I’ve been watching the television show called “Hoarders” lately, and am completely amazed by it. What I find most striking is that many of the people who are hoarders say that someone else in their family, often one of their parents, was a hoarder, too. It seems to be something that runs in families, and that is a mental illness.
Without stating names, I will say that there are a few people in my family who were, or are, hoarders. Some of what I see on the television show “Hoarders”, reminds me of the homes of a few of my relatives. I recall boxes of stuff being piled up against walls, and mountains of clothing lying on the floor, somewhere near the laundry room. There often were little paths carved out of the clutter so the person could pass through the room. Often, the person was saving items that I would have considered to be trash, or at least, as something that should be recycled.
I would say that most of the stories I’ve watched on “Hoarders” are way more extreme than any hoarding behavior that I’ve seen among my family members. Even so, watching the show makes me think of certain relatives.
Hoarding is not simply a behavior that people are choosing to do. It is a form of obsessive compulsive disorder. OCD is something that can run in families, because there are some genetic links that tend to influence whether or not a person will develop some form of obsessive compulsive disorder.
A study called the OCD Collaborative Genetics Study found that a specific part of chromosome 14 is connected to hording behavior in families that already have the genetic potential of obsessive compulsive disorder. In other words, hoarding seems to be a subset of OCD, and not a separate disorder.
Many hoarders first begin to show signs of hoarding behavior when they are in their teens, or early twenties. This is a disorder that can become more intense as the person ages. Treatment for hoarding often involves Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). A therapist can help the person who is a hoarder work through underlying issues that cause the person to obsessively hang on to stuff. A professional organizer can, potentially, teach the hoarder new behaviors about what to keep, what to get rid of, and where to put everything. Sometimes, medication can be used as a part of the treatment process as well.
Are there hoarders in your family? Resist the urge to simply show up at their door, and throw out everything that they have been saving. This will cause the person who is a hoarder to experience a lot of anxiety. It also won’t solve the problem. Unless the behavior, and the emotions behind it, are addressed, the newly emptied space is just going to be refilled with more stuff.
Image by puuikibeach on Flickr