Is hoarding a personality disorder?
The story goes that Speedy — my husband — liked to take long baths in the bath tub as a child. One time, he forgot to drain the water and his mother had to do it. Decades later, when she related the incident to me, she was still laughing over the nuts and bolts that she found in the tub after the water was gone.
Those nuts and bolts would later become a huge part of our married life. It would be a bone of contention and a subject of numerous heated (and often exasperating) arguments. See, he keeps boxes of nuts and bolts — in various sizes. He also has spools of cables — in various colors. He has a collection of caps that he never uses, a collection of T-shirts with sepia lines where they are folded (that’s how long they have been in his closet — untouched), a collection of bags covered in gray and brown substances (a mixture of mold and dust, I guess), jackets that are totally unwearable in the tropical heat, key chains that no longer have key rings, ball pens that have run out of ink… In short, he loathes throwing anything away.
If the cliche “opposites attract” is applicable to human relationships, my husband and I are proof that it is so. He was a quiet child; I was the chatterbox. He’s a math and science person; I love arts and letters. I love throwing away junk; he loves keeping anything and everything. You can just imagine what kind of arguments we had every time he would come home and found more empty space in the house than there was when he left it in the morning.
A blog called Collectors’ Quest cites an episode from a TV medical show that showed brain scans of hoarders, and a Dr. David Tolin who believes that “hoarding, currently considered a subset of obsessive compulsive disorder or OCD, really may be a unique disorder completely separate from OCD”.
No shit. Now, I don’t know what separates a collector from a hoarder. My husband’s reason for keeping all that junk is that “they might be useful someday.” When that someday is, I do not know. So, maybe he’s not a hoarder. Maybe, he just has more foresight than I do. Or, maybe, that Dr. Tolin, who has devoted his professional life studying hoarders, is just trying to stir controversy for the sake of fame and fortune.
Personally, isn’t there a worthier use for science and medical knowledge than studying brain patterns of hoarders?
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We feast everyday!
haayy. we have the same problem. My husband’s clothes are 4 times more than mine. I can’t imagine him wearing all of those shirts when some of them are old already. I don’t quite get the logic. I am truly exasperated.
I always say all the clutter attracts pests — mice, rats, roaches…
Actually… I think that it’s a valid area of study, since we don’t know what makes these people (like my mom) do what they do.
When confronted about her “keeping habit” she will happily tell you about her plans for this or that, and that such and so is “still good”.
An example of this is the container of instant coffee on top of her fridge. She doesn’t drink instant coffee. It’s Folgers. She REALLY doesn’t drink Folgers (no, I have no idea what she has against it, but she does.) It’s decaf – and she pretty much drinks coffee FOR the caffeine. And lastly, it’s still got the price tag on it… from a department store that closed more than 10 years ago.
Another example: my mom’s appartment. http://tinyurl.com/2f42ur
The packrat mentality exists in my family too. Geez, my mom, aunt, and grandmother abhor throwing or giving anything away. I’ve had to get sneaky and dump some things when they’re not paying attention. My grandmother has a closet full of clothes she will never wear but will not let us touch or even put them in boxes where they’ll be safer from dust and mold. Ewan ko ba…disease you say it is? I wish there was a pill for it hehe.
Personally, isn’t there a worthier use for science and medical knowledge than studying brain patterns of hoarders?
I think it’s a very worthwhile cause considering how much these hoarder’s activities affect their family’s lives, even well after their death when those of us unfortunate enough are left to ramsack the “treasure” looking for important documents & family heirlooms (if they haven’t managed to destroy them at this point).
So speaking as the only (adopted) daughter of a hoarder, who is also the only child of a hoarder, YES, it is a worthy study! This behavior appears to have some genetic root as well, so maybe they could potentially find a cure.
My mom is such a hoarder! Exactly as you described it here… But she is 65 years old, so could you imagine her collection??! LOL. Likewise, her hoarding has been the root of many fights between her and dad/us kids… haaaay too.
Oh my gosh, I didn’t know there were so many “collectors” LOL
Grav, the Folgers is for… decoration??
Chris, a pill? Now THAT would be nice. I can slip one in every cup of coffee I give my husband hahaha
Brindle, “I think it’s a very worthwhile cause considering how much these hoarder’s activities affect their family’s lives”
In that context, I agree. Hoarding habits can be hell for the other members of the family.
Chateau, “But she is 65 years old, so could you imagine her collection??!”
When we moved in with my grandmother (last move prior to buying a house in Antipolo), I had to clean out 3/4 of the house. It was a huuuuge house but there was no space. She had this primitive gas stove (used to run on Manila Gas) that hadn’t worked for years. She had 6 sacks of rice behind her bedroom door. The 1960s clothes of her two daughters (one had died and the other had migrated to Canada in 1964) filled closets in two rooms…
I’ve forced myself to define ‘useful someday’ as ‘useful in 5 years’ or ‘do I really want to carry this around when I move?’
It helps curb the hording.
don’t make fun of a hoarder – someday those collectibles will be treasures.
Sassy,
Reading the comments here is like reading a string of confessions!
