Are
you a hoader or a collector?
Compulsive hoarding (more accurately described as "hoarding
disorder") is a pattern of behavior that is characterized by the excessive
acquisition of and inability or unwillingness to discard large quantities of
objects that cover the living areas of the home and cause significant distress
or impairment. Compulsive hoarding behavior has been associated with health risks, impaired
functioning, economic burden, and adverse effects on friends and family
members. When clinically significant enough to impair functioning, hoarding can
prevent typical uses of space, enough so that it can limit activities such as
cooking, cleaning, moving through the house, and sleeping. It could also
potentially put the individual and others at risk of causing fires, falling,
poor sanitation, and other health concerns.Compulsive hoarders may be conscious
of their irrational behavior but the emotional attachment to the hoarded
objects far exceeds the motive to discard the items.
In 2008, a study was conducted to
determine if there is a significant link between hoarding and interference in
occupational and social functioning. Hoarding behavior is often severe because
hoarders do not recognize it as a problem. It is much harder for behavioral
therapy to successfully treat compulsive hoarders with poor insight about their
disorder. Results show that hoarders were significantly less likely to see a
problem in a hoarding situation than a friend or a relative might.
This is independent of OCD symptoms, as OCD
patients are often very aware of their disorder.
Symptoms
Compulsive hoarding in its worst
forms can cause fires, unsanitary conditions (e.g. rat and roach infestations),
and other health and safety hazards.
Listed below are possible symptoms hoarders may experience:
1. They hold onto a large number of items that most people
would consider useless or worthless, such as:
·
Worn out cooking equipment.
·
Things that might be useful for
making crafts.
·
Clothes that "might" be
worn one day.
·
Broken things/trash.
·
Empty cans of beverages/ empty
bottles of perfumes/creams
2. Their home is cluttered to the point where many parts are
inaccessible and can no longer be used for intended purpose. For example:
·
Beds that cannot be slept in.
·
Kitchens that cannot be used for
food preparation, refrigerators filled with rotting food, stove tops with
combustibles (such as junk mail, as well as old food piled on top of burners).
·
Tables, chairs or sofas that cannot
be used for dining or sitting.
·
Unsanitary bathrooms; piles of human
or animal feces collected in areas of the home, giant bags of dirty diapers
that have been hoarded for many years.
·
Tubs, showers, and sinks are filled
with items to the point where it can no longer be used for washing or bathing.
Hoarders would thus possibly forgo bathing.
·
Some hoard animals
they cannot even marginally care for; dead pets cannibalized by other pets are
often found under the heaps. Pets suffer due to lack of mobility.
3. Their clutter and mess is at a point where it can cause
illness, distress, and impairment. As a result, they:
·
Do not allow visitors in, such as
family and friends or repair and maintenance professionals, because the clutter
embarrasses them.
·
Are reluctant or unable to return
borrowed items.
·
Steal due to the impulse of
possession.
·
Keep the shades drawn so that no one
can look inside.
·
Get into a lot of arguments with
family members regarding the clutter.
·
Are at risk of fire, falling,
infestation or eviction.
Often feeling
depressed or anxious due to the clutter
Subtypes
and related conditions
Obsessive–compulsive
disorder
For many years, hoarding has been
listed as a symptom or a subtype of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD). Obsessive compulsive disorder is a type of anxiety
disorder, people with OCD experience unwanted thoughts that incline them to do
something repetitively. Some of these behaviors are excessive cleanliness or
even excessive toothbrushing. The current DSM says that an OCD diagnosis should
be considered when:
1. The hoarding is driven by fear of contamination or
superstitious thoughts.
2. The hoarding behavior is unwanted or highly distressing.
3. The individual shows no interest in the hoarded items.
4. Excessive acquisition is only present if there is a
specific obsession with a certain item.
