Hoarder's Disorder

We all have things we like to save and collect. Sometimes it's a set of keepsakes to be handed down through the generations. Sometimes it's baby items to be used when the new grandchild arrives. Other times it could be favorite sets to be collected, like book series, teddy bears and hats. Some people collect tin boxes. Some people collect old vinyl records or perhaps 8 track tapes. Heck, some people even have enough money to collect old cars, paintings and furnishings. This is not hoarding. This is called 'collecting'. It's something everyone does to some degree or another. Take a moment and think about some of the items you collect. I don't mean things you have more than enough of and will never use them all in your lifetime, or the next. I mean actual collections. Tea or Coffee cups perhaps. Photos. Movies. Music. Whatever the collection is.

Now that you've got a bit of an idea in your mind as to what you collect, multiply the items in your collection to the point that the items would literally fill an entire home (or 2). I don't mean 'fill' as in, 'the same type of stuff on every single surface of the home'. I mean 'fill' as in literally, ceiling to floor, wall to wall FILL the house with that collection. You are now CLOSE to imagining what it's like to have Hoarder's Disorder. I say 'close' because some of the means by which hoarders keep things would be next to impossible to conjure up in your mind, without having photographs of such materialistic chaos to look at first.

Now I want you to picture in your mind a room that has your basic walls, ceiling, floor, windows, doors. A 'basic' living room. Whatever that type of living room is in your mind, that's the one you want to imagine. Once you have that room in your mind, start adding things to the room. Perhaps an additional floor lamp. Possibly a few plants here and there. Maybe slather the walls with all types of pictures and paintings. Just imagine the room 'filled to capacity', with whatever items you think should go into that particular room. Don't go overboard. We still need you to be able to see the basics of the room. Walls, ceiling, floor, windows, doors, etc.

Let's take this one step further. Next to every piece of furniture you've placed in this imaginary room, place a large stack of stuff. It doesn't matter what kind of stuff it is, as long as it's large, and it's a stack of stuff. Say, magazines, newspapers, records...whatever. Now let's place piles of more stuff on top of every surface in the room. Anything that can be piled. Clothes, papers, stuffed animals, whatever. We're not done yet. If you've got a headache from all this imagining by now, take a pain killer and let's move on. We're far from through with this.

Once your brain is now semi-functional again, begin adding more items to the empty spaces of the already crammed room. Stacks of boxes, more piles of random stuff, toss pillows, stuffed animals that haven't been used in 20 years by kids that haven't lived in the home for 15 years...just tons of random stuff. We're still not done. Now we're going to begin adding what I call the 'recycling portion of the program'.

In this portion, we're now going to think of anything and everything that someone on the planet might need for some use at some point in their lives. Add those items to the room. Then think about the items that YOU might need, for your own personal living pleasure, at some point, for some reason, at some time in your life. Add those items to the room.

If at this point you are still able to see any portion of the floor, or more than half of the walls, you need to add more stuff. If you can walk through the room at all, without having to step on, over, around, next to, in between and through any square foot of the room, you need to add more stuff. If you can easily locate any of the doors in the room, without the aide of spelunking gear, you need to add more stuff. If you have an imaginary fireplace in this room, do not light it, just put more stuff into it. Hey, it's additional storage space that most people over look. You're simply making the most out of the limited imaginary space you've created for yourself.

At this point, you will now have to put yourself into the logical mind set of a hoarder. To a hoarder, this room looks 'normal'. The hoarder may openly and fully admit that the room is nothing but pure chaos and filth, but to that hoarder, it is also completely organized, and everything is perfectly stored, in its own proper place. It just so happens that everything that person has ever owned in his or her entire life, is stuffed into that one room, and is possibly overflowing into, well, the rest of the entire home that this room is attached to, or part of.

The above described imaginary room, to a hoarder, is not imaginary at all. It's very real. To the average person, this would be considered an unhealthy living environment, a fire hazard, medical hazard and possibly even a multitude of housing code regulations. The average person would have this over-whelming urge to don a HazMat suit and arm themselves with some sort of bug repellent to go in and 'rescue' the hoarder from him or her self. Believe me, such rescue operations are not necessary. Well thought out and fully understandable? Yes. Necessary? No. Not at all. Not unless the person's health and well being is obviously in a tremendous amount of danger. THEN, yes, it's ok to go in and rescue that person from themselves. Otherwise, no. It's not ok. Doing so would cause more harm than good to that person.