Cluttered Lives, Empty Souls: Compulsive Stealing, Spending & Hoarding

by Terrence Daryl Shulman

Infinity Publishing, $24.95, 247 pp

Ever been caught stealin' and wonder why? Ever speculate why you can't stop blowing every dime you get your hands on? Ever wonder if because you can no longer navigate inside your cluttered home that you might have a thing about hoarding? Ever consider that you have a problem?

Terrence Daryl Shulman can offer insight. He's a therapist, attorney and recovering theft addict who has written extensively on compulsive behavior — namely stealing, spending and hoarding — including three other books and various newspaper articles. He has guested on many TV and radio shows here and around the country as a kind of expert witness on the subject. The author himself says he went from handcuffs to recovery to appearing on Oprah in 16 years.

In the worthy Cluttered Lives, Shulman writes with the empathy of a longtime recovering addict and details with aplomb the expanding and absurd cultural trends of self-entitlement, and the compulsive behaviors that give rise to it in our own lives. He does a commendable job explaining in simple terms the sickness behind often complicated addictions that aren't so easy to detect; an alcoholic is a lot easier to identify, than, say, an overspender — and aren't most of us overspenders?

His "prose" chugs along with command — unburdened by hackneyed 12-step dogma — but too often he furthers his points with interruptive lists and factoids, half of which fascinate ("Time theft [loafing] costs U.S. companies $500 billion a year in lost productivity."); others just dull-down proceedings ("May 2011 Shulman Center Online Theft Survey Results" — what?) 

Through stories of clients and acquaintances, Shulman shows how compulsive stealing, spending and hoarding are symptoms of deeper traumas and fear-based issues: We meet a spending-addict businesswoman who's an autistic mother of two; we read about a Vietnamese doctor and father of four who was discharged from the U.S. military for shoplifting; we learn of a Frenchman who left his country to avoid legal issues and physical harm from those he ripped off; another example is a financial planner whose shopping and hoarding began to damage her physical health.

The overriding theme of Cluttered Lives is out-of-control compulsivity, much like that featured on TV shows such as Hoarders, revealing an ugly underbelly to life that says we compulsively define ourselves through stuff — that is, we are what we can steal, what we go in debt to own, what we hoard. That hole in your soul? That's where you put it. —Brian Smith

Author Terrence Shulman talks shoplifting, self-entitlement and addiction

Metro Times: You were a kind of a kleptomaniac as a kid. What's the first thing you'd say to a young sufferer now? 

Terrence Shulman: I first shoplifted at about age 10 — a piece of candy — around the time my parents were separating. I stumbled into shoplifting a few years later as a result of keeping in a lot of intense feelings of loss, anger and anxiety; I became the man of the house and assumed the role of helper, which put a lot of pressure on me. Shoplifting became my secret outlet to express my pain and symbolically try to get back what I felt I lost, my childhood, my family, myself. So, I'd suggest to anyone who is shoplifting, young or old: Get help now. I shoplifted for 10 years and was arrested twice before getting help.

MT: In your book you connect character imperfections, such as narcissism and low self-worth, to negative trends in society. Isn't it difficult to identify compulsive behavior? What do you look for in those who appear to be OK on the surface and functioning in society but are headed to addiction darkness? 

Shulman: I've heard it said that police officers develop a skill of catching certain drunk drivers who appear to be trying to drive too perfectly. In a similar vein, it's often the star employee who is led out in handcuffs for employee theft or fraud. Many addicts — sometimes referred to as "functional addicts" — can be quite adept at hiding or overcompensating for their secretive, destructive behaviors. I was no exception; I hid my shoplifting for a decade beneath a veneer of perfectionism. Most persons who become addicts have struggled with low self-esteem, usually due to abuse, neglect, trauma or poor role modeling; they often learn to overcompensate and become great at achieving and giving to others. But certain narcissistic or selfish traits usually develop — as well as grandiosity — which really signal a deep-seated sense of inadequacy and shame. I believe our society is fairly dysfunctional and narcissistic due to pervasive emptiness and insecurity. We're constantly bombarded with messages that tell us we're not good enough, we don't have enough and we must be perfect, which fuels widespread addiction, which, in turn, reinforces our feelings of inadequacy and insecurity. 

MT: With the rise of social media, and video channels based on user-created content such as YouTube, a person can now basically be anything they choose. And the choices are often insincere, a kind of personal fraud. Does that insincerity or insecurity lead to compulsive behaviors and addictions? Is it already compulsive and addictive?

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