Ms. Thompson (not her real name) breaks my heart. She understands that all the things in her home make it unsafe. She has a therapist and wants to be able to live a better life. She shared with me that her children and grandchildren will not come to visit her because of the clutter. In fact, the children and her ex-husband have said, let's just pull up a dumpster and throw all this stuff away. That seems like a reasonable plan, except for this: Ms. Thompson can't let go of any of this stuff. For whatever reason, which is her work to do in therapy, she needs these things to feel better. It is a very deeply psychological event. She told me many, many things that were very personal. This has happened many times for me as an organizer. People are starved for someone to love and understand them, even if it what they are doing, how they are existing, seems to make no sense. Ms. Thompson and I worked together for about 6 months and she just couldn't/wouldn't let go of, well, anything. We agreed to part ways. She changed my life forever because I know she wants to be happy and there's nothing I can do about that.

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