To ask how people get to be hoarders?

[drspouse]

Watching Sort your Life Out - always makes me feel a little better about our slightly messy house.
I know people on here who've lived with hoarders as partners or parents and those who've tried to help them, and I've heard people also say it's really hard to treat.
Does anyone know how this all happens, are people "just like that" or is there a trigger? Why is it so hard to treat? I know anxiety is fairly well treated these days and OCD can be if people engage with help, is hoarding worse and if so why?

My uncle moved house 14 times as a child, in the Forces. No money. Never had much. When he was older and started earning money he prized being able to keep stuff in his own home. Gradually as he got older his kneejerk sense of "You don't want to throw anything away, you might want it" got stronger. He also had a feeling that he had loads of potential things he wanted to do in life so why would he chuck the banjo/hammock/croquet set/surfboard/German dictionaries/set of ancient drinking glasses - what if he needed them??

Gradually it happened.

The hoarders I've come across seem to start after the death of a loved one. Such as a parent dying who was still very much involved in looking after them, they can't seem to cope on their own

Genetic predisposition meets trauma.

It's pretty well documented.

Agree that it is likely linked to incidents in people's lives . I was made homeless in my thirties with a young child. I went back to having nothing at all, I then had to reset again to make sure I was getting rid of what wouldn't help us. But, it was a process

I’m a hoarder, although not to the extremes of television but given half the chance I would be if that makes sense.

Like most conditions there isn’t a single one cause. For me, though, a big problem was my minimalist dad. He was always throwing away things of mine that I valued. An example, I did my last GCSE exam and the next day my school tie and blazer, bag and exercise books had gone to the tip He wouldn’t tell you he was doing it, you’d just notice that it was missing.

Then when I was 18 he sold the house I’d grown up in and whoosh everything went. So I have nothing from being a child or teen - no trinkets or books or clothes or jewellery.

So now I find it so hard to throw anything from the past away because it’s as if if I get rid of it the memory vanishes too.

Watching the American show I would say trauma most of the time.

My DH is a mild hoarder. He collects and finds it painfully hard to get rid of things. He forms real attachments to the smallest of items.

My hoarder MiL says two things,

”People can’t accuse me of not owning any stuff.”

and

“My mother would read a letter, tear it in half and throw it away.”

At points in her life she has been WAY below the poverty line and was a single parent at 17 in the 70s. She often told me how she’d cry when her child wet the bed as she only had one sheet and no washing machine.

I guess things like that change you.

I also think it’s harder to throw stuff away. I have a bed in my garage. Won’t fit in the car and the council want £35 per item to shift it (2 sections of bed base and a mattress). It’s a fair chunk of cash when you have other priorities.

Genetic predisposition meets trauma.
It's pretty well documented.

@MrsTerryPratchett

Interesting.

Any specific websites you could recommend? Thanks.

I’m so sorry, that’s really upsetting ☹️

Although not as bad as the tv programmes, I do have more ‘stuff’ than most other people I know.

As a child we moved lots, think I’d lived in 10 houses by 18, so was forever having my things ‘sorted out’ read thrown away, in moves. So once I moved my to my own house aged 20 no one could make me throw my things away so I just kept them.

Also, I attach a lot of memories to my items, from when my children were little is the main one, it’s like if I get rid of it, then I’m getting rid of that memory, and I just can’t do that, I feel sick at the thought. Every now and again though I will psych myself up and can sort a little bit out and be a bit ruthless, but I still keep far more than most other people do.

My father started hoarding after my parents separated. He never had anything as a child and my mother kept things under control but once on his own he bought/kept what he wanted. He spent ages in charity shops and bought books by the dozen (read about one a year!). He had collections of all sorts...thimbles, mugs, egg cups..anything and everything! He'd pick things up off the street (rubber bands, paper clips), pulled stuff out of skips, scoured charity shops and car boots. He was the same with food too. He'd clear reduced sections and keep the food until he got round to eating it, scraping the green fur off the top if needed. 🤢

For my mum it started when she had no money so had to serve me and my brother mince and potatoes she had frozen but there was hardly any so she bulked it out with more potatoes and my little brother was really nasty about not wanting to eat it, she began hoarding food and when she died 27 years later her spare room was like a food shop, this was AFTER my stepdad had decluttered 17 bin bags full of food storage (think tins and stuff but years out of date) my stepdad tried to palm some of their kitchen cupboard items on me but 75% of that was years out of date so went in the bin

They've often experienced loss and there's a sense of being cocooned by stuff.

👏

To me the programme SYLO deals with people who just spend/waste money and not real hoarders.

The people who hoard anything abd everything with mental health issues on hoarders are seriously ill.

I'm so sorry to hear that @ohyayy . DH dad was a bit like that but more nagging him to tidy up and he grew up in a small home by 2020s standards (60s 2 bed high rise flat -when they were rehoused DH was a little boy and had to give away his train set because there wasn't the room).
He is remarkably unsentimental about "things" and occasionally I have to say "don't you think your dad's army picture from before you were born might look good on the wall?".

In our family it's linked to autism (BiL)or autistic tendencies (FiL). My youngest is autistic and really struggles to make decisions on where to put things and what to get rid of so gets easily overwhelmed by too much stuff.

My mum is a hoarder. Not as severe as some as it’s not at a dangerous level but it’s something she has struggled with since I was a child. I think trauma triggered it for her, a very deprived childhood, the loss of three siblings as children and moving abroad before the age of ten.

I have seen it happen with advancing years to people who never hoarded previously.

My dad's a hoarder. He was very poor as a child, one of 6 kids, so ever really had anything of his own. Now he keeps everything. The VCR that broke 40 years ago is still in the garage. The 1979s bike my cousin gave me in 1983 is still in the shed, etc. He's added car boot sale and eBay shopping in his retirement. Cooking is his hobby and he owns, at the last count, 28 frying pans, despite having a regular 4 ring hob.

Full on hoarding I don't have, but after my husband died and then my dad died and then my mum had a strike and I had to empty her house and sell it to pay for care, I reached a point where I was kind of frozen. I was surrounded by boxes of stuff, all of which seemed much more significant than it was, and even the thought of getting rid of something made me terrified. It got better but it gave me a little bit of insight. Also shows what kind of trauma must be involved in long term hoarding.

My mum and sister are hoarders now after a series of traumatic events, they never used to be. I struggle to vist the family home now because the clutter stresses me out. I am the opposite to them & need a clear, clutter free space to relax.

I think some of it is an executive function issue - the inability to do anything. My mother grew up in care. She had nothing that belonged to her, not even her own clothes. She has clutter but it's not like the houses you see on TV.

This programme is nothing to do with hoarding. It's just people sorting out their clutter...

I feel a lot of sympathy for hoarders, it's obviously trauma, but also oddly fascinating, as I'm on the opposite end of the scale.

I place little to no value on any items. The only thing I'd save from my house in a fire is a rug I really like, but even if that went up in smoke I wouldn't be upset.

I hate clutter, it makes my head feel full.