The Secret World of Hoarding

I have to admit this---I've recently been watching a few episodes of "Hoarding: Buried Alive," a television show. The show features people who are hoarders, and tries to help them clean out their houses as well as offer them help to find the "root" of the hoarding issue. The show is fascinating and mostly uplifting, although some of the cases are so desperate that they make me very sad. My recent interest in this show led me to read a new book that the library has purchased, Dirty Secret: A Daughter Comes Clean About her Mother's Compulsive Hoarding by Jessie Sholl. This book is an examination of what it means to be the daughter of a hoarder, as Jessie's mom is a hoarder. The book centers around Jessie's return to her hometown of Minneapolis to help her mom prepare for her upcoming surgery and get her affairs in order when she is diagnosed with cancer. Dirty Secret describes Jessie's confrontation of her mom's disorder and an examination of her life among her mom's clutter. Hoarding is triggered by a traumatic event and Jessie's journey involves identifying that event in her mom's life and the endless cycle of cleaning and organizing her mother's house. The book does explore the issue of hoarding, but it also explores a mother-daughter relationship where the daughter tries to overcome many obstacles to remain a "good daughter." This book reads like a novel, and is a respectful introduction to the world of a hoarder. I think this book would be enjoyed by any person who has an interest in reading about mental illness, the disease of hoarding, or mother/daughter relationships.