{"id":70036,"date":"2025-08-09T12:59:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-09T12:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/70036\/"},"modified":"2025-08-09T12:59:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T12:59:09","slug":"hoarding-disorder-what-separates-it-from-collecting-is-trauma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/70036\/","title":{"rendered":"Hoarding disorder: What separates it from collecting is trauma"},"content":{"rendered":"

Facebook<\/p>\n

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Email
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Link<\/p>\n

\n The habit crept up on Kim. She would arrive at garage sales as they were ending to pick up what remained.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI\u2019d load my car full of the free stuff on the side of the road: clothes, things that needed to be fixed, projects,\u201d she told CNN.\n <\/p>\n

\n It was only once things spiraled that Kim, 53, who asked to be identified by her first name to protect her privacy, realized she had a problem that was all too familiar: hoarding, a disorder that she\u2019d spent years urging her mother to seek help for.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI used to get very frustrated and say, \u2018Mom, we\u2019ve helped you clean out this room 10 times, and we come back three months later and it\u2019s completely full of sh*t ,\u201d she said.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI learned about hoarding disorder when I was younger but somehow didn\u2019t recognize it in myself.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n At first, Kim would pile the things around her bed and throughout her bedroom, eventually expanding into other areas of her home, including her living room and sunporch.\n <\/p>\n

\n Besides the garage sales, she would collect stuff at thrift stores<\/a> and stored goods she said family gave her \u201cto hold and keep.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"Kim,<\/p>\n

\n Today Kim runs a Facebook support group for 2,100 people with hoarding disorder, which the World Health Organization<\/a> categorized as a mental health condition in 2018, five years after the condition was to the American Psychiatric Association\u2019s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. HD is characterized by excessive accumulation of possessions and difficulty in disposing of them .\n <\/p>\n

\n Kim only sought help when things became unsafe. \u201cThe stuff starts piling up, the paths get narrower, and you start to trip (in your own house),\u201d said the single mother.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cPutting things in the garbage is a big struggle \u2014 if we know it might go to the right home, that makes us feel better.\u201c\n <\/p>\n

\n She thinks that mindset dates back to what her grandmother used to say: \u201cUse it up, wear it out, make it do or do without,\u201d she said. \u201cThat was a phrase that was knocked into my head ever since I was little,\u201d and it makes her worry about wasting anything.\n <\/p>\n

\n What people hoard varies: Kim\u2019s focus is books. \u201cIt would have taken me 10 lifetimes to read them,\u201d she said of the many boxes she gave away after extensive therapy, including \u201c500 Dr. Phil books.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Two-thirds of people with the disorder have at least one other psychiatric condition, while physical comorbidities such as arthritis and diabetes are common, according to a 2024 US Senate report<\/a>. Around 14 million Americans are affected by hoarding disorder, with similar rates across other Western countries.\n <\/p>\n

\n Hoarding can trigger countless complications, experts say. Bathrooms and kitchens can become unusable, impacting diet and personal hygiene. Housing authorities can threaten eviction leading to homelessness, while in extreme cases children have been removed by social services.\n <\/p>\n

\n There is also risk to life. Excessive stuff, especially books and paperwork, pose a serious fire hazard and can hamper rescue efforts by blocking escape routes.\n <\/p>\n

\n Collecting may be in our DNA, according to Dr. Nick Neave, a professor in the psychology department at Northumbria University in the United Kingdom and director of the university\u2019s Hoarding Research Group.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThroughout history possessions have always been very important \u2014 you see people buried with grave goods,\u201d he said. \u201cThat urge to collect things, it\u2019s part of your personality, your culture. So hoarding is normal \u2014 we\u2019ve all got stuff we don\u2019t need.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n What separates regular collecting from hoarding is often trauma, Neave said.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cAll the people who hoard I\u2019ve ever met had traumatic childhoods, whether it\u2019s physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, chaotic backgrounds, lack of parents.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n This resonates with Kim, whose symptoms emerged after she experienced an abusive relationship, the death of a friend and a serious medical diagnosis.\n <\/p>\n

\"Homes<\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe call it the stuff under the stuff,\u201d said Kim, who lives in New York state. \u201cOne of our therapists calls it the one, two, three punch. You can handle one trauma, maybe two, but after that, a lot of people will have hoarding disorder creep in.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI tried to fill the hole in my heart and soul with the stuff,\u201d she added.\n <\/p>\n

\n Neave says hoarding is a \u201ccoping strategy which starts off working very well\u201d but can \u201cspiral quickly into a severe addiction and mental health problem that is very difficult to resolve.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Shame and stigma can then lead to further isolation, he said. \u201cThe obvious thing to do is get rid of the clutter, but that doesn\u2019t solve the problem of why they\u2019ve got it in the first place. If you\u2019re not treating that issue, it\u2019ll come back.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"Heather<\/p>\n

\n Heather Matuozzo is the founder of Clouds End, which works with Birmingham Council in the UK to support about 300 renters through an intervention project called \u201cChaos 2 Order.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWhen you live in property that\u2019s not yours the landlord can go to court and get an injunction to forcibly clear your house,\u201d she said. \u201cNo matter what justification you give it, it\u2019s morally wrong and also makes people who hoard worse.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n She believes the pandemic led to an increase in prevalence of hoarding disorders. \u201cWe saw the whole world hoard, as everybody had that (fear that) \u2018Oh my God, I\u2019m going to run out\u2019,\u201d she said.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIf you\u2019re already anxious, then you drop a pandemic on top of that, where everything closes and your support, which was tenuous enough in the first place, just disappears, you will be beside yourself and gathering to feel better.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Matuozzo believes that Birmingham may be \u201cthe first hoarding-aware city in the world.\u201d The model should be replicated elsewhere, she said.\n <\/p>\n

