People with hoarding disorder excessively save items that others may view as worthless. They have a persistent difficulty getting rid of or parting with possessions. This leads to clutter that disrupts their ability to use their living or work spaces. It is important to note that hoarding is not the same as collecting. Collectors look for specific items, such as model cars or stamps, and may organize or display them. People with hoarding disorder often save random items and store them haphazardly. In most cases, people save items that they feel they may need in the future, are valuable, or have sentimental value. Some may also feel safer surrounded by the things they save.
Hoarding disorder occurs in an estimated 2%-5% of the population and often leads to substantial distress and disability. Hoarding disorder can impair social, occupational, and other important areas of functioning. Potential consequences of serious hoarding include health and safety concerns, such as fire hazards, tripping hazards, and health code violations. It can also lead to family strain. This includes conflicts, isolation and loneliness, unwillingness to have anyone else enter the home, and an inability to perform daily tasks such as cooking and bathing in the home.
So what does a hoarding disorder look like?
Keeping Useless Items
Many people derive pleasure from acquiring material possessions and see them as a sign of prosperity and good fortune. Hoarders also like to own plenty of things. However, they cannot decide which items are really worth buying. Not to mention that many of them don’t have the financial resources to purchase quality products. They just take anything they can and store it in their homes.
Valuable and useful household items are soon buried under piles of randomly collected articles and get forgotten. What might have started as a collection can quickly turn into abnormal clutter and then ends up in a hoard. The obsessive need to acquire more and more items is so extreme that even garbage (empty food packages, broken furniture pieces and electronic devices, torn fabrics, etc.) inevitably becomes a part of the common surroundings of a hoarder.
Attachment to Possessions
Hoarders tend to invest each of the accumulated pieces with great value regardless of how outdated, damaged, or useless a specific item may be. They either believe it may come in handy in the future or associate it with precious memories of happier past periods and beloved people. However, this sentimental value extends to all their belongings. Even if they are not at all related to an important event or a special person.
As time passes, the usefulness and emotional connection to the items diminishes. Even so, hoarders keep storing absolutely everything until their cherished possessions mix up with trash and they cannot tell the difference anymore.
Inability to Maintain Tasks
One of the side effects of hoarding is that it renders simple daily tasks extremely difficult or even impossible. Hoarders cannot clean under the scattered pieces. They cannot cook because they don’t have access to their kitchen utensils. In addition, they cannot turn on any heat sources because of the enormous risk of fire. Perhaps they cannot bathe because their showers or bathtubs are full of random items. Furthermore, hoarders cannot have a rest due to the piles of worthless items on their beds. Maybe they cannot use their chairs and tables or open their drawers and wardrobes.
As a result, the living conditions in their homes become so unhygienic and disorganized that they are no longer capable of having a normal daily routine. More often than not, hoarders lose their social lives and their jobs. They experience severe depression and financial problems as well. Additionally, they cannot pay their bills and don’t even have enough money for decent food.
Failure to Discard Things
Not only do hoarders need to constantly acquire stuff, but they also have a hard time discarding any of it. This is due to their inability to decide what is actually important and what has no value at all. Hoarders are terrified that they may lose something significant. This fear prevents them from throwing anything away. The greatest problem is rooted exactly in their overwhelming anxiety. The thought of parting with a cherished possession triggers severe emotional distress and causes hoarders to suffer. As a result, they automatically reject any ideas of cleaning or decluttering.
Procrastination
As already mentioned, all types of hoarders have a severe problem processing information that impacts their decision-making abilities. They cannot categorize their cluttered belongings. Thus, they cannot sort them out and decide their fate. Since they are not sure what to do with a certain item, but they don’t want to waste it or lose it either, they usually come up with a simple solution. They decide to keep everything. To ensure their peace of mind, they delude themselves with the reassuring thoughts. Hoarders may think that one day they will fix the damaged items they have stored or will recycle the useless ones. This day is constantly put off until a more appropriate moment while the piles of worthless junk keep growing in direct proportion to the everlasting procrastination.
Perfectionism
Perfectionism doesn’t seem to fit the profile of a hoarder. It is difficult to believe that it is one of the giveaway signs of hoarding. However, most hoarders want everything to be perfect. That is exactly why they deny parting with items reminiscent of happy moments and insist on preserving various damaged or outdated pieces. Implausible as it may sound, many hoarders would like their surroundings to be really flawless.
However, when they are faced with all the dirt and chaos in their homes, they just lose hope that they will be able to clean and organize everything perfectly. They feel discouraged. Hoarders then don’t see any point in trying to achieve perfection when it is impossible. Therefore, they just give up the idea of cleaning in the first place. It is some kind of a vicious circle they cannot escape without professional help.
Lack of Organization
One of the main reasons why hoarders simply cannot put their belongings in order and clean them out in the process is found in the total lack of organizational skills. This is typical of everyone who exhibits hoarding symptoms. Even if they eventually decide to go through their possessions, hoarders just end up moving household items and trash alike from one pile to another. They often do not discard anything. They fail to see the logical relations among various items and cannot find their rightful places.
Since they are not capable of systematic or meaningful organization, hoarders easily forget what exactly they have stored and why. Their surroundings turn into a total mess that bears little resemblance to a home.
No Living Space
All the above factors result in an extreme clutter that literally suffocates the living space in hoarders’ homes. Even passage is difficult. Not to mention that household items are rendered absolutely impossible to use. What is worse, quite often hoarders do not disturb the piles of accumulated stuff at all. Consequently, dust, dirt, and grime slowly build up in outrageous amounts.
As a result, mold develops hidden from sight and a number of structural damages occur, greatly deteriorating the living conditions. Fire hazard increases drastically because of all the stacked paper and poses real danger to the hoarder’s life. Pests take shelter, breed, and die undetected among the clutter. This causes a great mess and a variety of biohazards. The situation becomes so horrible that hoarders’ families, friends, and neighbors can no longer put up with such unsanitary and chaotic lifestyles. Compulsive hoarders, however, cannot recognize their problems. They don’t take any adequate measures to improve their lives. Therefore, they become socially withdrawn and even completely isolated.
Social Avoidance
Although hoarders do not realize what is wrong with their lives, they intuitively feel ashamed of their appalling surroundings and don’t want any visitors. What is more, they are afraid to allow others to touch their precious belongings or move them around. They also will not let others borrow any items or clean around the house. The suspicion that someone may throw away their treasures makes hoarders avoid social contact and resent even their own relatives. This fear adds to the congenitally poor socialization skills typical of hoarders. As a result, they may live in complete social isolation, loneliness, and despair.
Do you have trouble letting go?