Do you horde things?

[kealina]

Originally Posted by Ima saver

I would like to hoard money and throw it all in one room and roll around in it.

lol.... ima McDuck and her money bin...

[JanH]

Thank you, Kealina. It has been an enlightening and often hilarious process. But is it sad to watch my dad. He is such an awesome man, but he can't let go of anything! Drives my mom crazy because she is so neat and organized. My grandmother was a very intelligent teacher. From middle age to her death, she hoarded until they just had to abandon her home. You guys are right. If it was stuff you used, it would make sense. But they don't even know for sure what all they have and they can't find it if they wanted to. So they get more. And they often keep used things that should just be thrown away. I can remember finding a pile of used razor blades in my grandmother's house. In some people it is indeed an illness. As a lot of people say, you have to let go of some things before other things can come into your life.

[JanH]

Originally Posted by kealina

lol.... ima McDuck and her money bin...

THAT'S the name I was trying to think of!

[JanH]

By the way, my grandmother lived on her farm so abandoning her home wasn't like being in the city. The family still uses the fields, but the house is abandoned.

[kealina]

[quote=JanH]Thank you, Kealina. It has been an enlightening and often hilarious process.
QUOTE]

i don't know how much you've looked into it but there's a website for children of hoarders... it's got a lot of information about coping when your parent is a hoarder...

[JanH]

Kealina--A website! Didn't think of that. Do you know what it is?

[kealina]

i'm not very familiar with these websites, haven't been to the second two but i ran across them when i was googling and found the children of hoarders group... i'm don't have parents like that but i was mostly interested because my best friends mom hoards and some distant in-laws (now deceased) hoarded and i wanted to learn more about the family dynamics....

this is the first website
www.childrenofhoarders.com

they have a forum which i've never been at so i don't know how it is and also a yahoo group...
www.childrenofhoarders.com/forum

i think this one is for children of hoarders who are trying to break the cycle... http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/COHBTC/

i'm sure there's more if you google but these are the ones i'd seen... hope they help...

[Bookie]

No, I don't hoard. Like others have said, I keep an abundance of food in the pantry, but I also use and rotate my stock. Similarly, I pick up multiples of the toiletries and paper goods that I use when the price is right.

Most of my excess centers around my closets. I've been shifting from summer to winter clothing this week, and I am reminded yet again that I am probably not going to live long enough to wear out all I own. Similarly, I wrestle with an over-abundance of bath and bed linens.

And one of these days (weeks, months) I'm going to do a massive purge. It's been about five years since the last, and I'm overdue.

[JanH]

Wow. thanks Kealina. I never got real bad, and my father's is confined to outbuildings and storage. (Several of them.) But his mother's house looked sorta like that. It was sad. I feel so bad for those who live like that.

[mountainmist]

Originally Posted by Bookie

No, I don't hoard. Like others have said, I keep an abundance of food in the pantry, but I also use and rotate my stock. Similarly, I pick up multiples of the toiletries and paper goods that I use when the price is right.

Most of my excess centers around my closets. I've been shifting from summer to winter clothing this week, and I am reminded yet again that I am probably not going to live long enough to wear out all I own. Similarly, I wrestle with an over-abundance of bath and bed linens.

And one of these days (weeks, months) I'm going to do a massive purge. It's been about five years since the last, and I'm overdue.

I rotate all the linens and towels, and most of the towels finally become rags, I donate the sheets & pillowcases while there is still some life left in them, but not much.

We have too many for our household, but with the prices of brand new sheet sets so high, I just can't purge this type of necessity.

I hope that you will start a new thread about purging the linen closet, it's something I can keep organized, with everything fresh & clean, but it's ALOT.

[mountainmist]

Originally Posted by Bookie

No, I don't hoard. Like others have said, I keep an abundance of food in the pantry, but I also use and rotate my stock. Similarly, I pick up multiples of the toiletries and paper goods that I use when the price is right.

Most of my excess centers around my closets. I've been shifting from summer to winter clothing this week, and I am reminded yet again that I am probably not going to live long enough to wear out all I own. Similarly, I wrestle with an over-abundance of bath and bed linens.

And one of these days (weeks, months) I'm going to do a massive purge. It's been about five years since the last, and I'm overdue.

I rotate all the linens and towels, and most of the towels finally become rags, I donate the sheets & pillowcases while there is still some life left in them, but not much.

We have too many for our household, but with the prices of brand new sheet sets so high, I just can't purge this type of necessity.

I hope that you will start a new thread about purging the linen closet, it's something I can keep organized, with everything fresh & clean, but it's ALOT.

[mountainmist]

Five personality traits were independently associated with hoarding:

http://www.childrenofhoarders.com/fo...rder=0&thold=0

miserliness,
preoccupation with details,
difficulty making decisions,
odd behavior or appearance,
and magical thinking.



Hoarding and indecision were more prevalent in the relatives of hoarding than of non-hoarding probands. Hoarding in relatives was associated with indecision in probands, independently of proband hoarding status.

