Hoarding: When clutter or collecting gets out of control

Hoarding is a symptom of obsessive-compulsive disorder. It is defined as the acquisition of, and failure to discard, possessions that appear to be useless or of limited value. While everyone is familiar with someone whom they consider a “pack rat” or chronic saver, people with hoarding OCD distinguish themselves by the sheer quantity of objects collected, and by their strong emotional attachment to items most would clearly consider useless.

The objects of hoarding can be almost anything, but often include such things as newspapers, clothing, foodstuffs, books, papers, junk mail, and old appliances. People with hoarding OCD seem to overvalue the importance of these objects and therefore develop an overattachment to them that prevents them from discarding the objects. Often, the rationale is, “What if I should need it in the future? I’d better not throw it out.” With piles of clutter stacked to the ceiling and only a little space for walkways through the house, meandering through the cluttered home of a person with hoarding OCD can be challenging.

Dr. Bruce Hyman and I present a treatment plan for hoarding symptoms in our book, The OCD Workbook. The third edition is available on Amazon.com.

Some books about hoarding by doctors who have spent years studying hoarding:

Digging Out: Helping Your Loved One Manage Clutter, Hoarding, and Compulsive Acquiring
by Michael A. Tompkins

Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things
by Gail Steketee and Randy Frost

Buried in Treasures: Help for Compulsive Acquiring, Saving, and Hoarding
by David F. Tolin, Randy Frost, Gail Steketee

I found an interesting article on hoarding at www.everydayhealth.com/anxiety-disorders/expert-answers-on-obsessive-compulsive-disorder-and-hoarding.aspx

This website has interviews of OCD experts. You'll learn a lot about OCD and how it relates to hoarding.

Rituals – Exposure is the First Step to Recovery

You can use the process of habituation to fight your OCD by arranging for prolonged exposure to the real-life situations that provoke your anxiety and cause you to perform rituals. For example, if you contamination fears, you could touch something you consider contaminated, and then go as long as you can without relieving your anxiety by washing your hands. If you have a fear of leaving things unchecked, deliberately don’t check or check once then go on to do something else. For example, when you leave the house, lock the door, turn and leave without checking again. Then stay away as long as you can. Maybe only five minutes the first time, then longer the next time.

Sounds easy, right? If you have OCD, you know it’s not as easy as it sounds. Make a list of your fears and start with one you can handle. If you’ve read The OCD Workbook, you know this is called a hierarchy. When you’ve managed one ritual go on to another.

Challenge Yourself

Thanksgiving is a good time to challenge yourself to do things you haven’t done in a while. Or ever! When my OCD was at its worst, I wasn’t doing any entertaining because of my fear of contamination. It was such a struggle to get through cooking a meal for someone other than my husband and son that I just gave up.

I loved making cookies for my son and husband and I to take to school and work every holiday and I even gave that up. I had my husband make simple dishes when we needed to take something to a potluck.

Gradually, I challenged myself to prepare potluck dishes myself. First, I helped my husband rather than just giving strict clean instructions and worked my way up to making dishes myself. We can both see the humor in some of my demands: Don’t touch this or that; Did you wash your hands? Did I touch that? What if I did? One time, after I had finally gotten to the point of putting together a dish myself, I threw out two sets of pickles and olives before I finally got it right.

Years ago, I went to an OCD support group. I took cookies I had baked. That was my challenge. Another woman’s challenge was eating food she considered possibly contaminated. What to do? She touched the floor with a cookie and ate it!

Those days seem like a lifetime away. Today, I entertain. We have people over for dinner. I prepare food for others. The fears have vanished. I applied exposure and response prevention to my fears. And I prayed and gave my fears to God. With time, I reached a point where I felt comfortable with the risks. The rewards of fellowship with friends, helping others, having a festive atmosphere created by shared meals, etc – all this made the risks seem fewer.

How will you challenge your OCD this Thanksgiving?

New Book Lauched

Check out my page at Author Central on Amazon.com. Every blog entry should be showing up there too. If I plugged in the RSS feed correctly. We’ll see. I’m kind of guessing at all this. My coauthor Bruce Hyman and I are launching The OCD Workbook, Third Edition. Since it was first published in 1999, The OCD Workbook has sold more than 100,000 copies and emerged as one of the most popular resources for people seeking to overcome obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

This new edition has been fully revised and updated with the latest research findings on the causes of OCD, advancements in medications for the disorder, and new promising treatments including mindfulness-based stress reduction and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). Additionally, this third edition features additional material to help family members deal more positively and effectively with OCD in a loved one. It explains how children with OCD can be effectively treated, and offers steps for parents to help their children overcome OCD.

The OCD Workbook, Third Edition is now available. Since it was first published in 1999,The OCD Workbook has sold more than 100,000 copies and emerged as one of the most popular resources for people seeking to overcome obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

This new edition has been fully revised and updated with the latest research findings on the causes of OCD, advancements in medications for the disorder, and new promising treatments including mindfulness-based stress reduction and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). Additionally, this third edition features additional material to help family members deal more positively and effectively with OCD in a loved one. It explains how children with OCD can be effectively treated, and offers steps for parents to help their children overcome OCD.

Breaking Free

In the last few years I haven’t had a presence on the Internet. No blog. My website hasn’t been updated. I haven’t been on OCD email lists. Why? It has to do with how I identify myself.
As a Christian I’ve always, first of all, found my identity in Christ, as a child of God. This sustained me through my struggle with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). In 1994, I was diagnosed with OCD. I still identified myself as a Christian and as a wife, mother and nurse, but more and more I identified myself as a person with OCD.

The first book I coauthored was titled The OCD Workbook, Your Guide to Breaking Free from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and I considered myself to be breaking free. When Bruce Hyman and I revised it in 2005 I identified less with OCD because it was taking up so little of my life. Now, as we’re completing the third edition of The OCD Workbook, I can say I have broken free. Not cured – there is no cure and I must be vigilant. But free of the grip OCD once had on my life.

Now, instead of withdrawing from being identified with OCD, I’m more willing to embrace it. With this blog I want to celebrate breaking free and give people hope that they too can break free.