Hoarding disorders are challenging to treat because many people who hoard frequently do not see it as a problem, or have little awareness of how it's affecting their life or the lives of others.
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.
Mental health conditions most often associated with hoarding disorder include: Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD). Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Create A Discussion
Encourage the person with the problem to open up to you. Reassure them that you're there to listen and not be judgemental. People struggling with hoarding may be in strong denial so be patient and allow them to have their say, whatever that may be.
Two of the most common forms are cat hoarding and dog hoarding. However, a person can hoard any animal.
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).
Many factors may play a role, including personality traits and stressful life events. It is important to rule out dementia, depression and other mental health conditions that may be contributing to their hoarding behaviors.
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.
The initial start of hoarding symptoms is thought to happen in childhood or adolescence (typical onset is around age 16) and it is chronic and progressive. Hoarding is more common in older than younger age groups. Below are some early signs that an individual may have hoarding behaviors.
Hoarders often refuse to take their accumulated items out, dispose of them, or even consider them trash. This is partly because they have disposophobia or fear of disposing of their items. In most cases, this uncontrolled behavior results in a cluttered home or living space.
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.
Some hoarders have developed a hoarding disorder that can be associated with OCD. Any disorder can greatly impact our emotions and reactions, which is why hoarders can become violent. This behaviour typically won't come out unless someone messes with their belongings.
Hoarding often runs in families and can frequently accompany other mental health disorders, like depression, social anxiety, bipolar disorder, and impulse control problems.
More than 70% of hoarders are women, many are elderly, and recidivism is nearly universal. Some hoarders are sociopaths indifferent to the concerns or needs of either people or animals, driven by a need to accumulate and control animals. Sometimes the hoarder calls her collection a shelter or animal refuge.
Hoarding Level Three: One bedroom or bathroom is unusable, Excessive dust, heavily soiled food preparation areas, strong odors throughout the home, excessive amount of pets, and visible clutter outdoors.