Looking for the Truths Buried in the Clutter

For the sake of anonymity, let’s just say I’ve got this good friend who has a problem.

Actually, that’s not completely accurate. She might have a problem, but then again it might not be a serious problem.

You know, the kind you get help for.

See, my friend never even thought about this until her editor handed her an announcement for a meeting that was taking place in Simi Valley. Naturally, she was expecting something like a city council meeting. Or a planning commission meeting.

But this was a different kind of meeting: A 12-step group that gathers once a week in the Simi Valley Presbyterian Church, uses first names only to protect each person’s identity and deals with an issue that members say can be as debilitating as alcoholism.

That’s right. Clutter.

My friend didn’t ask why she was being sent to Clutterers Anonymous. She just stuffed the address among a lot of other papers in her purse, walked out to her car, opened the door and BAM! That’s when she started to wonder.

On the back seat were piles of magazines and newspapers she’d been meaning to read but hadn’t yet found the time for: A January, 1990, issue of the Utne Reader; a March 21 issue of the New York Times, and an issue of People magazine with Ivana Trump on the cover. A definite don’t-miss.

On the floor were empty coffee cups, the pair of old tennis shoes discarded by her son after he got his new pair two months earlier, and a stuffed gym bag that hadn’t seen the inside of a health club since Reaganomics was a word spoken with respect.

My friend slid into the driver’s seat, turned on the engine and made her way to the meeting.

*

The room was filled with three men and 12 women seated on sofas and chairs organized in a semi-circle.

“Hi, my name is Marilyn, and I’m a recovering clutterer and your leader for this meeting,” said a woman who appeared to be in her 60s. “Will those who care to please join me in the Serenity Prayer?”

After the prayer (“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change . . . “), members introduced themselves with first names only.

One man in his mid- to late-20s sat on the sofa holding an oversize teddy bear and a book on his lap titled, “Celebrating Your Inner Child.”

“I’m nurturing myself,” he explained later of the bear, “instead of waiting for people to nurture me.”

Marilyn then proceeded to read to the group. “We clutterers have found that no amount of willpower can make us stick to a sensible program of organization for any length of time. In seeking an answer to our problem, we have instinctively realized our cluttering is only the outward manifestation of our inner emotional problem.”

This struck a chord with my friend. She wondered if having two messy children counted as emotional problems.

Each clutterer then had three minutes to share whatever was on his or her mind. There were stories about homes so packed with boxes, old newspapers and junk mail that friends were never invited over. Then came the tales of storage space that had to be rented for all the items that couldn’t be discarded.

“It’s so good to know there are other people like me,” said one man, who had attended his first meeting three weeks before. “I felt so alone.”

*

After the meeting, my friend read some of the articles about cluttering that had been reprinted and stacked in piles at the back of the room. In one, a Mission Viejo psychologist said the cause of cluttering was probably “an absence of love and bonding in the sufferer’s childhood.” Another said low self-esteem played a role, as did the irrational fear of one day needing an item that had been discarded.

It was clear every member in that room probably agreed there were underlying emotional causes for their messiness. And most seemed to take comfort from the meetings.

My friend was stunned. Did that mean the stacks of junk mail on her kitchen counter represented her inability to bond with her father? Were the piles of unfolded laundry her unresolved feelings of low-self esteem? Was her paper-strewn desk her unrequited hunger for love?

To clean up her act, would she have to give up her Wednesday evenings and share to-do lists with a group?

She called John Nightingale, a Ventura psychologist. “Well, I’m sitting her with piles of charts on my desk,” he said. “Obviously, though, there are different degrees.”

Nightingale agreed that external clutter can reflect our emotional state. But he also takes a more forgiving attitude:

“We are inundated with tons of stuff in our life: tons of junk mail, bills we have to pay, faxes, correspondence, and it all comes faster than it used to. It can be overwhelming. Some people simply aren’t quite able to keep up with the demands and speed of our culture.”

My friend liked that explanation. It certainly seemed to fit her life.

And maybe, she thought, she would get some help soon.

A housekeeper.