Hoarding disorder is a mental health problem that a doctor can diagnose. But you might also experience hoarding as part of another mental or physical health problem. If you hoard, you might: Feel the need to get more things, even if you have a lot already.
obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD)
Personality. Many people who have hoarding disorder have a behavior style that includes trouble making decisions and problems with attention, organization and problem-solving. Family history. There is a strong association between having a family member who has hoarding disorder and having the disorder yourself.
Some researchers believe hoarding can relate to childhood experiences of losing things, not owning things, or people not caring for you. This might include experiences like: Money worries or living in poverty in childhood. Having your belongings taken or thrown away by someone.
Some individuals with hoarding disorder may recognize and acknowledge that they have a problem with accumulating possessions; others may not see a problem.
Conclusions: Hoarding symptoms are associated with increased emotional contagion and decreased cognitive empathy. Empathy may be an avenue for understanding and treating interpersonal difficulties in hoarding disorder.
Hoarding gets worse with age, which is why it's often associated with older adults, but it usually starts in childhood.
Don't refer to their possessions as 'junk' or 'rubbish'. This shows that you don't understand their connection to the objects or why they want to keep them. They will be less likely to open up to you if you talk about their things this way. Don't focus on a total clean-up.
Touching Items Without Permission: Hoarders have an unnatural attachment to the things that they have gathered. If a person tries to move the possessions without the hoarder's consent, the hoarder can become emotionally upset or angry.
Being the family member of a person with hoarding disorder (HD) can be very stressful. For those family members who live with the person with HD, such as a partner, child, sibling or dependent parent, living among the extreme clutter can cause a lot of physical and emotional difficulties.
Living with an individual who hoards during childhood was associated with elevated reports of childhood distress and family strain. Family members reported high levels of patient rejection attitudes, suggesting high levels of family frustration and hostility.
They just won't find their way out. It's for these reasons, in part, that hoarding is extremely difficult to treat. And hoarding is almost always accompanied by a comorbid condition--depression, anxiety, and borderline personality disorder are among the most common--which complicates matters even further.
These results suggest that hoarders' decisions about possessions are hampered by abnormal activity in brain regions used to identify the emotional significance of things. “They lose the ability to make relative judgments, so the decision becomes absolutely overwhelming and aversive to them,” Tolin says.
Signs of compulsive hoarding include always having clutter, showing emotional distress disposing of items, not inviting others over, having a shopping addiction, not allowing others to touch or borrow their possessions, having multiple pets, and constantly talking about their collection.
Hoarding often runs in families and can frequently accompany other mental health disorders, like depression, social anxiety, bipolar disorder, and impulse control problems.
Symptoms of hoarding include a focus on collecting goods, moodiness, aggression, and a desire to live alone.
Hoarders generally experience embarrassment about their possessions and feel uncomfortable when others see them. Their clutter often takes over functional living space, and they feel sad or ashamed after acquiring additional items.
Two of the most common forms are cat hoarding and dog hoarding. However, a person can hoard any animal.
Hoarding behaviors can begin as early as the teenage years, although the average age of a person seeking treatment for hoarding is about 50. Hoarders often endure a lifelong struggle with hoarding. They tend to live alone and may have a family member with the problem.
In many cases, stressful or traumatic events, such as divorce or the death of a loved one, are associated with the onset of hoarding symptoms. People with hoarding disorder feel a strong need to save their possessions. Other symptoms include: Inability to get rid of possessions.
Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and serotonin/norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs) are most commonly used to treat hoarding disorder. A recent meta-analysis shows that treatment response to pharmacotherapy is similar to the response in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
People hoard because they believe that an item will be useful or valuable in the future. Or they feel it has sentimental value, is unique and irreplaceable, or too big a bargain to throw away.