5 Signs That You're a Hoarder
Do you have a hoarding problem, or are you simply a clutterbug? What's the difference?
Text Size 
From images of clutter piled from ceiling to floor and furniture toppled with boxes of useless possessions, to wrappers covered with spoiled food scattered among the piles … A&E’s “Hoarders” has shed light on a disorder that has crippled many but has revealed itself to few ... until now.
Approximately 2 percent of the U.S. population is diagnosed with hoarding, according to Dr. Fugen Neziroglu, director of the Bio Behavioral Institute in Great Neck, N.Y. And while 2 percent may not seem like a high number, Dr. Neziroglu suspects there are many more cases that go undetected. “Unlike other behaviors that are observable, hoarding is not observable," she says. "Hoarders tend to keep their homes very private. Hoarding usually comes as a surprise to people close to the person diagnosed.”
But what is hoarding? Do piles of untouched mail in a basket on your counter make you a potential hoarder? What about boxes of your childrens’ toys accumulating dust in the basement? Where do we draw the line?
Hoarding is officially described as “the excessive acquisition of what appears to be useless items and the inability to discard them,” according to Dr. Neziroglu.
But just because you may have a lot of “stuff,” it doesn’t necessarily mean you are a hoarder. “Clutter is really common, especially nowadays when the big stores sell everything for really cheap,” says Jill Pollack, an organizational expert and host of HGTV’s “Consumed.” “I think people think it is easier to go and buy something new rather than find it in their own house. That is bad thinking because it wastes money and resources.”
So while many of us have a tendency toward clutter, there is a difference, however, between being a hoarder and simply being messy.
Here are some specific signs of hoarding:
1. The inability to get rid of possessions
“Hoarders will go shopping compulsively and purchase things they don’t need with the belief that they’ll use them,” Dr. Neziroglu says. “They’ll bring them home and put them away, and when the time comes to discard them, they can’t. This could be anything from newspapers to clothes to plastic bags.”
2. Emotional attachment to unnecessary items
“They might be attached for sentimental or emotional reasons,” Dr. Neziroglu says. “Sometimes items trigger happy memories and people want to keep them in order to preserve those memories,” Dr. Neziroglu says.
Pollack goes on to emphasize equating the importance of possessions to that of people: “If your 'stuff' becomes more important than your relationships, that can signify a huge problem,” she says.
3. Anxiety over throwing things away
Suspicion or anxiety over the idea that someone might be touching possessions and/or throwing them away is common among hoarders.
4. Functional space is no longer usable for its respective purpose
“If you can’t see most of the floor in a room and every room becomes storage, that’s also an issue,” Pollack says.
Dr. Neziroglu adds that it's not always that drastic. “We see the most dramatic cases on television, but it could just be one room of your house, or the garage, or your car,” she says.
5. Embarrassment over possessions
Hoarders rarely have company because they might be embarrassed by the state of disarray. “Hoarders are aware that their behavior is abnormal and there are often feelings of shame attached to hoarding,” Dr. Neziroglu says.
Do you have a clutter problem? Take this quiz to find out if you are a hoarder. And for more information, go to Dr. Neziroglu’s website. And for more organizational tips, visit Jill Pollack’s website.
5 Organizational Tips to Prepare for Winter
Instill Organizational Skills in Your Children
10 Cleaning Items You Can Find in Your Cabinets
Print |
|
