What childhood experiences can causes a person to hoard?

[Inawayalso]

I’m just wondering as I know of 2 siblings. One of them hoards and only buys second hand or free the other throws everything and buys brand new, always the most expensive brands, never second hand.

The hoarder really struggles with anxiety at the thought of throwing anything. I’m just wondering what kind of upbringing could create a hoarder? Let’s say for arguments sake the hoarder is not ND. Could the parents have been non emotional?

Hoarding is a psychological disorder similar to OCD.

Although, anecdotally I have noticed this being triggered by bereavement.

For me it's stuff doesn't make you sad... And shopping is a buzz.

I'm overly attached to tat I don't need and struggle not to hoard "things" then get really shitty when people try to interfere with my "stuff" or clean things up "for" me.

I'm also shit with money, fat and a huge comfort eater. I eat my emotions. I wish I were someone who didn't eat when sad /happy /stressed /bored!

I also used sex in place of love through my teens and twenties and was genuinely shocked when none of that behaviour led to a relationship....

Grew up in a family where emotions were bad things, no love shown in physical ways / spoken about, it was very transactional. Parents were both very depressed, dad had affairs etc.

Anxiety - usually related to loss e.g death of a parent, loss of a baby

@NCForQuestions thats what I was thinking. The parents don’t seem to show emotions at all. In fact I’ve heard some pretty heartless stuff from them tbh.

I think it is often loss, in some form. Loss of a parent or siblings, loss of a stable home or the place you grew up in, loss of friends due to always moving...these can lead to a need to find safety in things, and difficulty parting with them.

However I also think sometimes there is no reason dating back to childhood. Especially with older people who were meticulously tidy until late middle age, but then stop being able to make decisions and follow through the steps to get rid of stuff, and don't trust others to do so. Actually I suppose that is a loss of sorts too.

I could find it difficult to let stuff go... not a horder just yet! But definitely tendencies.

I have lost all my belongings twice!
Firs time age 6 when my sep mum decided that everything that was associated with my mum had to go: clothes & toys, the lot!
Second time was aged 17 when I left the dysfunctional home. Just my school bag and some underwear.

So yes, significant trauma like the one I have experienced definitely contibutes.
But I think another big factor is personality. Plus, when if ever, you come to accept that this has happened but does not define you as a person.

It's about control. It can be controlling the situation so you are never without if you grew up poor but it can also be if you grew up without any agency. The only thing you can control is hoarding. You might hold on to things because you fear letting stuff go as you can't make decisions confidently or you fear eventualities where you need things and you are scared of not having the power to deal with things that come up in life.
Many root causes

This sounds like my family!

Thunk it’s different ways to cope with the same circumstances.
Both make sense to me.

There can be many many reasons why someone hoards. It's similar in some ways to other compulsive behaviours, it gives an illusion of control over one's surroundings, it gives a sense of dopamine when keeping something or keeping important items close by and it can also be part of isolating yourself from others and protesting yourself from others in the process. It could be growing up in neglect or poverty or in an inconsistent home where someone felt that the care they got was insecure. It doesn't always need to be over items specifically but could be over affection or other needs they had that weren't met that they try to fill now. Some people hoard animals because its something to love and helps them feel less lonely. Others get deeply depressed, things become unmanageable and they then feel out of control and unable to tackle their home in the state its in. Often its a much deeper emotional unmet need than a lack of physical items.

I think it has a genetic component. Some people more predisposed to hoard, some not. Childhood trauma may then excarcerbate it, but I think for many people who hoard, the predisposition was there.

My mum hoards, as does my aunt (her sibling) and as did their mother (don't know about any generations further back, but would not be surprised.) My sister hoards, and so does her daughter, my niece.

However, I don't. My aunt's children and grandchildren don't, and neither do my mum's other siblings or their children, my cousins. In fact, we all tend to be quite minimalist, in my case in response to growing up with clutter.

So it's prevalent enough in my family that there seems to be a genetic component along the female line. But equally if you don't have that predisposition, then you don't seem to develop it.

