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?

Yesterday's family did seem to have a problem - especially the mum. She had been financially abused in a previous relationship and had taken to buying and keeping things without using them due to that experience.

You could ask your local library if they'd appreciate the coloured pencils? The libraries near me put out coloring sheets etc for children and I know they'd appreciate any extra supplies...

For me it was trauma. My father was violent and my mother was emotional abusing. When she left I was 16, we moved across London in the January and I gave up with school. Just stopped. Luckily the HT knew about my family and told my best mate that if I return for the exams he wouldn’t bother about my attendance.

We left with one bag each and my mother returned to collect things, with me of course, and my father had cleared my room. It looked like it was never used. His reason? Because I left.

I do keep up on top of things but right now I have a spare bedroom that’s almost full 🤦‍♀️ I’m working through a cupboard and then I’ll make a start with the bedroom.

I collect a lot of things and I have a "stash" of many things, mostly craft supplies of various types. Although that did come in handy during lockdown!

I know it stems from my childhood as I saw that money can be taken from you in various ways, but "things" can't. I'm comfortable now financially but I still have a fear of poverty. I need to know that if I became poor again, that I have everything I want/need and have stuff to sell if I needed to.

I do also like having things! A minimalist home makes me feel depressed. I need colour, pattern, things to look at. That makes me feel calm, where it would stress out a minimalist.

If I'm being totally honest though, I probably have the potential to be a hoarder. I've just been lucky so far that nothing has "triggered" it and I am still in the realms of "normal".

MrsTerryPratchett · Yesterday 20:31

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

Here: Genetic predisposition, raised in a squalor hoard, meets multiple repeated traumas, especially repeated dispossession's.
= an assumption the hoarding gene had passed me by, because of ott cleaning regimes, organization, space, normal looking homes, and tidiness.

Except eventually I had to face up to the fact there was also compulsive acquisition, and an inability to throw away or let go off possessions, especially following the multiple deaths (including children) this family has faced.

JFDIYOLO · Today 00:49 (waves)
Has covered causes well. Many people tick multiple boxes. JFDIYOLO has covered these in other categories, but war, starvation, emigration (esp when forced) are big ones for deep seated silenced issues to slowly marinate.

Lot of disinformation on this thread though. I have hoarding disorder. I also have successfully worked with other hoarders of most types.

'Stuff' is the symptom of the disorder, not the disorder itself.

Hoarding is not defined by what a house looks like. We all know what chaotic messy hoarding, and squalor hoarding looks like. They are what raises attention because it affects people other than the person with hoarding disorder.

It can also present as organized, good living spaces, clean, tidy, curated, collated, labeled, spread sheeted, or as cultural collecting and retaining, collecting, or no sign in the home whatsoever, other than the storage unit bill.
Those manifestations of hoarding disorder are generally ignored as socially acceptable, as they only affect the person with the disorder, and it's less easy to point and stare over situations that are close enough on the surface, to 'normality.'

The acid test over if someone has hoarding disorder or not, is the level of difficulty, and effects on them, they have in disposing of objects they have acquired. not what it looks like or how it's kept. (the latter are sometimes, clues)

People with hoarding disorder can find it easier to end their lives, than deal with disposing with the visible symptom, including when suffering one of the more socially acceptable forms of the disorder, nice enough home, friends round etc.

It is the throwing away of themselves, and their memories, piece by piece, and is such unbearable self torture, that ending their lives in one go, is the only solution to the amount of pain caused by effectively self annihilating slowly.

Diogenes is not hoarding. There is no attachment to the items. There can be a strong desire to be left as they are.

Disorganised mess and clutter, including newspapers, food packaging, rubbish etc, does not automatically mean hoarding disorder.

The person claiming if things are displayed and cared about, it isn't hoarding, is incorrect. (the idea is from the same era as only boys have autism)

What (little) I have seen of SYLO, isn't about hoarding, though it sounds like people with levels of hoarding disorder as well as disorganization are now appearing on it.

For my friend it started when she was gradually priced out of the London rental market. She started sofa surfing, while trying to find somewhere she could afford to live, and put all her belongings in a storage unit.

