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Las Vegas Review-Journal
At least 15 truckloads of items were hauled from Kenneth Epstein's home on Oct. 5, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
Reality TV has brought national attention to hoarding, and now a recent change in the influential psychiatric diagnosis guide may actually bring help for millions of Americans suffering from the isolating condition.
Hoarding – a psychological condition that can result in homes crammed floor to ceiling with papers, junk mail, books, clothing and other “valuables”-- has been associated with obsessive-compulsive behavior, although experts have long held that the two disorders aren’t necessarily connected.
In the revised, fifth edition of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), "hoarding disorder" becomes a separate diagnosis, characterized by a "persistent difficulty discarding or parting with possessions, regardless of their actual value."
The revised diagnosis should “result in more people having access to treatment," says Randy Frost, a professor of psychology at Smith College who specializes in hoarding issues. "Right now, there are very few clinicians who know how to treat it. Once it shows up in DSM, there will be much more pressure on clinicians to train in how to treat this problem."
Hoarding isn’t just a messy garage or packed closet. According to the APA, it's defined by its harmful effects -- emotional, physical, social, financial and even legal -- both on the hoarder and the hoarder's family members.
Hoarding is “a disorder that involves the living areas of the home being so cluttered they can't be used for their intended purpose,” says Frost, co-author of Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things.
Set to publish in May, the DSM is a guide doctors use to diagnose mental disorders. DSM codes are also used for insurance reimbursements and certain research grants.
Rachel Kramer Bussel, a 37-year-old writer and editor from Brooklyn, says she's long had hoarding tendencies, although she only recently came clean about them in an essay on Salon.com, a difficult step considering the stigma surrounding the disorder.
"I think people's only reference point is reality TV," says Bussel, who hasn't sought treatment but has worked with a personal organizer. "They think all hoarders are literally crazy cat ladies or people who don't function in the rest of society."
Las Vegas Review-Journal
Rachel Kramer Bussel carries two large bag stuffed with belongings that give her comfort.
Bussel hoards books, clothing and other items at home; she also carries around at least two large bags stuffed with belongings she says give her "comfort". She says she hopes the new classification will help others become more accepting of the often-misunderstood disorder.
The most common reaction to a hoarding confession is, "'Just get rid of everything. Get a dumpster and throw it all out and then you won't be a hoarder,'" Bussel says.
In fact, recent research finds abnormal brain activity in people with hoarding disorder.
There’s no hard evidence that hoarding is increasing, although certain societal factors -- such as the abundance of junk mail, our materialistic mindset, and an aging population (getting older increases the chance that a person will experience trauma or loss that contributes to hoarding) -- may translate into more hoarders, says David Kutz, an Albuquerque clinical psychologist specializing in hoarding and OCD.
At least 4 million people in the U.S. would meet full criteria for hoarding, according to Kutz. Other data suggests between 2.5 to 6 percent of the U.S. adult population, or up to a 15 million people, may have hoarding disorder, says Frost, who conducted the first-ever study of hoarding in the U.S. in 1993. “That’s a whopping number," Frost says.
Many hoarders don't recognize the problem. About “90 percent are sent by family members or a city counsel or the local sheriff,” says Kutz, who has appeared on A&E’s “Hoarders” three times.
While experts and hoarders alike say they believe the new DSM classification will help hoarders get better treatment, Frost stresses there is no "magic pill."
"We don't know yet whether there are medications that might be useful for this," he says. "But that's one of the things that will happen now that it's in the DSM. There will be an interest in researching this."
Until then, hoarders can get help overcoming their urge to acquire and save through cognitive behavior therapy and/or peer support groups, a form of treatment that greatly helped Lee Shuer, a 37-year-old mental health worker from Northampton, Mass.
"My mindset has completely changed," says Shuer, who began facilitating hoarding peer support groups after his hoarding habit went into "remission.” "I'm at the point where I can go to places where I used to acquire things - tag sales and thrift shops - and not buy anything. I can come across things that used to make my heart race but they don't turn me on any more. The thrill for excess is gone."
