These are signs of compulsive hoarding, a complex mental disorder involving a need to acquire and save lots of objects, regardless of the toll on finances, family and living conditions. Hoarding can be as destructive as alcoholism or drug addiction, as TV shows like A&E's "Hoarders" and Style Network's "Clean House" have shown.
"We watch people give up their houses, children and health," says Christiana Bratiotis, Ph.D., assistant professor at the University of Nebraska Omaha Grace Abbott School of Social Work and former project director of Boston University's Compulsive Hoarding Research Project.
What's Compulsive Hoarding?
We all hang onto things, especially of sentimental value. But a hoarder has a passion for objects that's out of control, Bratiotis says. They feel, "My objects are better than human relationships. My objects make me feel comfortable," she says.
It's not just the tendency to accumulate too much stuff that makes a hoarder: They may have different brain chemistry. A 2004 UCLA study of hoarders' brain scans showed lower activity in the part of the brain that rules decision-making, motivation and problem solving.
Compulsive hoarding was once categorized as a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder. But research in the last two decades has shown it's a separate condition, and, in fact, OCD treatments are often ineffective in hoarders.
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