Walton said she created an online community on TikTok, where she has more than 2,500 followers, after feeling pressure from the stigma attached to the disorder. <\/p>\n
“I wanted to find people like me,” she says. <\/p>\n
She is now running a free in-person group for others living with the condition, which will be hosted at Brackley Fire Station on Oxford Road on the first Friday of every month, starting on 7 August. <\/p>\n
Walton says she wants to create a safe space for people to share their experiences and learn about the health, wellbeing and fire safety risks associated with hoarding. <\/p>\n
Jo Cooke, the director of Hoarding Disorders UK, said: “The more that we raise awareness about hoarding as a mental health disorder, the better people will understand it.<\/p>\n
“It is not about people that are lazy or dirty or someone that can’t clean their house properly, it is not a lifestyle choice.”<\/p>\n
Cooke is part of a group pushing for national guidelines about the condition as it has reached “crisis point”.<\/p>\n
“A lot of professionals are not equipped to deal with the complexities of hoarding,” she added.<\/p>\n
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “Hoarding disorder can have a very distressing impact on the lives of individuals and their loved ones.<\/p>\n
“This government is improving access to mental health support, with a record \u00a316.1bn of funding in 2026-27, recruiting thousands of additional mental health workers and expanding NHS talking therapies.<\/p>\n
“Later this year, our Mental Health Strategy will outline how we go further to build a mental health system that responds earlier, reduces waiting times for support, and helps people to participate in education, work, family and community life.”<\/p>\n
Do you have a story suggestion for Northamptonshire? Contact us below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Walton said she created an online community on TikTok, where she has more than 2,500 followers, after feeling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":577318,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[163,85,46,522,523],"class_list":["post-577317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-health","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=577317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/577318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=577317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=577317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=577317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}