For more on hoarding:
OCFoundation.org's Hoarding Center
More health news from NBCNews.com:
Hoarding horror-100 cats found in freezer
'Asperger's disorder' being dropped from psychiatrists' diagnostic guide
Leave a Comment:
In the face of all we know Id call it logical. Im old enough to have known a lot of people who lived through the Great Depression both as children and adults. One of my inlaws was in her 80s in the 60s. She saved everything. String, newspapers, you name it. Studying them would be to our benefit now. We are facing the worst social and economic upheaval of our time. Prepare Prepare Prepare.
Keeping thousands of used adult diapers and a refusal to acknowledge that your personal habits have resulted in hazardous, toxic "living" conditions is hardly something to emulate. My grandma always had a recycled bakery box on hand to send cookies home, but she knew when to let go. The few people still living who experienced the Great Depression kept items that had some durability - newspaper was heavier, household items were designed to be able to be repaired, and most people had at least some idea of how to accomplish that repair. Keeping vast amounts of today's throwaway crap is dangerous and pointless, and rightfully designated as a mental disorder.
Diagnose me: I was the most shy person in K-12, had no confidence, am an introvert perfectionist, graduated from college but my career went nowhere because I was bound to the approval of the leaders of a cult-like church and couldn't leave. I hoard paper, clothes, outdoor gear, misc things, and have no motivation to de-clutter the house. I hate my life but do get thrills out of being an obnoxious troll online at times.
Are you still involved with that church? If you truly want to change your life, seek help for what sounds like depression to me.
OK, here's your "diagnosis": You're hiding.
PEOPLE, Google OBSESIVE-COMPULSIVE DISORDER and GLUTEN connection .You will be so much surprised!!!!! And, REMEMBER, this kind of disease has nothing to do with money or
Mr.B.Obama .
I have severe OCD but I'm definitely not a hoarder. I have no problem throwing away things and clean my house for at least an hour a day. Sometimes crazy is just crazy, those people live in filth, there's no other way to put it.
I imagine the life of a hoarder would be a nightmare. All that stuff must cause it's own type of stress.
However, please don't make 'hoarder' the next buzz word.
There is another group of people, the label of which I don't know. Perhaps 'pack rat'.
We are the people that keep 'stuff'. We see a future use for it. Nails, screws, washers, switch plates, boards, you name it, we probably have it. There is a level of organization, though not perfect order.
As a child, my family moved frequently. Mom would 'lighten the load'. This meant that while I was at school, she would go through all of my possessions, and indiscriminently throw out everything SHE though had no value. I had no input. It was gone when I got home. As a result, I never had anything. For example, we moved from upstate NY to Charlotte, NC. We moved south. She threw out my ice skates. As it happened, there was an indoor ice rink less than a mile away. I never skated again. She threw our all of our coats. Four days later, Mom ended up buying new coats for us all.
My husband grew up very poor. The youngest of 7 children. If he can't fix it, it ain't broke, as the saying goes.
We are poor. We use our stuff. We can't afford to go buy a shiny new this or that. But when I have a need for something, I think about how to accomplish my need, and I go look around at our supply of stuff. Invariably, I find what I need! I believe this comes under the heading of 'active re-use'.
Those same people that laugh/shake their heads at us never hesitate to ask if we have a this or that, or can we fix whatever it is that needs fixing. They are usually amazed at how easy it is to fix something, or even the fact that it can be fixed!
A niece says I'm amazing. She says, "I'd never thought of that! And it works so well!"
Guess I'll keep collecting stuff and amazing people...kinda makes one feel good when someone looks at you like you're Superwoman!!
Does this mean I should get rid of my old Tax Records now?
No, only those over 4 years old. IRS can go back 3 years to audit, and some states can go more. Anything beyond that, you don't need. If something comes up and you need an old return, IRS often has copies (for a fee).
As for records, always keep anything related to property or stock/bond purchases until three years after you have sold or disposed of the property. House settlement statement, auto sales invoice, equipment sales slips.
Wow.. another "diagnosis" to create drugs and therapy regimens for.... and of course income for the "doctors" who will be treating it.
We have become a country that believes as long as there is a "diagnosis" or a name for the "condition" it is OK. ADHD, OCD, Anxiety and the llist goes on and on are now excuses to do the unacceptable, dangerous and plain wrong. We give our kids drugs so they are "normal," allow them to act out and blame it on the "imbalance" and tell them "it's OK, it's not your fault." We blame out problems on someone or something else...... and of course just give 'em a pill.
