The tendency to hoard occurs in people who deliberately store things and are constantly buying or wanting new things. This behavior can cause social, economic, and health problems. People with hoarding disorder sometimes realize that they have a problem, but must reach a point of awareness of the need and desire for help, in order to regain control of their lives. Without such awareness and intention, it is difficult to force a hoarder to seek help or to get rid of his stockpiled items. If you know a hoarder who admits he has a problem, you can support and teach him, help his recovery process, and help clean up the mess his behavior has caused.
Step
Method 1 of 1: Providing Support
Step 1. Make an ear to listen to your loved ones
The most important thing in supporting a hoarder is to listen without judging or judging. Listening can help him understand and process difficult feelings and thoughts. Instead of offering a spontaneous solution, ask clear questions that can help the person think for themselves. Ask with a motivating attitude in order to achieve a real solution or help.
Ask why the person wants to keep a lot of stuff. Hoarders often keep things because they believe in their sentimental value, usefulness (they think they can use them again at a later date), and their intrinsic value (they feel they are good or interesting). Ask questions about why he collects or keeps each item
Step 2. Try to be patient with your loved ones
It can be sometimes difficult to understand why your loved one can't be separated from some things that are actually trash to you. However, hold your tongue and be aware that he may not be ready to part with the item yet.
Realize that if your loved one does have hoarding disorder (HD), he or she will need time to heal
Step 3.
Consider and encourage him to undergo treatment.
If your loved one claims to need expert help, ask if he or she would like help in choosing a therapist. If she's confused between wanting to seek help and being afraid to talk to strangers about her personal problems, offer to attend a moral support therapy session or two.
- The best form of help for people with HD is therapy by a psychologist, marriage and family therapy, or therapy by a psychiatrist.
- Keep in mind that a hoarder may not want to be treated. Don't force this idea on him.
Determine the treatment options. The most common form of therapy to treat hoarding disorder is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). CBT for hoarders focuses on changing thoughts that previously tended to keep adding to the hoarding, with the aim of reducing negative feelings and decreasing hoarding behavior. A hoarder usually shows a positive response to CBT. Several group therapy options are also starting to emerge at this time.
- Online help and support groups have been shown to help people recover from hoarding
- Explore available medical treatment options. Several types of drugs that have been used in prescription medication for hoarders, for example, are “Paxil”. Consult a psychiatrist for additional information or options for psychotropic drugs.
Encouraging the Recovery Process
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Give additional knowledge to the hoarder. After showing adequate support, additional knowledge about the psychological side of hoarding may be the best first step in helping your loved one. Understand that hoarding is associated with a very messy pile of items, difficulty getting rid of items, and excessive addition of new items. Due to the increasing number of cases of this hoarding behavior, Hoarding Disorder (HD) has been added to the list of mental disorders in the latest revised version of the manual “Diagnosis and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders” (DSM-5), which is the basic reference for all mental health diagnoses.
Help a Hoarder Step 5 - First and foremost, hoarding can pose health and safety risks. Explain to your loved ones that hoarding is dangerous behavior because stockpiling will prevent us from getting to the exit in an emergency, is against general fire prevention rules, and can promote the growth of harmful mold and bacteria in the home. This habit can also cause various complications in daily activities, such as walking, moving here and there, looking for certain objects, eating, sleeping, and using the laundry or bathroom.
- Hoarding can have repercussions in the form of social isolation, damaged relationships, legal and financial problems, debt, and damage to housing.
- Some problems related to hoarding behavior, for example, are negative thoughts that are not constructive such as perfectionism and fear of regret for throwing away existing information or items, being too attached to material objects, reduced attention span, and reduced ability to make decisions.
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Use a firm communication style. Being assertive means saying what you're thinking and feeling while still being respectful and kind to the other person. Discuss your feelings with your loved one about hoarding, and any specific concerns you have about their health and safety.
Help a Hoarder Step 6 Explain your concerns and set boundaries. Explain that you will not continue to live or stay in the house if the house is unsafe or unsanitary (if this is a visible condition)
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Offer your help. Let your loved one know that you are willing to help him if he is open to help. Be aware that hoarders can have very strong emotional reactions when asked to get rid of objects they have collected.
Help a Hoarder Step 7 Assess the person's level of openness to your help. You might say, “I know you've been thinking about this hoarding habit for a long time, and I've been thinking about it too. I'm here to help you if you want. What do you think?" If the person responds negatively and says, “Oh, no. I don't want you to force me to throw away these valuables of mine," You should retreat temporarily. If the person says something like, "Yeah, I'll think about that," give him some space and time to decide if he wants you to help him. You can talk to him again at another time
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Help him set a target. A hoarder needs to have specific targets to set in the future in order to successfully reduce hoarding behavior. This helps him organize his thoughts and plans related to reducing his stockpile. Hoarders will need help with motivation, organization, avoiding adding new items, and getting rid of piles.
Help a Hoarder Step 8 Write down a specific goal you set with your loved one. This list might include things like reducing the pile of things, being able to move around easily in the living room, stop buying new things, and clearing the warehouse
Clearing Hoards
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Develop an action plan. To reduce hoarding, you must first help your loved one build skills and come up with a plan to organize his or her belongings. Discuss this plan with the hoarder and offer suggestions if he or she is open to it.
Help a Hoarder Step 9 - Identify specific criteria as a guide for deciding to keep or get rid of each of these items. Ask him the criteria: what items he wants to get rid of and what items he wants to keep. You should be able to say, “Let's try to come up with a plan that will help us use our time effectively. Would you mind making a list of reasons to keep these things together? What types of items do you really need to keep? What kind of items do you want to get rid of?” Make sure that your loved one is still open to help, and if he or she accepts this idea, you can move forward with the plan together.
