I said, there's A, B, C.
That's what I meant by that.
- It just sounds like the repeated traumas
that you've experienced, that it would be,
it would surprise me
if that didn't play a role here somehow.
- I have my master's degree,
and I've taken lots of classes in psychology,
and sometimes they're very painful.
- Yeah.
- You know? - Painful.
- [David] Where does the pain come from?
(Terri sighs)
(somber piano music)
- It just brings that bull (bleep) back up.
- From your childhood? - Mm-hmm.
- She's just had a tremendous trauma history.
I mean, she just sounds like she had a horrible upbringing
and I can appreciate how that might have led her
to learn how to wall off her emotions.
Of course, I don't think that does her a service now,
but I see where that might have come from.
I think she's gotta talk more about the childhood trauma.
I think she has to process that with somebody.
Thank you for talking with me, Terri.
- Thank you. - I appreciate it.
And the next piece, of course,
and we'll talk more about it later,
is I'm gonna try to set you up with a really good therapist,
you know, and I'd like you to go.
- I think I'll go. - All right.
(suspenseful music)
(workers chattering)
(debris clattering)
(dramatic music)
- [Worker] There you go.
Right there.
- [Dorothy] Right there, I think.
Okay, that's great.
(dramatic music)
(bright music)
- Oh my god!
- [Maggie] So cute!
Wow!
- This is is crazy. - Beautiful.
- This is great! (laughs) - I know, right?
- Yeah, very.
- I was really surprised.
Walking into the house for the first time
after everything was finished was just amazing.
It was, I didn't think it would look that good.
Yeah, this is so much you.
- So, Terri, I'm curious,
what's your reaction as you look around?
What do you think?
- I think it's beautiful. - Yeah.
- [Dorothy] Can you see space for friends and family?
- Definitely.
- What I wanna do is recap what we've done,
because we've been here for days, right?
And over those days, you know me now, Terri.
I like to keep track of the numbers and the hours.
And in this case, we've racked up enough hours
that it took almost a year's worth of time.
- Wow! - To do this house.
And you wonder why you couldn't do it?
(light piano music)
Alone.
So I wanna really thank you for letting us help you
and your receiving the help.
- Thank you.
- [Dorothy] Because I know that's hard for you.
- Maggie I know, you know,
we've talked and you've been worried about your mom.
How are you feeling right now?
- Amazing, she's just spectacular
and I'm just excited for her.
I really had no kind of idea what to expect,
but just seeing the magnitude of everything being gone
and the decorating
and everything that Dorothy and the team
and the junk crew were able to accomplish
has been just absolutely amazing.
- So we have more to go.
I know you wanna see it.
I wanna show it, let's get going.
- Okay.
- Oh my gosh, look how pretty.
- Oh, yay!
Oh, my gosh! - Look at that!
- It looks so good!
Oh my gosh, look at that. - Holy cow.
- Look at that, look at my!
- (laughs) look at what she's got, wait.
Pink grapefruit.
(group laughs)
- [Maggie] The pink grapefruit drink.
- Thank you guys so much. - It looks beautiful.
- So Terri, I know that cooking is one thing
that historically you've liked to do,
and I wonder, you know, again,
do you have plans to maybe start cooking in here
and kind of reestablishing use of this room?
- I have dinners to make for neighbors.
(Joann laughs)
- Good, I think they've earned it.
- [Terri] Yeah, that's good.
- You know, we did a couple of things in here.
Obviously, there's a new fridge.
- Yes. - Which was essential.
The stove that you had is cleaned up.
What was burned has been painted.
- So what did Duane say? - Duane, yes.
I don't know him as Duane.
I know him as Chief Miller. - The Chief.
- Yes. - But you know,
he came in here and he feels
that you're basically compliant here.
That the city isn't gonna be,
like on you about anything as long as?
- I keep it up. - Yeah.
- Let's take that high and move on to the dining room.
(Terri laughs)
- [Maggie] This is perfect.
- I see a beautiful dining room table with four chairs,
and I see four of you. - Yes.
- And I think that that is perfect for the four of you.
- [Terri] Yes.
- To sit down for a nice meal
that perhaps you cooked, Terri.
- Yes, it's lovely, thank you.
- You know, I do hope that she will let us come in and say,
"Hey, fix us a cup of coffee.
"Let's eat a piece of cake together."
That way we'll be able to come in,
see if everything's still going the way it should be going.
- You know what?
This is a big house.
This was a big hoard and so we have more good stuff to see.
- (gasps) Oh my God!
- Oh yes, honey! - How cool is that?
- It's like, you're on the water.
- So cute! - Look, who did this?
- So cute! - Look at this, Terri.
- Welcome to San Juan Island.
- Yes, someone's been listening!
- This was your favorite room to do, I can tell.
(Stephanie laughs)
- The bedroom, yes!
That's the best room.
We loved putting it together
because it's Terri's personal goal.
I casually asked her,
"Eh, where would you like to travel in your lifetime?"
She said, "I just wanna go back to the San Juan Islands.
"We went there as a family.
"I have good memories, I wanna go there again."
This room isn't just your bedroom,
this room is your future.
Right?
It's just representative and symbolic of.
- Exactly. - What we hope for you.
We went ahead and counted how many items you did keep.
And to be honest,
it was upward toward a million items
that were inside the house.
- Told you that. - You only kept about 500.
- Oh wow. - That's really fantastic.
- Really, truly.
- I told you, I know some people thought I was stubborn,
but I was just focused about getting this done.
So I just wanted to do as whatever I had to do to do it.
- I just know that the three of you
have been working your butts off
for these last several days.
And I just want to say I really appreciate the effort.
I can see you're caring for Terri.
You know, it just, you wear it on your sleeves
and I really appreciate it.
Managing hoarding on your own is very, very hard.
And it's much easier
if you've got the support of some loved ones.
And fortunately,
Terri's got some really supportive family and friends.
I think it's really important
that they continue to support her,
challenge her when she needs to be challenged
and keep her accountable.
As I've mentioned before,
what I really want you to be thinking about
is that this is not the end of the process.
This is the start of the process.
- Exactly. - Right?
And so aftercare is gonna be really important
for you to get into to good therapy,
which I'm gonna refer you to and we're gonna pay for.
So we want to make sure that you get the care that you need.
- Thank you so much. - You're welcome.
- I cannot even believe it.
- Well, let me just say, Terri,
it's been a real pleasure working with you.
- [Terri] Thank you.
- I know that sometimes we didn't quite see eye to eye,
but I'm really glad that we were able to connect
and I'm really glad that - Me too.
you're on your way. - Me too.
So I just want to wish you the very best of luck.
- I wanna thank you. - All right.
- Thank you for everything.
- I love you! - I love you, I'm sorry.
- And Maggie has her own kayak
(group laughs)
- Terri.
- One of the biggest parts of this project
was I receive aftercare to help me with my emotions
and this hoarding business.
I need to get it under control.
I'm going to get it under control.
I don't know what the future holds,
but I do not intend to ever, ever hoard again.
(dramatic music)
(bright orchestral music)