Berevement... things are all you have left. For roots and comfort.

I know 3 people who have a v serious hoarding problem

3 have no children

2 have no siblings and the other has a very distant relationship with their siblings

2 have no life partner and the other has a very difficult relationship with their spouse (possibly linked to their hoarding)

For my Father and his siblings it was growing up during WW2. A combination of rationing, the potential of losing everything in bombings, a childhood full of "make do and mend", and even into his dotage the ingrained feeling that wasting anything was helping Hitler.

For the next generation some of us are rigorous about not getting close to hoarding anything, others are loath to throw much away because of a childhood full of not wanting to upset Daddy.

Trauma, emotional abuse, bereavement, unstable/ever changing family circumstances, dysfunctional family relationships…

Anything where “being surrounded by my stuff” makes someone feel more secure, or where they’ve had no control
or agency and hoarding is their response.

I’ve never met a hoarder with a stable, happy background.

This. And I will add whilst growing up, the few possessions that you did have weren't safe.

My sister is a huge spender and hoarder as such. Our parents were very wealthy but abusive. She has a well paid job and thinks she deserves it - as a child she was given more than me but no love or affection - in her eyes money spent means love shown and what a lovely person you are. Eg she would go all year without talking to me but if she knew I would be at a family home on my birthday she would send a huge huge bouquet of flowers to their house - never mine, huge gifts and then back to silence.

She sees anything anyone has and goes out and buys the same or bigger and better. She just buys more and more. And more as the more stuff she has the more status.

For me it was moving every 2 or 3 years (military father). Each time I'd have to sort things into 3 piles, one to take, one for storage (not knowing when I'd see it again) and one to give away. Coupled with a difficult chchildhood with an emotionally abusive mother and a distant father.

I'm a control freak in every element of my life now because of my childhood.

Often in therapy we will tend to look for a loss type trauma with hoarding

@sarahc336 the mum suffered a significant loss as a young child. I wonder if that could have influenced them?

I have known a couple of older people who grew up with rationing in WW2. They just cannot stand to waste anything.

Growing up in poverty.My friend hoards food as she grew up poor and neglected and never had enough to eat. Seeing full cupboards gives her a sense of safety.

Some form of OCD (which can be linked to SEN, anxiety, other conditions).

Trauma or loss.This can vary from the loss of an actual person, other traumas or the loss of "things" growing up (belongings not being respected, thrown away, never feeling like they actually belong to them etc.) Imagine a small child having their comforter thrown away , then their favourite trainers "lost", then the game they saved for for months taken away/destroyed,memories,mementos, precious things just chucked away, labelled rubbish and clutter. Not as a one off every now and then, but as a constant.

I'm not a hoarder but I do find it very difficult to throw things away.

My dad used to burn my toys and books in the back garden. He also used to give my things away. When I went to University everything in my bedroom that I hadn't taken was was burned.

He was a nutter obviously, but I think it's really effected me.

I also had OCD as a young child.

I have hoarding tendencies (mostly kept under control, although have been times in the past when I've had a massive hoard).

I didn't really know the route of it until recently, but for me I think it's because I have no family.

I would buy things second had (furniture etc) in an effort to a) give the impression lots of family had handed things down to me, and create a bit of a "family" or at least a "family history" through all my stuff and b) create this family history of stuff to hand down to my kids.

I was lacking in family / people, so tried to recreate that with things.

I do think it takes a lot of confidence to just throw things out and live minimally.

My youngest sister (in a family of 4 children) buys everything new because she was subject to "hand me downs" growing up and barely had anything new.
I'm not an obsessive hoarder, but I do hold onto things I don't need (clothes that don't fit, costume jewellery and trinkets I had as a child) due to memories, the comfort factor mentioned above and because money was tight growing up, we weren't given a lot of toys/gifts.
I did ruthlessly bin my whole CD collection the other day!

To be fair, I think refusing to countenance second hand, insisting everything is brand new and treating everything as disposable is just as much of an issue.

Two sides of the same coin.