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?

My experience of a hoarder was being widowed young with two kids and at a time when being a single parent was frowned upon and she had been reliant on her husband's salary as being a SAHM was the norm. However, she eventually grew her own wealth but continued to behave as if she were in poverty. Hoarding everything, buying only second hand or jumble sale stuff. It was really sad. She missed out on a lot in life because of the mindset. Left a life changing amount for her surviving son who really didn't need it, but instead lived for 40 years on yellow stickers and old clothes. Really sad.

I’m not sure how relevant this is but I read that people who grow up poor with not much food tend to eat too much and get overweight in adulthood because it’s like they’re ‘storing’ it because they never know when they’ll get it again. I explained that really badly 😬

To add, my mum was a bit of a hoarder but because we lived in a huge house with lots of attic space, it was hidden well. That was as a result of childhood poverty. Both of my parents grew up in dire poverty in post war London in large families where everything was short. They both got good jobs and dug their way out. We lived in a beautiful house, wanted for nothing and had private education. However, my Mum couldn't stop hoarding things "just in case". My Dad went entirely the other way and bought what he could because he could. Different approaches to trauma I think.

Hi op sorry only just re checked this. If the person suffered a loss as a child then yes this I strongly believe will be the trigger. Hoarding is normally a very deep routed problem, the person starts to feel attachment to their hoard and this is often to compensate for the loss. When I mean loss it can be a bereavement or it can be trauma such as lack of attachment to a significant care giver or a loss of control, so feelings of uncertainty as a child. This can lead to the hoarding as a compensatory response. But obviously this is only a general overview and everyone is individual and there will be differences between people obviously

It's tricky even for specialists. A friend's brother is a hoarder. He's a comparatively young man. No poverty or trauma. Probable spectrum, definite failure to launch and parents let him live at home for free. He collects sets of things. Not even special things. But nothing can go.
I also lived in an apartment building once and had a neighbour who hoarded. Young, working, looked normal.. but the place when she had me in for a coffee was like something on a TV show. A path from sofa to kitchen to bed to bathroom was it. Everything else piled high with what looked like junk. (Nothing 'dirty' just piles of stuff). I believe she had very severe anxiety issues and living in a 'cave' helped her. I don't know how it's panned out in that case. The brother in the first case is receiving very slow help to move into a granny flat on the property but the problem isn't being tackled.

I'm not a full on hoarder but I can find it very painful to let things go. I had a toxic childhood but we weren't particularly poor. I had a friend who was a hoarder but her parents were quite wealthy. I think if you have insecure attachments to your family, you find attachment in things. They offer comfort and familiarity.

In my case I absolutely hate waste. I can let things go much more easily if I know someone else will be getting good use from them.

Poor mental health.

My FIL was a hoarder. By the time he went into a home with dementia he had filled a 2 bed flat and a 3 bed house with junk, mainly paper. It took dh and I a whole week of full days to sort out the flat, and that was without touching the kitchen or the ancient paperwork in the bath!

It was heartbreaking. So much junk, but then his bound PhD thesis. Hundreds of quack health articles cut from the newspaper, and then a pile of valentines cards, tied with a ribbon, that MIL had sent him (he'd been married twice more since then).

He was born in 1945 and grew up in post-war Germany. He didn't have shoes until he went to school and was clothed out of Red Cross parcels. He never knew his father and his mum and her husband split when he was very small and she had to start again from nothing.

He was an emotionally illiterate, difficult man. Now he's a shell of himself in a tiny care home room with only a few possessions. He doesn't know or care, he doesn't know who we are, or who he is himself. It's desperately sad.

Sounds a little like DH and his brother. BIL has no attachment to things, wastes money, will just replace items without thought.
DH wants to keep everything all the time. He has very sentimental attachment to things from his parents, given the chance I think he would have stored everything in their house (he even thought of buying their house and keeping everything). But most of it was cheap rubbish. He thinks it was all important. They kept broken electricals for no reason.

He has actually gotten better, especially as I have now banned him from buying things. He would often start ‘collections’ but they are all banned now. He has also tried to keep rubbish/recyclables as they ‘might be useful’ but I think years of me binning has made him give up.
He also will keep things if you give him the option, but if you get rid he doesn’t remember anyway.

To me too. I grew up with nothing and I really battle with my urge to hoard despite therapy. My brother is 18 months younger and totally different. He will chuck stuff ruthlessly. He buys expensive things. I couldn't.

I remember when we were younger, he would ask for things I wouldn't dream of. So I don't know whether he was more materialistic, or I was just more compliant about accepting we could never have anything.

We really could not have anything, on days out etc, he would ask for a drink or snack etc and I would recoil inside. If my parents did not hear, I would shush him before they could because my dad would get angry, my mum upset or angry, you wouldn't know which. The day could be ruined very quickly.

I have had therapy and am mostly in control of things, but if I am anxious or upset, even just a bit stressed,it is worse. I mostly hoard food and drinks. My children will never be hungry and if they ask for food or drink, I have to get it or give them it immediately.