Health problems then made it difficult for her to get work, and she started accumulating ‘treasures’ from charity shops that she was going to start a business selling for profit, and she put them into storage ‘temporarily’. She ended up with three storage units crammed with stuff, and she spent her days sitting in there, surrounded by her ‘treasures’ because it made her feel safe. What little money she managed to earn all went on the storage costs.

She reached crisis point when she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer and needed surgery and intensive treatment. A relative stepped in and paid for a flat for her to live in, and she finally had the storage stuff delivered to the flat. That’s when the enormity of what she’d accumulated hit home. The flat was filled to the ceiling with towers of crap, to the point where it was impossible to live. The anxiety this caused overcame the anxiety of parting with it, and with the surgery deadline approaching she worked like mad to dispose of it all.

I do think there’s undiagnosed neurodiversity there, as well as childhood trauma, and she says her parents are hoarders, so she pretty much ticks all the boxes pps have mentioned as triggers.

My mum had nothing growing up so not only kept everything that was given to her (or she bought) as she got older, she also never used anything in case she spoiled it.

So a house full of old unused stuff....

You're very blase about treating anxiety and OCD. Anxiety isn't at all curable for a lot of people (many accepted treatments have no effect, cause other issues, or make it worse), and the treatment for OCD requires intense willpower and strength of character because you're forcing yourself to think and act against your instincts. It's like the equivalent of you forcing yourself to step out on to a busy motorway, sometimes on an hourly basis, because health professionals are telling you it will help you.

The person I know is terrible at throwing anything away and never cleans. They grew up with the "make do and mend" mentality and now can't throw anything out, including plastic cutlery, old magazines, boxes etc. If they were going to do crafts with them (as their parents did post war) this would make sense, but they wouldn't know how to or be at all inclined, so it is almost a habit just from imitating the what parents did.

My mum was a hoarder , she was incapable of getting rid of anything to do with her family of origin. For example last summer , I had to get rid of boxes of books , that belonged to her grandad who died in 1969!

I broke up with an ex years ago and pretty much had a couple of him bags to my name. For ages amassing stuff was security for me after that. I'm better at getting rid of stuff now though

My dad is a hoarder - he always had that tendency but there were two triggers that seemed to make it worse. One was when we were burgled and he lost a valuable collection he had spent years building - it was insured but not replaceable. The second was the death of his parents - they died within a month of each other, and as the only child he inherited their house and contents. The house was sold after a few years, but most of the contents are still at my parents house, making several spaces that were already overcrowded unusable.

I have inherited a hoarding tendency to some extent and for me it's about 'will I regret throwing this away' (for all kinds of reasons) and a feeling of insecurity if I get rid of something. I do work hard to control it.

PIL have a very cluttered house, similar to the sorts of houses you see on sort your life out, but not hoarded in that there are rooms you can't get into. They have installed lots and lots of storage so they have room to keep three bedrooms with entirely fitted wardrobes to store a huge amount of clothes/shoes/jewellery. Kitchen cupboards rammed to bursting with tins/packets. When Covid hit they literally lived off what they had in the house for over a month.

Why do they do it? There's no trauma in either of their pasts. Both however grew up in households where there was not a lot of money sloshing about, and both had 3 or 4 older siblings. Both see "stuff" as accomplishment, proof positive that they have made something of their lives and can afford to buy things. But on the flip side, the memories of not having money are strong and that means that they are not prepared to get rid of things unless they can sell them for what they deem an appropriate price. And this is the sticking point - an outfit bought for a wedding in 1995 might have been very expensive at the time, but 30 years later is dated, unfashionable and worth very little. So it stays in the wardrobe. Ditto all the 20+ double breasted suits FIL bought for work in the 80s/90s. Or the extensive blingy costume jewellery.

