subject: Help for Compulsive Hoarding Disorder [print this page] Help for Compulsive Hoarding Disorder Help for Compulsive Hoarding Disorder
For those of you who have not yet heard, compulsive hoardingdisorder is the excessive need and addiction to acquire new possessions. The belongings can include worthless items that could even be harmful for you. Compulsive hoarding interferes with everyday life, and can destroy families and any other relationship. The massive amount of clutter makes it difficult to do simple daily activities such as cooking, cleaning, bathing, sleeping or even moving around. This disorder is most commonly linked with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). Just as people with OCD have obsessive tendencies with the rituals they do, compulsive hoarders do too and can even have extreme anxiety to just throw away the trash.
The first document of hoarding is featured in The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri. It tells of two souls arguing over why one of them wastes and the other hoards. Other examples of hoarding are featured in literature since then but people really didn't start noticing it until the early 20th century. There was such a technology boom and so many new products were created that people started wanting to acquire much more things. Since then hoarding has become a much more talked about and a well-known disorder. Today there is even the show called Hoarding: Buried Alive which documents the journey hoarders have from having too much clutter to be able to function properly to cleaning their lives up.
I will state some of the statistics that you should be aware of because this usually isn't a popular discussion piece. Statistics show that 78% of compulsive hoarders are women while 22% are men (Clutterer & Hoarder Psychological Profile, Clutterer & Hoarder Statistic, clutterless.org). It is also said that approximately 2 million Americans are hoarders. Compulsive hoarding can also cause your homeowners insurance to skyrocket and makes your home a safety hazard to where it could be condemned. There are many problems associated with hoarding and I doubt anyone wants to be involved in it, so the hoarders need help. Whether it's being in extreme credit card debt to foreclosure of your home, it is all bad and anyone could do their part to help a family member or friend.
