It's not easy to explain. This first time I realised she had a bigger problem than she was letting on to was when I cleared what I mistakenly thought was a pile of old TV weekly magazines. I hadn't thrown them away as such but moved them next to the bin in a recycle bag. Her reaction was a lot of anger and almost frenzied panic, which was awful to see. She just completely lost it. It goes deeper but also quite personal and I believe her hoarding and OCD was caused by losing someone close to her at an early age. Incredibly tough to live with but I was also aware that she was suffering far more than I was on a day to day basis.
Okay, so what it sounds like to me is that it's OCD that's the main problem/illness and hoarding is just a symptom of this. It's easier for me to understand now, I get it
Yep OCD is the illness, hoarding is a symptom. Some people I’ve worked with who have OCD have described the behaviours as being able to have some control over events in their life. As in general they feel that they have no control over their life or events that happen to them.
Interestingly the woman's house I went into who was a proper hoarder. Hers was caused by the loss of her husband and then her son died about 2 years later. I met her brother who was trying to help her downsize. I've never seen so much stuff. Also once sold a house of a hoarder who had died in a house fire caused by the amount of stuff in his house. He couldn't get out. Place was full of newspapers.