\n Sophia, who runs the Facebook group with Kim, first realized she had a problem at graduate school after a close relative was diagnosed with a severe mental illness.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIn between classes, I was shopping and would bring all this stuff back: dolls, books, jewelry, clothing, shoes, toiletries, school supplies. It was a way to disassociate.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Sophia, who also lives in New York state and does not want to be fully identified to protect her privacy, recalls the moment she knew she had to act \u2014 when she tried to get rid of some of her stuff. \u201cI had this nervous reaction; my whole body was shaking.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"Dr.<\/p>\n

\n Soon afterward, she came across an advertisement for volunteers for a trial treatment with Dr. Carolyn Rodriguez, director of the Stanford Hoarding Disorders Research Program.\n <\/p>\n

\n Sophia said the program was massively helpful, but still, she relapsed. \u201cI was going plane, bus, train, automobile, just to get stuff,\u201d she said.\n <\/p>\n

\n She has tried many varied therapies since then, including cognitive behavior therapy<\/a>, or CBT, and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, or EMDR, while leaning into the Facebook group for support. \u201cI love that there\u2019s community and that I can share,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd if I can make it less jacked up or reduce harm, anybody can do that .\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Stanford\u2019s Rodriguez is currently testing a virtual reality intervention<\/a>. \u201cMany current treatments emphasize skills related to discarding and decision-making about possessions, which can be practiced in the patient\u2019s home,\u201d she said via email.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIn many cases, real-life discarding is too difficult or in-home visits are unfeasible for reasons such as location, availability, or clutter being stacked so high that it\u2019s dangerous for a team to go inside,\u201d she said.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cPracticing letting go of items is such an important skill to develop, so we wanted to create a virtual and safe environment to do so.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Nine participants were asked to take 360-degree photos of the most cluttered room in their house, as well as 30 possessions to discard. Once virtual equivalents were created, participants could navigate their way around using VR headsets and handheld controllers.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cFor people who experience considerable distress even attempting to part with possessions, it\u2019s nice to be able to practice the activity in a virtual space as well as process the emotions of it,\u201d said Rodriguez, who hopes to expand the project.\n <\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\n \u201cIn these one-hour sessions, they learned to better understand their attachment to the objects and practiced placing them in virtual bins for recycling, donation, or trash \u2014 the latter of which was taken away by a virtual garbage truck. They were then assigned the task of discarding the actual item at home.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n The sessions were run as part of the \u201cBuried in Treasures<\/a>\u201d group treatment program. Based on a book of the same name by David Tolin, Randy Frost and Gail Steketee , it\u2019s a 16-week peer-led initiative running in numerous countries including the United States, Canada and Australia.\n <\/p>\n

\n Frost, also the Smith College Harold and Elsa Siipola Israel professor emeritus of psychology, developed the course with Lee Shuer, who now facilitates it around the world.\n <\/p>\n

\"Shuer<\/p>\n

\n Shuer, a certified peer specialist and hoarding disorder expert, said he never calls anyone a \u201choarder.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIf you\u2019re trying to build trust and rapport, it\u2019s often such a turn-off. I self-identify as a finder-keeper in recovery, but a lot of people use collector, archivist, environmentalist, prepper.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cBut it doesn\u2019t matter what we call it \u2014 we want to call it getting better.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Shuer started \u201ccollecting\u201d at school, as children often do. \u201cI didn\u2019t abandon that phase,\u201d he said. \u201cSuddenly we weren\u2019t getting together to trade stickers and baseball cards. They were at parties, and I was reading comic books by flashlight at 3 in the morning, miserable.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n In hindsight, he realizes he began to develop signs of depression in his teens and that the \u201ctreasure hunting\u201d ramped up in his 20s.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt was a self-soothing coping skill for my extreme ups and downs with bipolar disorder and ADD (attention deficit disorder). As my mental health challenges continued to manifest and become more significant, so did the maladaptive coping skills.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Like others, Shuer\u2019s collections were broad, but he was particularly interested in video games, especially once he realized their social currency.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI went from being an awkward outsider to being interesting because of my stuff,\u201d he said. It was only with therapy that he really began to understand that dynamic.\n <\/p>\n

\"Shuer<\/p>\n

\"Shuer<\/p>\n

\n \u201cI realized Space Invaders was the key memory I have from the day of my grandfather\u2019s funeral. I was dropped off at a family friend\u2019s house and remember playing that.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n That realization triggered a \u201cwave of emotion,\u201d he said. The video games were \u201can example of all the things around me that represented unresolved grief, guilt, loss.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Shuer described hoarding as \u201cintention without opportunity,\u201d suggesting most of those with the condition are well intentioned and plan to use the stuff for good, though often it doesn\u2019t work out that way.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe misunderstanding is that people love their stuff more than their family,\u201d he said. The truth, he said, is that most of those affected are trying \u201cto be a good person, not a bad person.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n They need help and understanding, which is what their peers can give them, Shuer said.\n <\/p>\n

\n The success of Buried in Treasures comes down to the social interaction with their peers, which enables people to open up in a reassuringly safe environment, he said.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cLearning the skills and being treated with respect like this is really empowering. You\u2019re also receiving that positive reinforcement that you\u2019re not some kind of social pariah and you\u2019re not crazy,\u201d Shuer said.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cBy the end of the course people often feel hopeful and that for the first time they have a chance. I believe that if you care enough and you want it bad enough, you can change anything. That was definitely a motivator for me.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Facebook Tweet Email Link The habit crept up on Kim. She would arrive at garage sales as they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70037,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[97,259,260],"class_list":{"0":"post-70036","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-mental-health","10":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70036\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}