- Make a list of criteria for items to be stored and disposed of. Perhaps, this list will look like this: Saved, if this item is needed for survival or everyday life, or if it is a family heirloom; Throw away/sell/donate, if this item is not currently used or has not been used for the past six months. Group and organize the items that are kept and those that are removed.
- Talk about the storage location and disposal system of the items. Choose a temporary location when sorting items. Sort the items into categories: trash, recycle, donate, or sell.
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Encourage problem-solving skills in the hoarder. There are special skills needed in the recovery process for hoarding, such as organizational skills and decision-making techniques. Help the hoarder decide on the rules he needs to follow when it comes to adding, storing, and disposing of items.
Help a Hoarder Step 10 Don't just choose which items to throw away, but let the hoarder make his own decisions based on the criteria you put together. If he's in doubt, help him look back at his list of reasons to keep or get rid of an item. You can ask, “Is this item necessary for everyday life, has it been used for the past six months, or is it a family heirloom?”
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Practice getting rid of things. Focus on one step at a time. Instead of trying to clean the entire house in one day, try starting in one of the less "worrying" rooms. Make a plan to organize things systematically, for example based on the location of the room, or the type of room, or the type of item.
Help a Hoarder Step 11 - Start with the easy items, then move on to the more difficult items. Ask the person where is the easiest place to start, that is, the place where he feels the easiest to work on without causing him emotional problems.
- Always ask permission first before touching any of the person's stockpiled items.
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Ask or pay someone who can help with the process. Sometimes, clearing up piles of stuff takes a lot of time and a grueling emotional process. Fortunately, there are specialized services that specialize in cleaning, hoarding, and disposal training. Look for information in your local newspaper or do an internet search to find such a service in your area.
Help a Hoarder Step 12 If you find that the cost of the service is beyond your means and budget, you can just ask friends or family for help. Ask for help by asking, “He needs our help in cleaning up his pile of stuff, do you think you have a day or two to help clean his house and throw away some of his stuff?”
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Help the hoarder to avoid adding new items. Help your loved one identify the problems that will arise with the behavior of collecting new items.
Help a Hoarder Step 13 - Work with your loved one to move from situations that are easier to those that are more difficult to handle, such as driving past a shop, standing near a store entrance, walking through a store/shopping/mall, looking at shops that stock goods. the desired item, comes into physical contact with the desired item, and leaves the store without buying the item.
- Ask questions that can help him build alternative thoughts about the usefulness or benefits of the item he wants to get. For example, you might ask, “Are you going to use this item? Can you live without this stuff? What are the advantages and disadvantages of having this item?”
- Help him make rules for acquiring new items, i.e. only if they are immediately usable, if he has enough money to buy them, and has enough space/area in the house to store them.
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Help the hoarder move forward by taking one small step at a time in the recovery process. When therapy begins, the person will be given small tasks to do independently in between scheduled sessions, such as cleaning a certain corner of the room or cupboard. Offer to help by holding onto boxes or bags for items to be removed, but don't clean up the area yourself. Part of this recovery process is that the hoarder has to be the one to make the decisions about which items to keep and which ones to get rid of.
Help a Hoarder Step 14 -
Know that sometimes there will be setbacks. A hoarder who manages to clear his closet may not be able to throw anything away the next day. Depending on the condition, the recovery period may last from a week to a year or more, before significant and consistent progress occurs.
Help a Hoarder Step 15 Learn More about Hoarding Tendencies
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Know the possible causes of hoarding. Hoarding is carried out by 2-5% of those over the age of 18. Hoarding is related to alcohol dependence, paranoia, schizotypal disorder (like to think things that are not real/superstitious), avoidant behavior, and obsessive compulsive personality disorder, insecurity about robbery, and excessive physical discipline before the age of 16 years., as well as a psychopathic parental background. Hoarding behavior can also be the result of a person depending on items that remind him or her of someone who has died, or to retain special memories in the past. Hoarding also tends to run in families, especially among women.
Help a Hoarder Step 16 Those who suffer from hoarding disorder may have brain abnormalities that eventually make it difficult to identify the true emotional value of an item and have difficulty having normal emotional reactions or controlling emotions when making decisions (when buying, storing, or getting rid of an item)
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Be aware of the negative effects of hoarding. People who hoard may experience being evicted or threatened with expulsion, being overweight, skipping work, and experiencing medical and mental health problems.
Help a Hoarder Step 17 -
Keep in mind that the hoarding annoyance may not go away completely. As with many types of disease, the goal is to learn to control chaos, not that this tendency will go away and never come back. That person you love may always be tempted to hoard more. Your role as a friend or family member is to help the hoarder discern the temptation by examining his impulses for the benefits of the item.
Help a Hoarder Step 18
Tips
- While many documentaries about hoarding behavior show that the process of eliminating this nuisance can be carried out at a rapid pace, until the hoarder's home is completely cleared of unimportant objects, this is often not the case. Therapy aimed at addressing the hidden root cause that triggers hoarding is essential in the recovery process, and it can take a long time. Cleaning the house is important, but it's not the end of the journey.
- A hoarder will step forward at his own pace. It's important to support your loved one whenever he's moving forward and not judge him when he's going down. As with many other types of mental disorders, a combination of time, therapy, and sometimes medical treatment, is needed in addition to real support from loved ones, in order for these behavioral tendencies to be overcome.
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