Recently I was asked "When do you think your clutter/hoarding problem first started?" Honestly, I'm not sure. For some people with too much stuff, I guess it traces back to one particular traumatic event, like having a spouse die, or being assaulted, etc. But for me, I don't think it traces back to one particular time. I know some people would like to think that there's one overly-simple, Freudian reason for having clutter (e.g, "You're building a psychic wall of protection!"). But such answers are just that: overly-simplified.
I can however think back to earlier times in my life when some of the same underlying components of the pack rat mentality were already there. One of those bigger underlying components to being a packrat, for me at least, was not being able to see things being torn up and thrown away by other people (let alone myself doing the tearing and throwing away!). I suppose I should say "is" and not "was", since it's still one of those little things that irks me, but I'm honestly nowhere nearly as bad as I used to be.
Two incidents immediately come to mind:
When I was 6 years old and in first grade, a classmate (let's call her Stephanie) came up to me, holding up her empty Smurfette portfolio in front of my face. It was rather beat up from use. She said, "You see this Smurfette folder?" Then before I could say anything, she proceeded to proudly rip it up in front of me. First into halves, then stacking and into quarters, then trying to rip some more. Later that day I saw a brand new green Garfield folder on her desk.
But as I was watching that ripping, what was running through my mind was "No, wait! Maybe I could use that! I'm a boy, but maybe there's some way to cover up the Smurfette on the front and still use it as a folder? Tape it up, maybe? But...but..." For her, it was a no-brainer: out with the old, in with the new. It's taken me 30 years to start to reach that same 6 year-old girl's mentality of feeling proud to throw something out, especially to the point where you want to let others know about it.
The other event that comes to mind was at one of the first jobs I ever had. When I was in high school I worked in a department store, and at some point we had a stack of empty shoe boxes in a corner behind the cashier. One day the big boss made a rare visit. As she looked around and chatted with the other one or two workers whom she knew, she told me to get rid of the boxes. Now I'm not a dumb person by any stretch, but this idea simply didn't make any sense to me at the time. Get RID of them? This whole stack of perfectly good shoe boxes? What? I mean you can't just throw them away like they were garbage, right? I asked for clarification. "Get RID of them?" So 5 minutes later, they still weren't done. I asked again. Finally the boss just grabbed one of the boxes, tore it up in her hands with swift frustration, and handed it to me with a recomposed but somethat belittling smile, as if to say "That's how you do it, my little naive one!"
Again, these events themselves didn't traumatize me into becoming a hoarder of clutter. I mention them to point out that some of the underlying cognitive seeds have seemingly been there forever. And again, this old pet peeve is not the one and only reason for me having so much stuff. But it's some part of the equation I'm sure.
