If your loved one struggles with hoarding it can be an extremely difficult situation, and you may realize you need to do something, but not know where to start. With some understanding and compassion, you can offer the help needed. Clean Earth Restorations is a leading company in San Diego, with extensive experience helping families help their loved one who hoards. We have the training, experience and sensitivity to help.
There are some key things you should know to understand hoarding that can help you be the best support possible. With TV shows that feature hoarders there is more awareness today, but there is still much we can learn. Here are a few keys to understanding:
- Hoarding often has at it’s root anxiety or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). There are genuine psychological roots to this issue, which deserve attention.
- The tendency to hoard can start in childhood or the teen years, but most often becomes more severe in adulthood.
- Hoarding can often be more about the fear in throwing something away than the compulsion to keep things. Just considering discarding the item triggers anxiety and keeping it helps calm the fears.
- Compulsive hoarding is most often not acknowledged or recognized by the person who hoards. Nor is it “controllable” by the hoarder.
- Many hoarders are also perfectionists. They don’t want to make a wrong decision about throwing something away, so they keep it.
Understanding the thought process of someone who hoards can be helpful. Read this article from Time here.
Another great article come from theNew Yorker magazine, where the author discusses her mother’s struggle with hoarding.
Watch this story of one woman’s story of suffering (from The Today Show):
Clean Earth also has resources for help with hoarding. Get our Tip Sheet free by clicking below:
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