Does anyone have a hoarding problem? *raises hand* I do! (psychologist, husband)

[Shleptik]

Can someone explain what hoarding is? I mean I have too much stuff -- but I'm working on "organizing" it, and getting rid of things I don't really need so the place looks neat -- but what is hoarding? Maybe I'm hoarding and don't know it. And how does a person unhoard?

[Marc Paolella]

Hoarding is basically a fear of death and an expression of profound insecurity. You hold on to things as an analogue for holding on to life. You fear that loss of things will lead to loss of yourself, as you personalize inanimate and inconsequential objects and imbue them with false significance. The basic emotion is insecurity and lack of confidence in yourself as someone who can control their own life. "I am my stuff" is the implied proclamation. It is a form of irrationality and an anxiety disorder. I would recommend cognitive therapy to address it.

[Steve McDonald]

I have a collection of 36 Bi-Centennial quarters from 1976. That's it. Nothing else I save up. I progressed several years ago, to cleaning everything off my workbench, office desk and kitchen table, except the few things that are used often. Before that, those places had foot-deep conglomerations of all sorts of junk, but I've been clean all this time and I don't plan to fall off the wagon again. My ongoing policy is to strip-out all junk mail for re-cycling right when I bring it into the house. I once had about two years worth of it piled-up on the table.

[Hedgehog_Mom]

There's a difference between hoarding and being a slob. If your stuff piles up because you are too lazy to put it away and you just keep adding layers to it, but you can still clean up in a hurry when someone is coming over, then you're a slob. If you've got stuff that never goes anywhere, you are sure that something horrible will happen to you if you get rid of it, and you have cover stories for the repairman or the occasional guest to explain why your couch is covered in stacks of clothes or your dining room is full of boxes and tubs of old bits and pieces of random junk, then you're a hoarder.

If you save stacks of magazines and movies because you're afraid you'll lose your job if you get rid of them, you're a hoarder.

If you become angry and hostile when anyone suggests getting rid of any of your junk or offers to help you get rid of some, you're a hoarder.

I live with a couple of hoarders. We manage by designating storage areas for the hoarded items. When the storage area is full, they can't buy any more until they get rid of some. If the items overflow the storage areas, I can get rid of them.

I also live with a slob who is not a hoarder. She likes a clean room and having all her clothes, shoes, purses, books, etc. neatly put away, she's just too lazy to do it. She's willing to get rid of clothes that she's outgrown or old papers that she doesn't need anymore, she's just more willing if I offer to sort through her stuff and clean and organize.

[chiluvr1228]

I happen to like cleaning, because I get instant gratification from it. My mother and I are cleaning up my aunt's house who died this past October. While she wasn't a hoarder she was a pack rat. When you walked in, things didn't look bad at all but she had every drawer, closet, cabinet stuffed full of junk, mostly papers but a lot of other stuff, same of it dating back to the 80's.


I can't live with clutter, it makes me anxious. I don't have tons of knick-knacks either. There is a reason why people live like this, some of it psychological, some, like in my aunt's case, illness and little education which caused her to think she couldn't throw any paperwork out, no matter what it was.


My motto is unless it's got some deep sentimental value like the flag from my husband's funeral, I purge stuff once a year. I think the Japanese are onto something with their feng shui.

[Atlanta_BD]

It doesn't sound like you have a hoarding issue. Hoarding is when you buy or collect things you don't need, get attached to them, hold onto them and not get rid of them out of a fear that you will need it or use it some day and won't have it on hand.

It sounds more like a lack of desire to clean or stay organized due to depression. You use things and feel too lazy to put them back. You recognize that you need to clean and organized but you lack the energy to do it. Have you been diagnosed with depression or General Anxiety Disorder? Depression often causes you to not want to clean and organize when you really want to or recognize there is a problem.

I struggle with this sometimes. The best way to tackle it is to just get up and do it. Some days the idea of cleaning the whole room will make you feel overwhelmed and cause you to go another day not dealing with the mess. When I have my bouts, I tackle things one room or one category at a time, or dedicate 15 minutes to one task so it doesn't feel like you are taking on too much.

I tend to "hoard" papers. When I see it getting out of hand, I pick a day where I go through the papers one bag or box at a time, pull out the shredder and a large trash bag, put on a movie and sit in front of the TV and shred, organize, or toss out papers until that bag is done.

Start with your make up. Pick a day where you go to the dollar store or Dollar General to get storage baskets and bins to organize your make up. I took a shoe bag with clear plastic pockets, hung it on the inside of my linen closet door in my bathroom and first separated all my nail polishes by color, giving each color their own pocket, then I put mani-pedi tools in another pocket, then the rest of the pockets I used to organize my make up, hair accessories and store my hair styling appliances. Try a project like that.