Dh and I are both hoarders for opposite reasons. I hate stuff and have no emotional attachment to it. But I have ADHD which manifests as severe procrastination and indecision. I don't want X. But should I try and sell it? On Ebay? Or Vinted? Or FB marketplace? Or Etsy? Or give it away on Freecycle? Or Freegle? Or local FB page? Will they need photos? Where should I photograph it? Or chuck it? In the bin? At the tip? Local recycling centres? Did one close down? Give it to charity shop? Will they want it? How about a dedicated charity - e.g. towels to an animal shelter. Where's the nearest animal shelter? Oh, miles away and I don't drive. How can I get there by bus? Or should I call an Uber? I need to download an Uber app. How do I do that? The ADHD brain processing makes it so hard to act.
By then I've wasted an hour, the towels ( or books or toys or sports equipment etc) are still there and I am late for an appointment. Repeat this process forever.

DH meanwhile hates getting rid of anything, even stuff that we haven't unpacked from our last house move twenty years ago, still in boxes in the garage. If I suggest getting rid of anything at all that technically belongs to him (eg clothes that haven't fitted him for ten years, or shoes he never wears because they hurt, or have fallen apart, or books he got free from work, that he hadn't opened in fifteen years) he gets really twitchy and irritable. So between us it's a miracle we can keep the house looking halfway presentable.

When I was little I didn’t have many beautiful clothes as some of my friends have, this was particularly as we lived in country where everything was controlled and everyone had the same grey clothes.
Only some of my friends had items sent over from ,,rich,,aunties ,,from the West.
These friends had colourful clothing, nice items like bright Disney pencil cases, school bags… we as the rest had home stitched/ made old clothes.
So now I have about 40 jackets, 60 t-shirts, 50 bags ( some designer , I had a LV and mulberry phase but stopped it and only into cheaper but nice quality bags)
These all make me happy, I can stare at them whole day.

I've become worse with this as I've grown older. My mother and grandmother both hoarded things and I remember as a child thinking it was bizarre. Now I get it. Mine is mostly about security and preparing for the future.

Since Covid I've had a cupboard full of tins and packets. I live in a city and I'm afraid of what would happen if there were supply chain issues. These get rotated and used, so not a complete waste. I also have a collection of first aid supplies and over the counter medicines, which don't really get used, so it's just in case. I think what distinguishes it from regular sensible prepping is the anxiety behind it. I know I'm overestimating the probability of bad things happening, but it's almost like insurance to have all this.

I'm also autistic and like familiar clothes, so when I find something that's both comfortable and cheap, I buy several and put the spares away for when the first wears out (literally years later, by which time I wouldn't be able to buy a replacement.) I do the same with shoes. I remember only having one pair and getting new ones when they got holes - it's a good secure feeling knowing I have spares. I also justify it as beating the inevitable price increases.

It's very hard to throw things away! I can give things to charity, telling myself that someone else will get better use of it than I will, but putting something that's still usable in the bin is a waste. It's not a problem for me right now - my house is cluttered but clean and tidy. It's something I have to be careful not to take to greater extremes though.

My mum can only use one end of her dining table, there's assorted crap taking up most of it. She can't sort through it because there's nowhere to put it, even though she lives alone in a three bed house with a carless garage.

She just refuses to deal with it. She is task averse and gets emotional or angry when any mention is made of it. She thinks she's going to 'go back' to all the musical instruments, craft hobbies, languages, cookbooks and gardening despite doing nothing all day every day for many years.

Her living room is OK, with five minutes effort we can all sit down but I wonder if she realises she'd see more of her family if her house was more relaxing. She doesn't want help or to change so we don't talk about it.

My lovely friend and her DH are both hoarders. Their DC are neurodivergent and I think there's a good chance that fried and DH are as well, but not diagnosed. Friend is very tidy with her stuff- everything is in numbered and labelled boxes so (at least in theory) she knows exactly what she's got and where it is. For her I think part of it is feeling prepared and ordered (which seems odd to most people I know, but she really seems to enjoy the process of boxing, labelling and storing) plus she loves it when she or someone she knows needs and item and she has one in her 'collection'. Her DH is far less ordered but keeps his 'stuff' in separate areas. For him I think it's more about feeling a connection to his things and not wanting to let them go. Most people who visit them would have no idea that this was a problem. The main downstairs areas of their home are pristine and not cluttered. But they have several rooms in their house, plus a garage and a couple of sheds that they have not used for anything other than storage for over 10 years and they also pay for storage units.

