Cleaning services are often called upon for their expertise in extreme hoarding cases. The hoarding condition in recent years is being recognised and researched by many authorities. Studies have identified numerous factors that contribute to the development of hoarding behaviour in different people, including personality types and past traumatic experiences. Why do people become compulsive hoarders?
To start with, compulsive hoarding is defined as a mental disorder where someone acquires a lot of possessions, but fail to discard any of them. Sometimes these possessions can be useless, of limited value or even useful, but never used. Hoarding makes your living space notably cluttered leaving no room for your daily activities. Here are reasons why people become hoarders.
Emotional Irregularity
When a person suffers from depression and anxiety, they might start hoarding as a coping mechanism. Continuously acquiring unneeded items while at the same time not discarding any of their current possession is a behaviour demonstrated by people trying to overcome depression.
Perfectionism
Hoarders fear making the mistake of throwing away items they think might be valuable. This appears strange when you see a house full of clutter and rubbish. A hoarder’s perfectionist tendency tells them they need the clutter.
Emotional Attachment
When a person becomes too attached emotionally to his/her possessions, they try to hold on to them even when they don’t need them or after acquiring new ones. Compulsive hoarders become too attached emotionally to their belongings to let them go.
Difficulty Processing Information
Compulsive hoarders have difficulty or the inability to categorise items into valuable and non-valuable. So everything to them has the same significant value, meaning they can’t recognise items that should be disposed of.
A Personal Trauma
Experts believe that there is a link between experiencing personal trauma and the onset of compulsive hoarding. Emotional distress might stretch back to childhood, but hoarding normally starts at the age of 13 years old.
Dread of Waste
Hoarders feel they have the responsibility of holding on and keeping items that might become useful one day. They think that discarding items now might lead to them needing new ones in the future for the same purpose, so they keep them even though these items are usually never used.
Hoarding is a unique mental disorder that does have links to emotional trauma, depression and/or anxiety. That is why compulsive hoarders need treatments for the disorder. Hoarding also creates health and safety risks, as well environmental concerns, that have to be resolved upon identifying you are a hoarder.
The good news is that hoarders can make changes within their lives and begin to live life clutter-free. There are specialized therapists who work with hoarders to help them to feel comfortable giving things away and living clutter-free. 1st Hoarding Clean Up has been working with British Columbia’s hoarders for years, compassionately helping to declutter and clean any type of hoarding situation. If you or someone you care about is in a hoarding situation, we can help; contact us today!