The findings suggest that hoarding behavior may help differentiate a distinct clinical subgroup of people with OCD and may aggregate in some OCD families. Indecision may be a risk factor for hoarding in these families.

[mountainmist]

Five personality traits were independently associated with hoarding:

http://www.childrenofhoarders.com/fo...rder=0&thold=0

miserliness,
preoccupation with details,
difficulty making decisions,
odd behavior or appearance,
and magical thinking.



Hoarding and indecision were more prevalent in the relatives of hoarding than of non-hoarding probands. Hoarding in relatives was associated with indecision in probands, independently of proband hoarding status.

The findings suggest that hoarding behavior may help differentiate a distinct clinical subgroup of people with OCD and may aggregate in some OCD families. Indecision may be a risk factor for hoarding in these families.

[JanH]

Originally Posted by mountainmist

Five personality traits were independently associated with hoarding:

http://www.childrenofhoarders.com/fo...rder=0&thold=0

miserliness,
preoccupation with details,
difficulty making decisions,
odd behavior or appearance,
and magical thinking.



Hoarding and indecision were more prevalent in the relatives of hoarding than of non-hoarding probands. Hoarding in relatives was associated with indecision in probands, independently of proband hoarding status.

The findings suggest that hoarding behavior may help differentiate a distinct clinical subgroup of people with OCD and may aggregate in some OCD families. Indecision may be a risk factor for hoarding in these families.

My father is preoccupied with details--he's a draftsman and decision problems. Although he used to be worse about his money, he is now a sweetly generous person. My grandmother fit those characteristics a whole lot more. Since I never got real bad, I know my appearance never became odd, and my kids know I never got miserly(I was such a pushover) so maybe I really didn't have beginning hoarding--just too much stuff! I did have decision problems.

[mountainmist]

Originally Posted by JanH

My father is preoccupied with details--he's a draftsman and decision problems. Although he used to be worse about his money, he is now a sweetly generous person. My grandmother fit those characteristics a whole lot more. Since I never got real bad, I know my appearance never became odd, and my kids know I never got miserly(I was such a pushover) so maybe I really didn't have beginning hoarding--just too much stuff! I did have decision problems.

I was amazed when I read what the current research found to be distinguishing characteristics of clinical hoarders.

I helped a friend clean out their parents' home a few years back, and I tell ya, it was downright scary... the garage, the attic, the basement, the closets, the drawers, the cupboards, the shelves & shelves & more shelves.

I won't go into further details, but I really did 'jump' - a bit startled when I read, miserly because frankly, truthfully & honestly, the persons who I now suspect of being clinical hoarders, the truth is that they are miserly, downright stingy, almost to the point of an early poster to this thread described as, SELFISH. And sometimes outright rude, and they don't even realize it.

While most people are pretty carefree & generous, and giving of themselves, but the stingy clinical hoarder has such clinical difficulty giving anybody anything.

I've noticed through the years that some will even learn what specific items you have absolutely NO interest in, and then offer & re-offer those items to you repeatedly, so as to LOOK "generous," and that they literally never ever pick up the restaurant tab, unless they are trying to impress someone they respect.

It is simply scary to realize that these ugly personality traits are due to an actual physical abnormality, and that they also are pretty common.

[mountainmist]

Originally Posted by JanH

My father is preoccupied with details--he's a draftsman and decision problems. Although he used to be worse about his money, he is now a sweetly generous person. My grandmother fit those characteristics a whole lot more. Since I never got real bad, I know my appearance never became odd, and my kids know I never got miserly(I was such a pushover) so maybe I really didn't have beginning hoarding--just too much stuff! I did have decision problems.

I was amazed when I read what the current research found to be distinguishing characteristics of clinical hoarders.

I helped a friend clean out their parents' home a few years back, and I tell ya, it was downright scary... the garage, the attic, the basement, the closets, the drawers, the cupboards, the shelves & shelves & more shelves.

I won't go into further details, but I really did 'jump' - a bit startled when I read, miserly because frankly, truthfully & honestly, the persons who I now suspect of being clinical hoarders, the truth is that they are miserly, downright stingy, almost to the point of an early poster to this thread described as, SELFISH. And sometimes outright rude, and they don't even realize it.

While most people are pretty carefree & generous, and giving of themselves, but the stingy clinical hoarder has such clinical difficulty giving anybody anything.

I've noticed through the years that some will even learn what specific items you have absolutely NO interest in, and then offer & re-offer those items to you repeatedly, so as to LOOK "generous," and that they literally never ever pick up the restaurant tab, unless they are trying to impress someone they respect.

It is simply scary to realize that these ugly personality traits are due to an actual physical abnormality, and that they also are pretty common.

[JanH]

I guess my dad isn't clinical then. that's good news. He quietly pays for things and is generous to all of us without any fanfare at all. I guess the only person he is really a miser with is my mom. She does have to buy a lot of her own stuff including carpet and appliances cos he wouldn't buy them. But that is improving. To the rest of us, he is a kind soul.