My mother started hoarding when she had dementia it was things like clothes and shoes and it was realy sad as she was a size 10 but used to buy things size 24 it didn’t matter what size or what it even was she just had to have it . We didn’t realise how bad it had got until we helped dad sort it after she passed . The amount of outfits with labels still on was unreal . Very sad

Yes my BiL is like your friend and is autistic. He's also v wealthy so can build barns and outhouses to store his stuff. So hoarding but not climbing over mountains of refuse type hoarding. My FiL however is getting worse as he gets older.

I'm currently helping my neighbour sort out her front room. There must be thousands of pounds worth of clothes in there. She has severe mental health issues and never leaves the house so just shops on line.

I've also just taken out 10 bags of rubbish from her kitchen. She has poor mobility so can't get to the wheelie bin outside.
It's easily done I'm afraid

Im a social worker and in my recent masters course we had to study this. It was fascinating (and very sad). A lot is routed in trauma of course as you'd expect, but most actually starts with OCD which surprised me. So the person commonly will be extremely tidy and have OCD in their tendencies towards order, cleanliness and hygiene. But then it starts to spill over because they simply cant maintain that. They simply cannot control their environment that much - things spill, things get lost, etc - and that is when the hoarding begins - as a form of OCD in that it is their way to maintain control. So its routes are actually to seek perfection and order (but they cant). So most diagnosed hoarders originally were diagnosed with OCD. Before I studied it I had no idea! We had specialists come in and work with us about it.

I must admit I tended to think it was the naturally messy people who had let things get out of hand, got overwhelmed and/or mixed with trauma. And there is a element of hoarders that do that. However, the vast majority really did start off as extremely neat to the extreme.
We also were taught about the correct way to deal with it, and actually going in all guns blazing to clear things out is the worst thing you can do. Its quite a severe mental illness so it needs a long time with a skilled therapist to work through it, and sadly many do not ever fully recover.

I can actually believe that OCD is a part of it. I'm not hoarder level by any means, but I have a lot of stuff, loads on display. My family jokingly say I'm like Kathy Bates in Misery, where she realises the guys been out of bed as an ornament is moved just slightly! But I would, and do, notice! I can waste so much time just lining things up as they should be in various parts of the house. It's one of the reasons I could never have a cleaner. It would just be totally unreasonable to expect them to memorise where all my stuff goes, and seeing it in the wrong place by even a centimetre would stress me out.

Hoarding is human nature. Like many traits it is one that we've gained through our evolution because at times it was a very good trait to have. In pre-history hoarding was a matter of life and death, you hoarded as much food as you could when it was plentiful in order to survive periods of scarcity.

Modern hoarding is an example of something that is a natural impulse that can cause problems in the modern world when it is applied to situations where it is not necessary.

We're all hoarders in some form or other. Not necessarily material possessions, but everyone wants to hoard something, even if it's a network of supportive friends. Get what makes you feel good and keep it.

There are lots of traits like this that we have gained through evolution that may no longer be necessary.

Both see "stuff" as accomplishment, proof positive that they have made something of their lives and can afford to buy things.

I don't think this is hoarding, really. My PIL were like this - both from poor backgrounds, did better financially in life than they ever expected (thank you baby boomer years!) and put so much importance in stuff as it represented success and security to them. Helping them to downsize when they moved to a smaller place was an absolute nightmare. They moved to a flat with no garden - FIL still wouldn't part with his lawnmower and gardening tools. Or his golf clubs. Ditto MIL and bed linen - they moved to a one-bed flat and she insisted on taking at least 10 duvet sets with her.

My folks are in a 4/5 bed house with a double garage... every cupboard is crammed with stuff, and they haven't been able to put a car in the garage for as long as I can remember. They keep everything that might come in useful, someday. The glee on my mums face when I if she has a case or bag I can borrow, and she can go into the attic and bring down 10 or 12 different options... aren't I glad she kept all of these so I can randomly borrow one now? 🙄

But neither of these count as hoarding, just different values, different generations I think.