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I see a whole load of family dysfunction here, starting from Mom siccing people on Aunt Carol but making it be a surprise just to see everyone's reaction.
Aunt Carol isn't the only one with the problem.
Call APS since she's making herself sick, then step back and keep your eyes on your own paper and fix what you can about your own interactions with your family. You don't need to "understand" your aunt; you won't help her if you do. APS can. A psychologist can. You have enough on your plate with this largely strange situation, IMO.
It is often related to OCD but not always. Can also be anxiety/depression. A person can be complete free of any compulsions and merely find it difficult or impossible to organize it, make the decisions regarding it all, and the mental energy to do anything about it. You have to know your hoarder to know the reasons.
You have to know your hoarder to know the reasons.
This is key. Hoarding is not "one size fits all", it comes in many varieties, both what is hoarded and why. Some hoarders have neat-as-a-pin workspaces but homes crammed full of stuff such that you would never guess. That was one of the major takeaways for me from the book I referred to earlier.
Also, just going in and cleaning out all the stuff often does not solve the problem, or worse. Many hoarders manage to recreate the hoard in record time even after a massive clean-up. And some actually commit suicide. It's a very complex, almost intractable problem.
If you have time to read, I found this book very enlightening (it was recommended by another C-D poster) and eye-opening about some aspects of hoarding I hadn't realized or considered, even after watching the TLC shows.
Loved the description about Jerry and Alvin, collecting the fine art.
Myself, I live to cover my walls. The "good" thing is that it will probably take me longer than to unpack everything. The bad thing is what to do with all the things that came down my direction that I would not normally put up, such as fancy framed postage stamps that meant something to someone, generations past. It can even get worse than that.
One of my brothers dropped a whole bunch of old family pictures on me with the lines of, "Here are your copies, we don't want them back.". I don't know what he was thinking but if that is the situation in other families, then don't be surprised if one runs into "problems" years down the road.
As to what I will do with them? Store them until there is a place to put them, just further kicking the can down the road, I suppose.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Coldjensens
......His living room has so many pieces of furniture that clearly provided good service, are still in decent shape or just need simple repairs and did not deserve destruction, that you cannot get into the living room. He feels sorry for the things and develops a personal connection with them. He is saving them from a horrible fate by putting them in his house.
Sort of sounds like my living room.....sort of. The sleeper sofa practically clawed to destruction. Well, at least on the arms and the back side but the catch is, it is like the $400 leather chair. It starts off as that but eventually becomes a $4 leather chair.....and a $400 kitten toy. If one knows that such is going to happen then one is not so quick to replace it.
That point is do not take one side of the equation and come to the same answer as if one had both parts, in this case, the constant inflow of material.
Now, what I do have a lot of are chess sets! If there is a type of item that fills the living room, that is it! The family had a great chess compulsion growing up, they were often Christmas gifts to us kids (somewhere around there's a Star Trek one and a crystal one, never opened), 3D, Neo-chess, and then there are all the fancy, most likely expensive, and certainly big ones.......that drifted into my possession in inheritance.
Since I don't have the heart to part with them (but please, please, please, no more!) I suppose I should do with them like Mom did with "Bear"; have a set out on the coffee table for a particular period and have the others in closet storage......when everything is unpacked and there is a space. (Bear is a 3 ft tall stuffed Grizzly that I bought but Mom kidnapped. Bear would sit on her sofa and by his size and seeing the back of his head when coming out of the bedroom, he provided a feeling that one was not alone in the house. Mom and her friends would dress him in various tees for various occasions.)
Hence, we come down to, is it hoarding? Certainly.....from the viewpoint of most of the world. The ranch is, however, a bug out location for family, an overnight touch down point for traveling carnie friends and is, by modern standards, very low tech. Hence, there is justification, in a certain view point, for keeping such simple games, keeping those 1000 piece puzzles, as a means to entertain.....even if the belief is 40 years old.
Now what I don't have are tiny little pathways going from place to place.....except those paths of everything being SLOWLY unpacked and the areas for cats such as their food dishes, their water dishes (that really is an obstacle course), and their pedestals.
The point? It may be a similar environment but the reasons may be quite different.
Further, the out processing of material, such as card board, does take time and for one person, that can take a lot of time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Eastern Long Island Tom
This link I am providing I found here at CD some time ago....after reading it I kept it....as there are many like poor soul George Bell.
I feel great sadness for your Aunt Carol and hope she can be helped in some way...
YOUCH! It reminds me, in parts, of reading the case histories of auto erotic asphyxia. Things like "The police did a welfare check when the man missed several days of work. He was a quiet man who kept to himself."
One of my "habits", built mostly from another aspect of my LE background, is to constantly send out position and status reports. Of course, the thing is that while people are glad to hear them, I am pretty sure if I miss sending one out, the cavalry isn't going to show instantly. At the very least, however, it will help them track my final movements.
A lesson I learned in a spy show was to have an address book in my desk so if I suddenly left, the follow up team would have a source of people to inform. As it is in our modern world, I have not updated that in years but with this reminder, perhaps I should....when I find it.
Interesting that the investigators in the article approach life as I do.
Last edited by TamaraSavannah; 08-24-2018 at 03:39 AM..
I think hoarding is probably now easier than ever since lots of people don't even need to leave home to shop. Useless stuff they ordered online is delivered to their doorsteps.
I think hoarding is probably now easier than ever since lots of people don't even need to leave home to shop. Useless stuff they ordered online is delivered to their doorsteps.
I am told that there such a thing as an is an addictive personality, such as when you become interested in some thing and you have to have all examples of it you run across. For instance, 35 cashmere sweaters, if you have the money or credit to buy them. Or a first edition copy of every book a certain author wrote. Or every handmade doll you can find to buy. That would be an example of one kind of compulsive collecting, which could be a type of hoarding.
And now, the world is our shopping mall. The possibilities for acquiring things are limited only by the size of our credit limit.
But on some of the hoarding shows, I think people’s hoarding has to do with not being able to make decisions about cleaning up and throwing out, or depression which keeps people in a state of felt helplessness.
I do think the hoarding signifies mental illness. It is not the hoarding, which is a symptom. But it is a mental illness which is manifested in these behaviors.
A lot of people who when through the great depression were food hoarders. I can see why anyone who ever went hungry would squirreling away something to eat. Like another poster said, You have to know your hoarder to know the reasons.
A lot of people who when through the great depression were food hoarders. I can see why anyone who ever went hungry would squirreling away something to eat. Like another poster said, You have to know your hoarder to know the reasons.
I agree with the last statement. But the hoarding seems to me to be the manifestation of some sort of mental illness—at least in many instances. In other words if you could treat the mental illness, perhaps the hoarder might function better.
I agree with the last statement. But the hoarding seems to me to be the manifestation of some sort of mental illness—at least in many instances. In other words if you could treat the mental illness, perhaps the hoarder might function better.
I can't see this as being a mental illness. It's more of a case of learning from the past and preparing for the future. If you carried the hoarding to an extreme it would be different. A bathtub full of Bologny sandwiches might be a red flag.
I have noticed that no new Hoarders have been on TV for awhile. My gut tells me that it is because it seemed to be exploiting mental illness, in the guise of helping. There are very few good outcomes. One thing I’ve learned is that just cleaning out the person’s environment does not help the person. It does nothing to fix the underlying problem.
Both Hoarders and my 600# Life tell us that traumatic childhoods can make messed up adults, but they don’t tell us why some go one way, and some manage to live normal lives.
I think they only scratch the surface.
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