The author calls it "Hoarding". It's MORE POPULARLY known as being a PACK RAT. Let's face it......we TEND to save things.....THINKING that we are "saving" money.....by NOT having to "repurchase" the same item AGAIN......in the FUTURE.
In other words.......ANYTIME WE NEED that ITEM.....it's there for the "taking". The problem is.....would we "take the trouble".........to search our "pack rat space" to see if we could use it again?
The problem here is that....."Repurchasing" that item.....IS NOT really going to drive us into BANKRUPTCY. WE just "think" it's a GOOD WAY to save money....by not having to "buy" that item again.
I use to have a friend named JERRY. I went to his apartment once......and LO and BEHOLD......he had NEWSPAPERS stacked all the way to the ceiling....(Probably thinking he could TURN THAT INTO CASH..)......SOMEDAY.....but really......NEVER GETTING AROUND TO DOING IT AT ALL.
He was a good HANDYMAN. So....he explained to me one day.....he "needed" to save ITEMS....."For future use"........but in reality.....while he was buying the same item in the store......"it was just too much trouble".....going home to get it. So, his ORIGINAL PURPOSE of "saving money" without having to "repurchase" the same item....again.....really wasn't working.
Hence.....his "pack rat" MENTALITY.
And....IT GOES....ON AND ON.......FOR EVER.
Ah, Ralph, I put that realization to use everytime that I clean out the garage. I can save that little one dollar screw, hardware, ring, whatever for a time in the future when I might need it. Or, I can just go out and spend another dollar should the need arise.
I choose the latter. Why clutter up my space for an inexpensive item that I may never need? Too many of them do accumulate. Often, at the hardware store, that item can only be purchased in a package with four others. But, I only need one.
Most people who save for future use can never find it if they need it. I have a friend like that, too. It just drives his wife completely over the top.
Hoard.
Whore'd
That's what causes it.
I'm disturbed by the lack of compassion displayed in many of these posts here. Hoarding is a real disorder that the afflicted does not choose. There is a need for treatment, not some kind of flippant response that shows ignorance. Concerning the ideas expressed about envy of the rich, there is nothing wrong with wealth itself, if it is used properly. This may include helping the less fortunate who are that way through no fault of their own, as well as paying a higher portion of their income in taxes. To do so still leaves the rich with plenty of money to live on & plenty to create jobs if they are so inclined.
There is a treatment for it and it doesn't include medication. All the person has to do is change their lifestyle.
Or in the immortal words of the movie Platoon, "Free you a$$ and your mind will follow"
That's like telling a crack head, if you want a rich fulfilling life off drugs just stop smoking crack. . .
Not that easy.
Maybe there is a diagnosis in the DSM for you goldfish...
It's just a guess. I don't know for sure what causes it, but I thought it was really curious that the two words sound the similar.
Yes, my diagnosis is radiated frankenfish.
Secondary axis diagnosis is pizza deprivation. I haven't had pizza in a week.
It makes a dragon irritable in incoherent.
There are seven sacred things in this world, and one of them happens to be another dragon's pizza.
3rd Axis diagnosis is more intelligent than legislators in Colorado preparing to legalize drugmarijuana use when a google search will show you that marijuana can cause psychosis after a psychotic kid just wasted 12 people in a movie theater.
Dragons possess more sanity and intelligence than Babylon legislators in Colorado.
The feds are right to oppose this.
Is it possible for this disorder to be hereditary? My grandmother (mom's side) had an issue with hoarding, and now my mother does. She has three vehicles (all of them mini vans or larger) that are packed full of stuff everywhere but the driver's seat, and even then stuff finds it's way there. A garage full of stuff, a shed and not to mention just useless crap laying around her back yard. I don't even want to begin to start with the house. As a child growing up it was pretty painful having friends, we never went to my house we always had to go somewhere else. In high school, having a girlfriend was just as awkward when it came to 'meeting my parents'. When I first saw the show, I felt a little better knowing that there were other people with the same condition. Her "collecting" usually begins with getting things for a "project" "recipe" or a "business" all of which usually end up somewhere and then lost in a house full of shattered dreams, and goals that are never met. Are all these excuses normal among hoarders? I'm more concerned about my father his health has been steadily declining the past few years and he has trouble getting around wide open hallways, let alone a cluttered house with literally "trails" going from room to room. I want to help them but my method would probably do more harm than good. If it were up to me, I'd just rent a giant dumpster and throw everything away. It's all trash to me, but I know she sees everything as something she'll one day use that she spent money on. .
abawr, you have hit a nail squarely on the head when you said, "--a house full of shattered dreams and goals that are never met". What a burden to live under!
