For some people, collecting is a passion. For others, it's a disorder. For the estimated 2 million compulsive hoarders in the United States, the impulse to collect and save has gone dangerously awry.
The desire to hold onto things is buried deep inside our psyches. For most of human history, food and other resources were generally scarce. Our brains and repertoire of behaviors took shape in an environment of scarcity.
Hoarding, however, is the reflection of anxiety raised to the fever pitch of obsession and compulsion. It pathologically capitalizes on the virtue of saving and involves objects most others deem worthless or useless. One or two empty prescription containers may come in handy; there is no rational way to justify keeping 100.
No one knows why hoarders fixate on specific things. Some sufferers form emotional attachments to their belongings. Others are indecisive, disorganized, and prone to procrastination. Either way, their attachment to things is pathological when it begins to distort daily life or interfere with relationships. When there’s no place for visitors to sit down, for example, your friend is already well in that camp.
Hoarding behavior could arise on its own. Or it could be triggered by a loss or other significant life event. It may also occur in persons with dementia.
Most hoarders deny they have a problem. Your friend may insist there will be a time when he’ll need a 20-year-old bank statement or that his old clothes will come roaring back into style.
Compulsive hoarding is a treatable condition. Hoarders need psychotherapy that gets at the root of their anxiety. To help hoarders stop collecting and start trashing, the therapy may be most effective if at some point it takes place in the environment where the patient hoards. For some people, antidepressant drugs may be used in conjunction with the therapy.
Funny... I thought I kept every love letter ever written to me because as an adoptee, the memory of being loved by "someone" represented my need for my natural mother.
empty prescription pill bottles i keep, from illnesses or injuries that i got through alone. i also keep thank-yous and christmas card photos. i can't stand the idea of throwing away a photo, it hurts too much.
My youngest (boy-twin) has a real hard time throwing away ANYTHING, especially boxes from gifts he got. It makes me laugh because he's only six right now, but I tease hub-man saying "I'd hate to see what his house will look like in twenty years, if he refuses to throw anything away, because he's so emotionally attached to crap."
I know with Brendan it's an association-thing... he relates a happy memory with an object, and he doesn't want to get rid of it, so he likes to keep all the pieces (even the packaging) close to him. Unfortunately, he's a six year old boy, and neatness does not count in his life yet, so lots of little pieces get lost and scattered around the house!
For myself I have developed a pathological tendency to not keep any matetrial belonging, which is just a counter reaction to my previous pattern of keeping everything.
A friend of mine is so much into hoarding, his floor is littered knee deep with old news papers and peanut shells. I bet there are quite a few brilliant articles for this website, somewhere buried on his floor.
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Secret Messages and Hidden Meanings
Funny... I thought I kept every love letter ever written to me because as an adoptee, the memory of being loved by "someone" represented my need for my natural mother.
dumb things
empty prescription pill bottles i keep, from illnesses or injuries that i got through alone. i also keep thank-yous and christmas card photos. i can't stand the idea of throwing away a photo, it hurts too much.
"One man's trash, is another man's treasure"
My youngest (boy-twin) has a real hard time throwing away ANYTHING, especially boxes from gifts he got. It makes me laugh because he's only six right now, but I tease hub-man saying "I'd hate to see what his house will look like in twenty years, if he refuses to throw anything away, because he's so emotionally attached to crap."
I know with Brendan it's an association-thing... he relates a happy memory with an object, and he doesn't want to get rid of it, so he likes to keep all the pieces (even the packaging) close to him. Unfortunately, he's a six year old boy, and neatness does not count in his life yet, so lots of little pieces get lost and scattered around the house!
wading
For myself I have developed a pathological tendency to not keep any matetrial belonging, which is just a counter reaction to my previous pattern of keeping everything.
A friend of mine is so much into hoarding, his floor is littered knee deep with old news papers and peanut shells. I bet there are quite a few brilliant articles for this website, somewhere buried on his floor.