Hoarding

This post will look at the behaviour pattern of hoarding through the lens of family systems. Reality television shows have highlighted extreme situations of hoarding and it has a tendency to desensitise us to the everyday situations of hoarding that are more prevalent.

Hoarding seems to have a sense of degree. When does hoarding become a problem?  Do you have all you need to live within your home, and then, continue to add material items that accumulate in a basement or garage? You may even have a rented storage space to store more stuff? You may pay for these items or collect them free as bargains. Do you have trouble parting with all the stuff you accumulate? Do you consider yourself to be a hoarder? It’s important to take hoarding seriously because it can create a risk to health and safety, perhaps becoming a fire hazard. Hoarding may lead to isolation from or conflict with others, create financial or legal issues, or impact your success in life.

Hoarding was once considered on the spectrum of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, however, an extreme level of hoarding that takes over your life has become classified as a mental health condition, and it has acquired a label of its own – Hoarding Disorder.

Recognizing that you are a hoarder is the first step in shifting toward wellbeing. Many individuals never seek help for their hoarding. Hoarding often begins at a very early age, often in adolescence, and if it gets totally out of control, it may impact your quality of life. Hoarding may affect your ability to easily function or move through life emotionally or physically.

What is hoarding?

Hoarding is described as an inability to part with possessions and/or an unconscious drive to gather what you do not need. Hoarding is different from collecting. Collectors tend to gather specific items toward a collection, such as rare coins, gemstones, or salt and pepper shakers. Hoarding can make homes and workplaces unfunctional. Hoarding isn’t just messiness, although it can lead to messiness. Anywhere up to about 5 % of the population engages in hoarding that significantly impacts their life or the lives of others. Hoarding may be attached to underlying fears of not having enough, or an individual may have a distorted perception of what is enough. Hoarding can impact boys, girls, men, or women and it can affect individuals within any economic group.

Are you or someone you love a hoarder?

For any condition or symptom, it is important to take the time to listen to the voice of the symptom, which in this case is hoarding. What messages does the hoarding deliver to you? The messages will be different for each individual. In order to determine if you are a hoarder with a significant problem, ask yourself the following questions, and as you do, you might find it beneficial to write your answers in a journal:

  1. Describe your hoarding symptoms. For example, what do you hoard?
  2. Do you have trouble discarding, recycling, giving away, or otherwise parting with items you don’t need in your daily life?
  3. Does it upset you to get rid of unnecessary possessions?
  4. Do you have great attachment to your possessions?
  5. Do you get upset if others touch your possessions?
  6. Does your hoarding create feelings of shame or embarrassment for you?
  7. Is your home or workplace so cluttered that you can’t use the space?
  8. What age were you when you first started to hoard?
  9. What happened in your life the year before the hoarding began?
  10. Did an emotional trauma or stressful event occur that set your hoarding in motion? (For example, did a loved one die or did you lose your job?)
  11. If you have a tendency to hoard, are you also a procrastinator, a perfectionist, indecisive, disorganized, or distractible, or have obsessive-compulsive tendencies (OCD)?
  12. If you have a tendency to hoard, do you also experience anxiety, depression, or loneliness?
  13. What does hoarding keep you from doing?
  14. What does hoarding force you to do?
  15. What makes the hoarding behaviour decrease?
  16. What makes the hoarding behaviour worse?
  17. In what way does hoarding serve you? (For example: Does it create a boundary of safety from others? Does it keep you from doing something? Does it keep others away from your home?)
  18. Does the hoarding create any secondary gains? (For example: Do you get attention? Does it help you fit into your family system?)
  19. Do any other family members hoard? Is there an energetic entanglement with another family member? Did either parent or any of your grandparents hoard? (If the answer is yes, please read my blog post on energetic entanglements. Hoarding may be a way to unconsciously show love and loyalty to another family member or ancestor, or it may be a way to highlight something that needs to be seen in your family system. It will be important to find a healthier, more effective way to show love and loyalty to the family member.)
  20. Does the hoarding keep you or someone else engaged in life?
  21. What is the value in the hoarding to you?
  22. Does the hoarding bring you awareness about something in your family system?
  23. Does the hoarding have something to do with any emotional baggage stored within you or another family member that has not been addressed?
  24. Is there anything that you have guilty feelings around?
  25. Did any family member ever have a great amount of financial or material wealth and lose it or have it taken away?
  26. Did any family member ever live through a depression and struggle with little?
  27. Did any family member ever grow up in poverty or with extreme wealth?
  28. Did any family member ever benefit from taking the possessions of another?
  29. Did anyone in the family experience loss due to fire or other disaster?
  30. Do you carry a fear of not having enough, and this fear could be of having enough of anything?
  31. Is there anyone in the family with similar symptoms or fears?

Review the story that your hoarding has just told you. Does the hoarding seem to be attached to emotional trauma in this lifetime? Does the hoarding seem to be connected to something or someone in your family system transgenerationally? Does the hoarding behaviour seem to be a mystery? I hope these questions have helped you determine whether you or someone you love has a hoarding problem that needs to be addressed.

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