Hoarding, also referred to as hoarding disorder, is a disease that was included in the most recent edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, namely the DSM-5, in 2013. People suffering from this condition feel the need to save things and start hoarding them.
They overreact when someone wants to take their possessions or clean the house they live in. It is observed that these people have problems in leaving their belongings due to reasons beyond their control. Let’s take a look at the psychological factors behind this disease.
While hoarding is often confused with collecting because ‘hoarding’ behavior is common, it is certainly not the same thing.
Collectors often like to deliberately buy a particular category of items and store them in a special place to show them to others. That is, their purpose is not to use these items or to keep them by their side all the time.
Hoarders, on the other hand, do not make plans like collectors to own objects. These people are triggered by all the objects they see because they impulsively want to possess an object. For hoarders, the things they own don’t have to belong to a particular category. For example, these people may buy a newspaper from the garbage and think that they need that newspaper. Since the environment of hoarders is always extremely messy, they have nothing to do with collecting.
This disease also disrupts social relationships.
Experts say that the exact cause of this problem is not known. It is possible that people who have had this situation in their family members have had similar experiences. Sometimes the loss of a loved one or a stressful life can make a person a hoarder. People suffering from this problem have difficulty in managing work, partner, family, and social relationships of all kinds.
Because after a while, they can be abandoned by their families or the people they live with, because they take all the items and carry them home as soon as they work. Thus, people who experience this problem become more lonely. The prevalence of hoarding disorder in the general population is approximately 2.6%. This disease is more common in people over the age of 60 or people with another psychological disorder.
People who have this problem show similar behaviors regardless of the culture and country they live in. In fact, studies have shown that it is a condition that is seen equally in men and women. This problem is a condition that starts early in life (around 15-19 years) and gets worse with each passing decade.
So what are the symptoms of a life so dependent on things?
First of all, let’s emphasize once again that the most obvious symptom for people who have this problem is that they cannot give up the things in their hands. Because this is not a feeling of not being able to give up as we know it, but a problem of not being able to quit at the level of addiction. In fact, these people are unable to adopt objects as if they were their children. In general, the houses where these people live turn into garbage houses after a while because they bring home whatever they find. Now that people’s living space is invaded by objects, these people; They may not be able to cook or take a bath in the kitchen.
Essentially, these people are; they keep things because they see them as unique items that they believe they will need someday in the future. Because they attribute an emotional value to every item, they remember that feeling when they look at them. In addition to hoarding, these people also have some psychological conditions such as procrastination, perfectionism, indecision and distraction. People definitely have a hard time facing their problems. Since it is very difficult for them to realize that there is a problem in themselves, it is also difficult for them to take steps towards solving the problem.
Stacking can be not only items, but even animals.
Animal hoarding is a special type of hoarding disorder, unlike classical hoarding. But there are also those who hoard both goods and animals. You can think of this as a person collecting hundreds of animals. They can collect animals and lock them in a house, room, area. In fact, this is quite dangerous because the safety and health of animals is likely to deteriorate. there was a reality show called Emergency Cleaning Team about hoarding in a TV show and the stories there were quite interesting.
In fact, we can understand that there are many people living with this disease in our country, from the news we see in the media with the headline ‘garbage house’ every day. Maybe there are some of you who come across that the houses of these people are cleaned by the cleaning teams appointed by the municipalities. Of course, not only garbage, but also sad life stories can come out of most houses.
For example, the story of a little boy who was found locked in a garbage house in Bursa was very upsetting to those who heard it.
For this reason, it is very important that the relatives of people who have this disease do not give up and take them to the doctor. When these people are left alone, they may unintentionally endanger social life. If the inside of a house is a pile of garbage, another apartment in the same apartment and even the neighborhood can be affected by it. Therefore, it may be beneficial for these people to receive psychiatric support and to use their medications regularly, both for themselves and their environment.
Sources: Psychiatry, Mayo Clinic, APA, Anatolian Cat
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