How can HOARDERS by so clueless??

Terry

My ex-wife was a hoarder.

It happened gradually over the 18 years we were married.

Things which change slowly are invisible to us.

Each step is rationalized or passed off as quirky or annoying or.....whatever.

One day you look up and your 3 car garage is full of crap and the cars sit outside in the drive way.

The attic is full. The closets are full. Then, the living room, the bed room. And it grows and grows like a gigantic cancerous tumor.

But, the one hoarding has a million perfectly logical and rational reasons.

Clueless.

How does that happen and why?

Same thing happened to my Aunt Florence.

She was the neatest neat freak about cleaning house you ever saw. If you got within a block of her house you would start to smell the Pine-Sol!

Then, at some juncture the housecleaning stopped cold. Nothing got cleaned. Supper didn't get made. Garbage piled up. Non-stop trips to the Goodwill and DAV stores resulted in trinkets, stuffed animals, crap jewelry, mind-boggling nonsense.

My cousin tried for 5 years to get her help. Finally, the state stepped in and hauled her off to a nursing home. She had been living in a nightmare in Hell.

Why?

I---myself--I only NOW REALIZE was well on the road to being a big time hoarder.

I started collecting record albums when I was a teenager. But, more and more over the years it became an obsession.

It accelerated to cassettes, mini-discs, CD's and the boxes and crates piles high! Whenever I would move to a new place I would have to

rent a U-haul to accomodate the tonnage!

But, for me--something miraculous happened. I sold an album or two on Ebay in the late 90's.

It was like a COME TO JESUS moment for me when the items sold.

I WAS INSTANTLY CURED!

I went from spending a couple of hundred dollars a month on music to spending NOTHING.

I started selling it all off: the collection I'd been amassing since age 14!

Nothing was spared.

Finally, I simply dumped what was left in the garage and let the Goodwill truck come to pick it all up.

AMAZING turnaround.

To this day I don't know what that was all about or how I got free of it.

Do any of you HOARD something which you call a "COLLECTION"?

I work with a fellow who is assistant manager of our bookstore whose house is crammed with tens of thousands of books, magazines, records, cassettes, Cds, Dvds, Videos, Laser discs......all having something to do with Movies, Films or cinema in some way.

HE CALLS HIMSELF AN ARCHIVIST!

When he isn't at work he is home burning Cd's and Dvd's to copies for his files as backup!

He does about 25 of these EVERY DAY.

He adamantly refuses to accept he is a hoarder in any way at all!

WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?

Mad Sweeney

I don't understand the psychology, either. But if the stuff is worth money, it's collecting. If it's crap and junk, it's hoarding.

Watching the tv shows on hoarding, it often seems like a reaction to a loss of some sort. Something of value is lost and something inside vows to never lose another thing again, EVER!

james_woods

It happened gradually over the 18 years we were married.

Frogs are also boiled very slowly.

ballistic

I've just got back from a car-boot sale which in the UK is a weekly occurance (we don't really see "yard sales"). Anyhow I've added to at least 4 or 5 of my collections including an extremely valuable set of hand crafted african semi precious stones in a display case, and some other junk which I'm sure will definately be useful.

aSphereisnotaCircle

I really, really wish I understood hoarding better. I have family members who are hoarders, i was raised that way. My family moved frequently, but like you said, daily trips to the goodwill and other thrift stores will pack a house, garage, yard before you know it.

It can be very hard on kids too, not only are you social misfits in the world, you are considered a social misfit by the JWs too. i could never invite any friends to our house, I was too ashamed.

With my family, it wasn't just hoarding stuff, we also lived in filth. I have honestly blocked a lot if it out of my mind it was so awful. That is the part I wish i could understand. My mother is a very sweet, meek and humble person, why does she live in filth? I know she has very low self-esteem (extememly low) is it a matter that she feels she does not deserve to live in a clean home? I've known her all my life and that is the best explenation i can come up with, but I think it has to be more then that, I wish I knew.

james_woods

Maybe you are slosly showing her by example, Asphereis not a Circle -

chickpea

i hear ya terry!

my mother turned into a hoarder
after she retired... and i had the
delightful task of clearing out
her 2 bedroom apt when she
ended up in a nursing home
(cancer + dementia)....

much of her "collection"was
that crap from franklin mint
but there was enough decent
household type stuff i could
donate to the domestic crisis
shelter that probably helped
set up at least THREE households!

i too am an ebay proponent.... i have the remnant crap of a
family of six languishing in what can laughably called "storage"
but it is actually clotting up my life energy! once i finish this
AAS (MAY 8th!) then i am going to implement a 3 year plan to
sell, trade, donate, pawn, give away stuff to help organize my
life and finance some of the renovations that are sorely
required to get this place in shape ... to either sell or run
as a vacation rental .....

i remember my husband saying YEARS ago "we need a bigger place"
(FIVE ACRES and SEVEN OUTBUILDINGS werent enough!!!!!!)

my reply then as now >>> we need less STUFF!!!

Satanus

Maybe, the root is fear, fear of not having what a person needs. I do a bit of collecting, not seriously, though. I have a collection of information on my puter. First pertaining to the wt, quite a bit of music, pertinent articles concerning subjects that are interesting to me, or important, a few lighters, a few hats. I did get rid of almost all of the books that i was collecting. Books are also on my puter, now.

S

moshe

The e-Readers, like Kindle and Nook have certainly made it painless to be a cyber hoarder of books and music. Anyway, I have a tendency to hang on to stuff way too long. I moved 10 boxes full of valuable computer/electronic/Ham radio stuff to our new home back in 2009 and now I am ready to sell a bunch of it on ebay. I have always had many projects going at one time and now I am caught up- even my netflix movie que is down to only 3 weeks worth of movies.

Deceived

I was shocked to discover my JW Mom was a hoarder. I was friendly with her but not close enough to be allowed to have free reign of her house. I wondered why she would close the door to the 2 bedrooms and not let anyone in there. She got sick 5 years ago with cancer and I being the only living relative left near her I got to take care of her. Her brothers and sisters at the Kingdom hall were to busy.

She became helpless and I opened the doors to her bedrooms and her workship. Piled high to the ceiling with watchtowers, awakes, JW publications back to the early 1900's. All of them moldy and damp. She taped all the talks at the kingdom hall and the Assemblies/ There was so many tapes that I filled 5 HUGE garbage cans with them. She saved every margarine, yogurt, cottage etc container she ever bought plus never threw out any of the plastic bags from the grocery store. She literally had 1000's of plastic bags and the mice made nests in them. She saved used chewed gum in plastic baggies, 100's of them. She saved used paper towels. She told me they were not dirty so can be used again. But she forgot where she put them after. I found condoms in the bedstand that dated back to 1960's. She had not needed those in years since she had a hysterectomy and my Dad was Dead. She kept everything. I filled a HUGE dumpster after she died of garbage. Yet Armageddon was coming any minute according to her so I was wondering why she would need all this garbage. lol Poor woman.

How can HOARDERS by so clueless??

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