Compulsive hoarding does not seem to
involve the same neurological mechanisms as more familiar forms of
obsessive–compulsive disorder and does not respond to the same drugs, which target
serotonin. In compulsive hoarding the symptoms are presented in the normal
stream of consciousness and as such, they are not perceived as repetitive or
distressing like in OCD patients. Also, despite the statistics indicating that
there is a prevalence of hoarding in 18-40 percent of patients with OCD, only
five percent of compulsive hoarders experience symptoms of OCD. In another
study, a sample of 217 patients diagnosed with significant hoarding, only 18%
were diagnosed with OCD, as opposed to the 36% that were diagnosed with a major
depressive disorder. There are significant differences and issues between the
diagnostic features of compulsive hoarding and OCD which are being considered
in a possible addition to the DSM-V of a new independent disorder such as
compulsive hoarding.It is also said that there may be an overlap with a
condition known as impulse
control disorder (ICD), particularly when compulsive
hoarding is linked to compulsive buying or acquisition behavior.
Recent findings suggest to
differentiate between three types of hoarding, that is: pure hoarding, hoarding
plus OCD (i.e., comorbid OCD), and OCD-based hoarding. Given the aforementioned distinction, it
was proposed to increase coverage of compulsive hoarding in the forthcoming
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition (DSM-V),
both by creating a distinct category for compulsive hoarding, provisionally
named, Hoarding Disorder (either in the main manual under "obsessive-compulsive
spectrum disorders" or in the
appendix), and by including hoarding as a potential symptom of OCD.[27]
Book
hoarding
Bibliomania is a disorder involving the collecting
or hoarding of books to the point where social relations or health are damaged.
One of several psychological disorders associated with books (such as bibliophagy or bibliokleptomania), bibliomania is characterized by the collecting of books
which have no use to the collector nor any great intrinsic value to a more
conventional book collector. The purchase of multiple copies of the same book
and edition and the accumulation of books beyond possible capacity of use or
enjoyment are frequent symptoms of bibliomania.
One of the most famous
bibliokleptomaniacs in American history, Stephen Blumberg, never felt that he was doing anything wrong.
"Blumberg was trying to save a forgotten world from a system (the
libraries) that neglected it."
Animal
hoarding
Animal hoarding involves keeping
larger than usual numbers of animals as pets without having the ability to
properly house or care for them, while at the same time denying this inability. Compulsive animal
hoarding can be characterized as a symptom of a disorder rather than deliberate
cruelty towards animals. Hoarders are deeply attached
to their pets and find it extremely difficult to let them go. They typically
cannot comprehend that they are harming their pets by failing to provide them
with proper care. Hoarders tend to believe that they provide the right amount
of care for their pets. The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals provides a "Hoarding
Prevention Team," which works with hoarders to help them attain a
manageable and healthy number of pets. Along with other compulsive hoarding
behaviors, it is linked in the DSM-IV to obsessive–compulsive
disorder and obsessive–compulsive personality disorder.
Alternatively, animal hoarding could be related to addiction, dementia, or even focal delusion.
Animal hoarders display symptoms of delusional disorder in that they have a "belief system out of touch with
reality".Many hoarders lack insight regarding the extent of deterioration
their habitation and the health of their animals undergo, and tend not to
recognize that anything is wrong.Delusional disorder is an effective model in
that it offers an explanation of hoarders' apparent blindness to the realities
of their situations.
Another model that has been
suggested to explain animal hoarding is attachment disorder, which is primarily caused by poor parent-child
relationships during childhood.As a result, those suffering from attachment
disorder may turn to possessions, such as animals, to fill their need for a
loving relationship. Interviews with animal hoarders have revealed that
hoarders often experienced domestic trauma during childhood, providing evidence
for this model.Perhaps the strongest psychological model put forward to explain
animal hoarding is obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD).
The Animal
Legal Defense Fund provides an online resource
addressing ways, from a legal standpoint, to stop or prevent animal hoarding.
It covers civil options for stopping animal hoarders, cost mitigation laws, and
sentencing including mandatory forfeiture.
Collecting
Collecting and hoarding may seem similar, but there are distinct
characteristics between hoarders and collectors that set them apart. Collecting
involves actively seeking and acquiring specific things that form — at least
from the perspective of the collector — an interesting set. Hoarding, by
contrast, is haphazard and involves items that are not especially meaningful to
the person who is hoarding them.People that hoard keep items that hold no true
meaning or value. Most hoarders are disorganized and their homes are in
disarray. Most collectors store their items systematically and or have their
collections on display.
Which are you………
Source- Google
