According to the Institute of Living Anxiety Disorders Center, compulsive hoarding is thought to be a subtype of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
People are thought to have a compulsive hoarding problem when they meet all three of these criteria:
- They regularly keep a large number of possessions that most people would not consider to be very useful or valuable.
- Their home, or parts of their home, are so cluttered that they can no longer use those parts of their home for their intended purpose.
- The clutter is so bad that it causes significant distress or impairment.
The causes of compulsive hoarding are not known, but researchers think that it results from problems in one or more of these areas:
- Information processing (e.g., problems categorizing or making decisions)
- Beliefs about possessions (e.g., a sense of attachment to possessions, or fears of forgetting things)
- Emotional distress about discarding, which leads to avoidance of discarding
This is somewhat depressing, because I certainly meet all 3 criteria , at least on the surface. #1 for sure, but hey, who doesn’t have keepsakes that no one else would find useful or valuable? For #3, I don’t know about “significant” distress or impairment, but I know for sure my clutter has made me late for things on several occasions because I couldn’t find an item I needed, and it certainly causes me distress that I can’t even have someone over to visit because the place is so messy.
#2 is a new one for me, but I’m definitely here now. My craft room has become my “clutter room” – it’s definitely the worst room in the house (which is not good when your house only has 6 rooms if you count the bathroom!). While it can technically be used for its “intended purpose” that is, I can sit down and use the sewing machine, that’s about all I can do in there, so the room is certainly not functional. Piles of fabric cover the shelves, the spare futon, and spill onto the floor. Boxes, some leftover from moving here, some simply containing seemingly random craft-related items sit on the floor. Miscellaneous crafting supplies are scattered throughout the room with no sense of purpose. I haven’t seen the surface of my cutting table in months, and I cannot use it for cutting.
Unfortunately, this means that all the other parts of my crafting – cutting fabric, drafting patterns, storing finished items, etc., spills out into the living room. These two rooms are (unfortunately) the two rooms you see instantly as you walk in the door.
There is no current treatment for compulsive hoarding; the drugs that are sometimes used to treat OCD do not work on hoarders for the most part.
That’s fine by me, I’m not looking for a magical medical cure. The “help” I need is more like a kick in the pants to get me going, and this blog is intended to be that kick in the pants.
Disclaimer: Websites cannot provide a diagnosis, and should not be used to do so. Please refer to your appropriate healthcare professional for all matters of diagnosis or treatment.
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Wow, I am really appreciating all of your posts (the ones I have read so far). In the past few months I have moved from school back into my (much smaller) space at home and I have realized that I need to get rid of so much.
Hopefully your blog will keep me on track as well.
A massive room de-clutter campaign begins tomorrow – wish me luck!
Thank you!
Good luck with your decluttering campaign! Please feel free to come back to C3 and share your efforts with us, or add photos of your efforts to the C3 Flickr Group!
I think that it is important to de clutter as in our busy lifestyles it is so easy to get side tracked by family ,friends, and even our jobs to allow clutter to gather without us even noticing.
I definitely understand clutter. I live in a two story house, and although I’m usually able to keep the downstairs under control with a little pick-up, my upstairs is a mess. I start sweating when someone mentions they want to stay over! Let’s see, looking around there is a messy computer desk with those unfiled papers piled on top (I dislike personal filing), piles of books I’ve collected from various used sales waiting to be shelved in our yet unpurchased bookshelves, kids’ computer games, office supplies without a home, etc. And I won’t even start on what I’ve accumulated over the years in my “craft room”, which my family calls my crap room. I keep things mostly out of emotional attachment (miscellaneous pictures, kids’ projects), the “it will be useful one day” reason (craft supplies), and items that keep past memories alive. I would need to work for weeks to get things under control. But, it would be a great goal to talk myself into letting go of these things this new year.