But, *sigh* all of us do have some odd habit in our closet, haven’t we?
I used to keep empty cans and empty liquor bottles for my hobbies. When they cluttered up the house, I came home one day and they were gone! My wife had them thrown away when I was at work!
C. David, oh that’s good. A finite timetable. My husband’s timetable is more like “sometime in the near future”… guess it doesn;t really count, huh?
franco, spoken like a true hoarder?? hehehe
bayi, empty cans??? oh my gosh. regards to your wife and please say congratulations for throwing out your collection hahahaha joke joke
hay naku…me, im so bad kase what i do is i throw out or give away stuff when hubby’s not around…and you know what he doesnt notice it at all! ako din, i dont like collecting so much stuff especially if im the one responsible for cleaning it..ay naku wag na. but my husband’s ilokano hehe so i guess it is a part of his character to be frugal. once, our laundrywoman came to our place wearing one of his shirts (which i had previously given to her), ay naku…you should have seen the expression on his face
spent two days throwing away my collection
have I recovered?
wont share you my therapy…..
i did feel so good after
i just binned few old clothes
and irony is my friend another hoarder passed by
she actually went through my bags and took few things with her….
hoarding is hell! i used to love watching clean house with niecy nash on lifestyle tv but then it depresses me as i look around the mess i’m also in.
own less, be stressed less. how i wish to have a room with just the barest necessities.
Oh my, my sister is like this!!! I recently read a short story wherein the lead character was a hoarder too. The story goes his hoarding was an effect of his being abandoned as a child. He was left by his father when he was very young. And so as he grew up, hoarding things was a subconscious way of him wanting to hold on to as many things as possible for fear of repeating what his father did to him. Interesting ‘no? Perhaps my sister had an experience in her younger years that triggered her desire to keep things too. I just wonder what! I hope she figures it out because her kalat is driving my Mom nuts! *L*
Nadia, re “i throw out or give away stuff when hubby’s not around”
hahaha I do that too.
sha, ironic in more ways than one kasi you lost and she gained but you’re the winner between you too.
lee, re “how i wish to have a room with just the barest necessities.”
my dream too. LOL really, a room with more space than kalat is easier to clean and easier to breathe in. none of that stuffy feeling.
toni, very interesting indeed. what’s the title of the story and the name of the author?
whew long time no comment from me but I just had to chime in…grabe my hubby and his family are exactly like this! in their house in the province my father-in-law has his test papers from college (he’s now 60); my mom-in-law keeps empty soap cartons stacked in her bathroom; and once I tried cleaning hubby’s room, only to find 10-year-old post its with “meeting with Prof so-and-so at 4pm” written on them. pati sa bahay namin ngayon yung side niya ng kwarto sobrang gulo. yung likod ng stove namin puno ng garapon na “pwede pa natin gamitin someday.” our set up is “clean your own kalat”, pero yung version niya ng ligpit is light years away from what I want to see, pero ayoko naman siya i-nag. frustrating talaga! sana nga may gamot para sa behavior na iyan.
bang & blame, LOL yung “pwede pa natin gamitin someday” line is so, so familiar. My mother-in-law and late father-in-law had collections too. So did my lola. So does my mother…
My parents are like that too…actually my whole family is!! (myself included). Tatay’s obsession is mainly books, he’s got all the books he bought when he was in seminary (he’s a pastor), so I know the books are priceless, it’s just dominating his house, that’s all. Mommy hardly ever sorts through her closet to purge the old stuff…same thing with the siblings, they still have some clothes & purses that I left behind!! I felt like I was the only one regularly purging my stuff…our helpers looved it when I was “cleaning house” they got most of the good stuff!!
When I got married and moved out of country, my thing was my arts & crafts stuff and yes, my books din, but I learned that if I regularly purge my family’s clothes and other things, we get blessed with brand new things to replace the worn out ones
My thing has always been my crochet (gantsilyo) stuff & books…and my excuse is since I regularly make clothes & accessories with my hobby, just gloss over the fact that I have one closet dedicated to my “craft” and another one half-full of my “stuff” at any given time 
Don’t even get me started on darling’s things. He has a whole garage and a shed full of his tools, tools & power tools! But like me he regularly uses this “collection” for various things in and out of the house so I can’t complain…except when he’s too busy “playing with his saw” to help me with the kids
What is it with people and things? Perhaps it’s just our way of holding to a memory of what once was and those things remind us of the “feel-goods” we felt once upon that time. Maybe it’s a symbol of what we were once before and that no matter how far we have come along we should not forget where we came from.
Or maybe it doesn’t mean anything at all.
Ako naman ang parang si hubby mo hehe! Lalo na kung bigay sa akin, kahit ayaw ko tinatago ko. At kapag nag-general cleaning, mapapadpad sa closet, when my husband sees them, sasabihin nya give them away if you don’t like them. and I’d be like “no! it’s a gift!”. Hehehe!
That same conversation happened again recently, kasi lumipat kami ng bahay kaya nahalughog na naman ang mga lumang gamit including clothes.