Hi OP I'm a psychotherapist and treat the odd hoarder.

A lot of the time it's to do with a significant loss or early traumatic experiences.

It can also emerge alongside OCD.

Often there can be a strong family history. Both through genetic predispositions and learned behaviours.

Last year I treated an individual for scrupulosity (religious OCD presenting as contamination fears).

She was realised by a grandparent with religous OCD and fears regarding contamination but her parent (the grandparents daughter) had been a very bad hoarder, complete opposite.

It's very fascinating but a terrible disorder for individuals and their families.

If this is the case then perhaps the child that is now a hoarder experienced her mother throwing away items that meant a lot to her. There are always 'critical incidents' in the histories of individuals with any mental disorders.

Loss. Poverty. Upheaval.

My mum is a hoarder. She was born in an Irish mother and baby home. She was adopted as a baby so doesn't have memory of it but God knows what went on in those places.. I'm sure it effects those kids forever.
She also lost her adoptive father at age 4.

I know I have hoarding tendencies too altho nor as bad as my mum. I think it comes from Upheaval in my childhood.. I moved schools 17 times. I think think its kind of a way to try and create yourself an identity and feel secure.. if you have been very let down by people or at least feel you have. You can't feel secure in the love and regard of other humans so you use objects to emotionally attach to.

I think this is a big part of my weight issue.

Parents moving a lot during early childhood so I never felt settled and a lot of my things were lost or abandoned every time we moved.

Or so my therapist tells me anyway 😳

Thanks for telling me all your stories, some of them are really sad.

Im thinking in my case it may have come from the mum. In RL she is very held back, family gatherings really doesn’t speak much. If it was just one of the siblings I’d think maybe just one of those things but they both affected. One is a little show off really, everything the biggest and the best, work all the hours in the day everyday to pay for it or it’s financed but nothing personal in his life at all, it’s all gets binned. The other a hoarder. Both seem to have shaky attachments from their mum I think.

This is an interesting book on the psychology around hoarding, through the strories of some people who do it. Would recommend if this is a topic which interests or affects you (directly or indirectly)

The Secret Life of Clutter: Getting clear, letting go and moving on by Helen Sanderson
amzn.eu/d/7M99Bmw

Being brought up by a hoarder
anxiety about the future
environmental guilt/wastefulness to be avoided
response to trauma and loss
low self esteem the hoarder doesn’t ‘deserve’ a nice environment

My grandparents were hoarders and were born in a communist country. Some of the hoarding rubbed on to my father but my dm deals with that as she is ruthless. I think it's to do with not knowing when you are going to get the next set of specific goods so you make it last and always be prepared so never throw that old broken radio or flat tyre as you might need it.

I find it interesting learning about why people are the way they are. I suffered from people pleasing and found the route cause of that.

The more I think of it the more I think the issue comes from the mum and the mum from somewhere also. I didn’t look at the brother as having a problem but I can see it’s definitely 2 sides of the same coin. The mum makes comments like you don’t need that, don’t take anything away on holiday, she got rid of her wedding dress and anything sentimental ages ago. She bought nothing for her granddaughters first birthday. She is not poor but does not replace broken appliances. However she does hoard stuff that has no value. I’m pretty sure she is the reason one son hoards and the other splash’s the cash with no thought at all.

I tried to kill myself, and my mother's response was to send me to live with my dad .
About a year later I went for a visit to my old home ,to find she had thrown out all my possessions, all soft toys ,all books ,I barely had any possessions to start with ,but she got rid of the lot
So it has massively impacted on me and I've thrown nothing out for the past 30 years .
I do need to get a grip of this and actually many other things ,but I just can't seem to pull myself together

My neighbour was a serious hoarder. Only child, dad killed in the war when she was still a child, very dominant mum and grandma who she found it difficult to escape. She had problems with human relationships all her life.

My dear mum is a hoarder - not to the extreme but she finds it very hard to throw things out. My dad is the opposite and the only reason the family home doesn’t look like a hoarders house is because he does regular trips to the tip.
She can’t resist a bargain and must have about 60 coats that she never wears.
She always buys 2nd hand and would be horrified at the thought of spending £70 on trainers.

People always palm things off on her when they have a clear out as they know she will take it. It annoys me when they do that.
I don’t tell her when we’re having one as she will ask what we are throwing out 🤣

Mum grew up in poverty, it was just her, her sister and my late nana. She doesn’t talk about her childhood much, but I know that they had very little, including food. Mum and her sister used to sleep with the family dog to keep warm.

My mother was a hoarder at different periods of her life. She grew up in the Great Depression. She was also quite abusive.

So she had periods of poverty as a child but was rather middle class when we were growing up.

I have two siblings who are hoarders. The most severe one is autistic, never married, and no children, lives alone. The other one has some other type of mental health issue like health anxiety, but is married, and has two kids.