Try to make a habit of not eating in your room so you don't leave dishes there; or at least soon as you're get up, wash the dishes and put them away.

[gentlearts]

The thing that cured me was moving after 20 years. I was never a hoarder, but it took 2 auctions, and many donations to get ready to downsize, and we still moved too much. Now, it makes me almost physically ill to acquire anything. If something comes in, something has to go out.

[bewitchyou]

Originally Posted by Atlanta_BD

It doesn't sound like you have a hoarding issue. Hoarding is when you buy or collect things you don't need, get attached to them, hold onto them and not get rid of them out of a fear that you will need it or use it some day and won't have it on hand.

It sounds more like a lack of desire to clean or stay organized due to depression. You use things and feel too lazy to put them back. You recognize that you need to clean and organized but you lack the energy to do it. Have you been diagnosed with depression or General Anxiety Disorder? Depression often causes you to not want to clean and organize when you really want to or recognize there is a problem.

I struggle with this sometimes. The best way to tackle it is to just get up and do it. Some days the idea of cleaning the whole room will make you feel overwhelmed and cause you to go another day not dealing with the mess. When I have my bouts, I tackle things one room or one category at a time, or dedicate 15 minutes to one task so it doesn't feel like you are taking on too much.

Yes, I have been diagnosed with dysthymia (low level depression). I think I will see a therapist about hoarding, just to get some help, I think there could be a more psychological reason for this happening. But I have (and still do to a lesser extinct) struggle with worrying too much, anxiety, etc. Yes the idea of cleaning my room does overwhelm me ....but I like the idea of focusing on one thing at a time..I tend to do too much at once or overthink or over stress over it, and I burn myself out and them I am back in my funk. Thank you everyone for your help

[shyguylh]

As someone who is married to a hoarder, you need to stop. If you're married (I didn't notice yes/no), it might well become a marital issue.

In our case, my wife can't let go of things which are obviously broken and it becomes a problem in that things which aren't broken are difficult to find due to the clutter. It also doesn't help that it has been suggested I have Asperger's and clutter actually is a problem for me just in terms of it being there, just seeing the clutter in and of itself is a drain on my psyche and my feeling comfortable in where I'm at. It's also hard for me to "sort through the excess" in order to find something I'm looking for. I once took 25 minutes in the grocery store to find the spaghetti noodles, grumbling "if everything else would disappear I could actually SEE what I'm looking for." So you can imagine how irritating it is to not be able to find what you're looking for due to the presence of JUNK.

We have so many clothes, those "contractor" garbage bags that are even larger than the "lawn and leaf" bags, our clothes would probably require 20 such bags to hold them all. Seriously. There is NO WAY we need that many clothes. I once burned a lot of such clothes, ones which were well stained and ripped and no longer fit etc, and in doing so mistakenly burned some good ones that not only did my wife not want burned but even I didn't want burned. She still doesn't seem to understand that such happened because of a "can't see the forest for the trees" problem, there is so much junk you can't tell the good from the bad, she thinks the problem is that I tried to get rid of anything.

To be blunt, I HAVE NO INTEREST in "understanding her problem" or "respecting" it. I want the problem GONE or DEALT WITH. I need SPACE in my house so I'm not tripping over everything and so I can find what I'm looking for. Throw some of that stuff away, period.

[tamajane]

Originally Posted by yellowsnow

My mom was a hoarder mostly because she was a Depression baby. Drove me crazy! I did elder care for my parents for more than 10 years and despite massive downsizing, I ended up with more stuff than I knew what to do with. I ended up with my parents, grand parents, and my H's stuff after they all died.

My house was full of boxes and I couldn't park in my garage. It was completely out of control. It took 5 YEARS of my life to get rid of all of it. 5 YEARS! I had to go through everything because of my mom's strange habits of using money for bookmarks and doing things like stashing gold coins in her button box. But I did it. And here's what I learned.

Eventually, you can figure out that the stuff doesn't serve you. You serve the stuff. Having all the stuff makes you work 10X harder to find things you need. And you work 10X harder to try and keep the place clean. Stuff does not save you money. It costs you money and time. These people had nothing that was worth 5 plus years of my life spent cleaning up their mess.

Do yourself a favor. Get rid of all of it! When it's all done and the place is clean, bring in one box for stuff. When it's full, get rid of it. Lather, rinse, and repeat.

I really understand what you went through cleaning up after others.


That logic of tossing what you don't need does not work for true hoarders, you cannot talk them into changing as it is a compulsion and a mental illness. It can ruin their lives and make them lose their families and they still cannot stop, like an addiction.