The same thought occurred to me when I read your post, that you have struck the heart of the matter. I totally sympathize with not being able to bring friends to your home. My sisters and I had a similar problem. We never knew if our alcoholic father would be happy drunk or insanely drunk, so we NEVER brought friends home.
Abawr, I sympathize with your situation, and I know you know that someday, the mess will be yours to clean up. I also understand your temptation to rent a dumpster and trash everything. My situation is a bit different in that my parents are both in a nursing home, will never return to their house, and have given me free reign to do what I think is best. My parents long ago lost their will to live. They have essentially been dead for 20 years; it's just that their hearts haven't stopped beating yet. My personal temptation when I walked into their cluttered and filthy house was to find some gasoline, spread it around the house, strike a match and walk away. I think it was only the possibility of jail time for arson that prevented me from doing just that...... ;>) Seriously though, I do understand how you feel. When the time comes that you have to deal with this, just try to take one small step at a time cleaning it up. In this case, looking at the big picture is just too overwhelming. Good luck.
About 10 years after my sister suffered a traumatic brain injury she became a hoarder. I've always felt there was a connection. Society has a hard time accepting this disorder, hopefully these people can benefit from this new diagnosis in the DSM.
Usually some kind of trauma or big loss is involved. It makes it seem like compensation for the loss. Obviously many people do have trauma or loss and don't develop this disorder, so it must not be a universal thing--just one of the many ways of trying to cope. Only it goes down the wrong path...
A friend of mine whos daughter and son in law bought a hoarders house. She was put in a home and her kids didnt want anything to do with the place it was packed floor to ceiling in almost every room and the garage. Her kids sold the house for 47k. Now this place was packed mind you just paths to get through the place. They worked for weeks on the place. Good news was she horaded some real treasures. They found over 60k in gold. bars coins rings brascelets you name it and it was scattered all over the house. Over 200 desinger purses tons of cd'a music and movies etc. They hit the jackpot when they bought that place.
Now you've done it. You just started a new gold rush.
As much as I would love to say that I don't believe in hoarders, I know of one person very dear to me that is one. Hoarding is no joke, and it doesn't just go away with cleaning out the place or telling a hoarder to get off their ass. If it did, this person wouldn't be a hoarder anymore because many, many times I have cleaned and sifted through and got rid of all of their crap only for them to get it back again. Telling a hoarder to quit saving crap is like telling a anorexic to just eat. It doesn't work.
If hoarding is to deemed a classifiable mental disorder, does it exist outside of a consumer society? Do people in the third world fall to this disorder? How universal is this?
Most of my suburban neighbors cannot use their garages. They are so full of excess junk.
America is awash in excess. Much of it really is stuff that can be useful. Most of us, though, have no use for it. The value that a hoarder puts on their stuff is mostly false because it is not needed stuff. There is so very, very much of it.
Not me. I love my spare and uncluttered house. You cannot possibly find any real value in anything if it is buried in junk. The fewer things that you surround yourself with, the more value you find in those few things. I would rather find value in one thing, than have 10 thingss with value potential piled in a corner, waiting for someone to find value in them.
Not true read my above post. Not all hoard crap trust me i seen it with my own eyes.
Dagen, of course there are exceptions. This sounds kind of fun to buy a house full of junk like that and to find treasures in it is just more intriguing.
But, really, most of a hoarders stash is garbage--- real garbage. Or, some of them do buy new things and you find the cleaners come in and find items with the sales tags still on them.
Most of the places are so dirty that the item would have to have some real redeeming quality to be valuable, and an ability to be cleaned.
Yes, there are bound to be some treasures! True.
A friend of mine had to go through her brother's apartment after he died. He was not a hoarder--he just didn't care about anything, so if it came into his house it just got dropped. He didn't buy things. Anyway, it soon became apparent that the paper couldn't just be stuffed in bags, because there were checks and cash in envelopes in the piles. She found hundreds of dollars before she was done.
