Commentary: 'A crushing sensation' - decluttering sparks heartache, distress in hoarders
Advert
Commentary
Commentary: 'A crushing awareness' - decluttering sparks heartache, distress in hoarders
Subsequently experiencing loss, many make full the void in their hearts with stuff, says Dr Kelvin Ng Lin Chieh at the Institute of Mental Health.
(Photograph: Unsplash/Lily Banse)
10 Feb 2022 06:01AM (Updated: 11 Jan 2022 05:16PM)
SINGAPORE: In the lead-up to the Lunar New year, many of the states were likely pre-occupied finding fourth dimension amidst a hectic schedule to spring clean and go our homes in order earlier relatives and friends descend for the reunion dinner and visits.
After Netflix sensation Marie Kondo took the world by storm, no doubtfulness most of us found an extra spring in our pace in decluttering this twelvemonth.
Marie Kondo's almost infallible method of deciding whether our most treasured possessions withal spark joy must have surely helped many of usa discard unwanted items in that valiant effort to purge our homes of junk.
But this effort of tidying is non every bit straightforward for many we think of as "hoarders".
READ: If you don't larn to love tidying up, Marie Kondo can't relieve y'all, a commentary
READ: Marie Kondo has taught me I need 21 pairs of jeans, a commentary
'TEARING UP A Hole IN THEIR Heart'
For this group of people, immigration away their things nerveless over years and decades, is alike to tearing a pigsty in their heart.
Having to decide whether to toss out items involves opening upwardly long buried, forgotten but unresolved issues. Leaving these items in the bin creates an emotional vacuum in their lives, which was previously spatially filled by their hoard.
From my experience dealing with hoarders, many of them have said it would exist easier to cut off their hands than ask them to throw away these seemingly useless items, equally the distress, frustrations and anxieties evoked are so much more painful and debilitating.
In farthermost cases, some are paralysed by so much fright and dubiousness, that even a elementary decision of throwing away an item when they already have so many of the same sort of things, can be monumentally difficult, because they fear regretting throwing away the "wrong" item.
It'due south like asking them to dice, patients with some of the worst cases of hoarding I have seen say. Some have described how their minds went blank, rendering them unable to think or decide what to throw away.
Others say that they experience difficulty breathing and feeling as though their hearts volition end chirapsia, as if a crushing sensation is coming over their chest, and a myriad extremely pitiful physical symptoms that only become away if they are left alone with their hoard.
And if the hoard was forcibly decluttered, I have found that as a vacuum demands to be filled, then as well will the emptiness in the hoarder'south middle and domicile need to be filled with fifty-fifty more stuff.
To these hoarders, their hoard has become a fashion to fill the emptiness in their lives, where they tenaciously cling on to past glories, achievements and relationships through their trove.
A NEW LEASE OF LIFE FOR THEMSELVES
I remember an electric engineer who started hoarding old CRT goggle box sets, challenge that he would repair them and get them working once again, and then sell or donate them, so that they would accept a new lease of life.
However, he never got effectually to fixing these Idiot box sets, but remained obsessed with their collection. Later spending some time with him, nosotros realised he only started hoarding after he retired. It wasn't the idiot box sets he was trying to give a new lease of life merely himself, in proving that he was even so useful.
Other hoarders I know continue to hoard equally their clutter becomes the only concrete link to a past already lost. To discard the hoarded items would be be the final "boom in the coffin" for that relationship.
An auntie I came beyond resisted vehemently the clearing away of a dining table gear up, which she had bought from a neighbourhood piece of furniture store.
The store, notwithstanding, had since closed down many years ago merely keeping this dining table kept the article of furniture shop going in her mind, despite her not being particularly close to the people who ran that furniture store.
Another patient I came across was an elderly widow, who would dutifully collect the newspaper every morning time and go along them, even though she was illiterate, and could not read the newspapers herself.
She resisted greatly clearing them away, considering it was her hubby'due south habit to read the newspapers every morning, and this was her usual routine for the past many years. And in maintaining this routine of hers, she was trying to maintain her relationship with her departed husband.
FUNCTIONAL HOARDERS
Still, not all hoarders collect stuff for sentimental reasons. Well-nigh hoard items which they experience are still useful, or can exist useful if they just put some piece of work into them.
READ: A painful struggle against grief for the terminally sick during the festive flavor, a commentary
Others say they wish to avoid creating waste, often remarking how wasteful it is to throw such a good item away, fifty-fifty though it may be damaged across repair. In fact, many hoarders exercise non really have a reason why they hoard.
Some other hindrance that prevents hoarders from decluttering is this: That over the years, they have gone to extremes to maintain their hoard that they may have caused seemingly irreparable rifts with their family and loved ones. To ask them to give up their hoard would be impossible, as the hoarder had sacrificed ties with family and friends for this hoard.
Hoarding affects not only the person who hoards, but also the relationships of the hoarder also.
Ane of my patients was depressed and had a low sense of self-esteem and self-worth. It was only later therapy and treatment that I found out her mother was a hoarder, and that she had been punished by her mother when she was immature for throwing away plastic bags. So my patient felt that her value in her mother's eyes was worse than a few muddied plastic bags.
Not Just THE OLD HOARDS
It might seem like only seniors hoard, going by media reports and boob tube shows of cases involving elderly folks. That is non and then. Based on the Constitute of Mental Health's cases, hoarding has no age preponderance, and start outs when patients are young.
But with time, the longer you hoard, the bigger and more spectacular your hoard becomes, thus garnering some negative publicity that seems to indicate that hoarding is more prevalent in the elderly.
A Customs NEEDED
Hoarding is particularly difficult to handle, every bit it is a protracted and chronic condition, which we know very piffling about. The most important advice Marie Kondo gives with regards to clearing stuff is not to buy so much stuff, in an age of enough and backlog, merely this is an inclination many of us have.
For the hoarders all the same, the problem is not excess, but rather, loss, and the hoarding of items to fill up that loss. So it is not enough to requite them some pills or transport them for counselling and believe they will miraculously stop their hoarding behaviour.
An entire community needs to be involved, to be more than understanding, to be more tolerant, to appoint and mend these rifts between friends and family, then that the emotional back up for the hoarder can be present.
READ: From ill care to 'well care', here's how to end the mental health stigma, a commentary
An entire customs must be there to assist in the decluttering, and fill up the vacuum that is created when the hoard is decluttered, by engaging the person in more meaningful activities and so that he or she will take less time to become out and collect items, by accepting the person dorsum into the community, so that their self-worth is non determined past their hoard, but rather, past who they really are.
Dr Kelvin Ng Lin Chieh is a consultant at the Department of Psychosis at the Establish of Mental Health.
Recent Searches
Trending Topics
Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/commentary/commentary-crushing-sensation-decluttering-sparks-heartache-distress-hoarders-297166
0 Response to "Commentary: 'A crushing sensation' - decluttering sparks heartache, distress in hoarders"
Post a Comment