"What you own ends up owning you." Tyler Durden, Fight Club
When you are finally cured, the shrink will have the fees you paid to use at the thrift store to pick up your unwittingly donated 9k print at a price of 12 bucks. The shrink will have a valuable artwork that will finally be appreciated, at the shrink's new house, the thrift store will have 12 bucks for a homeless shelter, and you will have plenty of space in case of a relapse.
It's a win, win, win. It's smart, especially in the shrink's opinion.
The problem is all in the mind of the beholder.
I'm going to bookmark this story and keep it forever. I might need it some day.
I think that many people view hoarders in much the same light that they view obese people. I think that they are perceived as being weak, sloppy, and needy and not as capable as others. They are seen, I think, as someone who is incapable of self direction and burdened with all manner of problems.
My 83 year old mother died this year. She had been a hoarder for the past 15 years or so. By the time she died, the usable space in her 4 bedroom house was a narrow channel from the kitchen to her recliner in the livingroom with just enough room to use the bathroom and slide into bed in her bedroom. Nothing anyone said could convince her that there was anything wrong with keeping rooms full of old junk mail and old clothing etc. As each generation in the family passed she would raid their estates and bring home their junk to further cram the house. We did everything we could to convince her to talk to someone about this but she refused and even eventually became convinced we were stealing from her. When we stayed on a visit sometimes we would wait until she was out shopping and would load bags and bags of garbage into our vehicles and run them up to the dump. When she passed earlier this year we found thousands of dollars of merchandise ordered from TV ads and get rich quick schemes stuffed in closets and drawers. If the shrinks have decided to take this problem seriously, maybe they could help someone break this habit in time to actually enjoy their elder years rather than grasping stuff to build walls to protect them from an uncertain world. After she died it took us months to clear out the house and I'd say about 75% of what we removed was just trash. By the time we were finished we had removed more than 6000 pounds of just trash. It was very sad.
"characterized by a "persistent difficulty discarding or parting with possessions, regardless of their actual value." WOW no wonder Psychology is not a science. Says nothing about the root cause just the symptoms than goes on to extrapolate as a result new cures. Show me a Hoarder that does not have obsessive-compulsive behavior and I will buy you a 18oz Big Gulp in NY City so you can keep the container. UGH. Junk news and more pills around please. By the way, which station shows Hoarders on TV, not MSNBC?
People call it "hoarding" and claiming that these people have a "mental disorder" there is another word for it and that is being "LAZY" and not want to keep their homes clean!
Most hoarders hate living the way they do. They are simply overwhelmed by the time the problem is realized. It's not that they want to live that way, it's that every time they are faced with throwing something out, their anxiety is overwhelming. I have no problem seeing them as people who need help, but the help they need is more than just someone to come in and say "Let's toss it all!"
Be careful, if you have two pencils, a pen, and three pair of socks, some quack will want to put you on a maintainence schedule of a lucrative prescription drug.
You'd better clean-out your glove compartment check your attic for 'signs', the "psychiatric diagnosis guide" wants to "help" you.
I have had three encounters with hoarders. Two of them were with men who I was renting homes from on different occasions.
Jerry had me over to his house to look at some work he wanted me to do, when he raised the garage door it revealed an indescribable mountain of stuff that I suppose he had collected from his rental properties.
He was only slightly embarrassed about it, commenting that he needed to get better organized. I mentioned having a garage sale and he looked at me like I was crazy. Pot-Kettle.
The next encounter was much like the first only this one far exceeded what I saw in the first one. Not only was his (new landlord) garage packed but his house and yard were also maxed out with a collection of a combination brand new items and trash. He had 10 of everything you can imagine. Again I suggested a garage sale and again I got a reaction that is incomprehensible to me.
Pointing the finger at people with mental illnesses is a slippery slope. I have my own defects of character that are probably equally irritating and equally incomprehensible to some people.
Having a scapegoat to cast our aspersions at is a time tested method of avoiding having to look at ourselves.
So in the interest of putting this witch-hunt in it's rightful place I will pass on describing the mother of all hoarders, who I encountered in Palm Desert, California.