Hoarding: Psychological Disorder or Laziness?
“That house is so messy, I can’t believe someone can live under such filthy conditions!”, and “How can they possibly be so lazy!?” are some thoughts that may cross the mind of many people who watch the reality TV show, Hoarding: Buried Alive. What does hoarding mean? To most, hoarding is the act in which an individual never cleans and continues to make a mess while already living in a trashed home, full of garbage and unnecessary items piled all over the place. These hoarders are often labeled as sluggish, filthy, nasty, unsanitary people, who are simply disgustingly dirty and absolutely hate to clean their house. Sadly enough, this is why hoarders have come to receive the name, “pack rats.”
However, researchers and even the uppermost psychologists believe hoarding is much more complex than originally perceived. According to them, a hoarder is an individual with a pathological or compulsive behavior characterized by acquiring and failing to throw out a large amount of items that would appear to have little or no value to others (Kelly, 2014). This results an accumulation of unusually large masses of items within the person’s home so the home is no longer a viable living space and ultimately causes significant distress or impairment to the hoarder (Kelly, 2014). Hoarding is most often
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A hoarder will not clean up or throw away anything in the home, and most certainly does not accept any help from family or friends whatsoever. Even if the individual suffering from compulsive hoarding attempts to reduce the clutter in their home, they will fail if medical help is not sought. Both psychological and medical treatment is required for such cases of severe hoarding because it can ultimately transform into a very dangerous
The author, Lars Eighner explains in his informative narrative, “On Dumpster Diving” the lifestyle of living out of a dumpster. Eighner describes the necessary steps to effectively scavenge through dumpsters based on his own anecdotes as he began dumpster diving a year before he became homeless. The lessons he learned from being a dumpster diver was in being complacent to only grab what he needs and not what he wants, because in the end all those things will go to waste. Eighner shares his ideas mainly towards two direct audiences. One of them is directed to people who are dumpster divers themselves, and the other, to individuals who are unaware of how much trash we throw away and waste. However, the author does more than direct how much trash
The majority of people waste food on a daily basis. In fact, in the U.S. alone there is an estimate that over half of the food produced goes uneaten; meanwhile there are people who are in need of food, and it ultimately goes to waste (Dockterman). For example, in his essay, “On Dumpster Diving,” author Lars Eighner writes about his experiences of dumpster diving with his pet dog, during his years of homelessness. According to Eighner, much of the food and materials he came across in the dumpsters were in usable shape, and many items were new. Clearly there needs to be a change in American food waste, in current and, hopefully not so much in, future generations. In order to bring about change in this misuse of food, Americans need to be conscious
Obviously, I completely disagree with Eighner's purpose in writing "Dumpster Diving". I think the whole thing is preposterous. The way he makes a general assumption about how everybody's is wasteful is pure ignorance. It seem as if he is saying that the reason why people are homeless is because we throwing out things. Eighner is trying to tell us that people will remain homeless until we start saving more and wasting less, but that's not how it works. Most people don't choose to be homeless. Some even start out having their own companies, or just simply having jobs and comfortable live...
Do you tend to keep old things in order to preserve memories from the past? Do you know that it can be classified as a kind of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, a mental illness? The award-winning Canadian author Carrie Mac sets her story in this hardly touched field in her novel The Opposite of Tidy. Junie, an ordinary 16 year old girl in high school, appears to be no different from others. However, nobody knows how difficult her life has been: Junie’s mom is a compulsive hoarder, and her hoarding drives her husband away. Junie, in attempt to hide her embarrassing family from Wade, her new boyfriend, tells lies one after another. That’s why Junie panics when the TV show Kendra arrives at her house, because all her secrets, lies, and her mother’s hoarding are about to be exposed to the whole world. What will happen to Junie? Will Wade leave her? Most importantly, “how do you come clean when your life is a mess?” Carrie Mac employs a well-chosen title, conversational style of writing, and thought-provoking themes in The Opposite of Tidy to reflect people’s desires and struggles to gain control of their life.
In the text “On Dumpster Diving”, by Lars Eighner is about a man who speaks of being a homeless man joined by his pet, named Lizbeth. Not exclusively does he clarify his procedures living out of dumpsters, yet in addition the lessons he has learned as a scavenger. Above all I think the genuine message he was attempting to get cross over is that we waste more than we think we do, and it's in our nature as humans. He had built up a great deal of involvement in recognizing on what was protected to eat and what wasn't. He specified eating from a dumpster is the thing that isolates the dilettanti from the experts. Eighner passed by three standards, presence of mind, knowing the Dumpsters and checking them consistently, and looking for dependably
I agree with his assessment about society’s throw away mentality due to the fact that I have seen it myself first hand. Recently I helped my sister move out of her dorm room at NAU and I was horrified to see all the things and edible food she was just dumping and what was worse, she wasn’t the only one. All of the kids were getting rid of perfectly good items in the dumpster, so it’s no wonder that dumpsters near college campuses are one of Eighner’s favorite places to scavenge. In his article on page 3, Eighner elaborates on student’s wasteful habits, “but in the case of discards from student apartments, the answer may be that the item was discarded through carelessness, ignorance or wastefulness.” I believe agree with Eighner that some people have a pack rat mentality while others just throw it away. My parents are a good example of this and I think it has something to do with the way that they were raised. My mom is a pack rat, holding on to everything as long as possible and giving away to charity what she doesn’t want anymore. She squeezes every last drop out of a toothpaste tube or a shampoo bottle, while my dad will throw it away half empty. My mom was raised in a single parent household, where money was tight and you used what you had… my dad however, was raised in a more affluent home and money flowed more freely. In fact, my mom does her own dumpster diving fairly regularly in our garbage can by rescuing stuff out of the garbage that my dad has thrown away, including belts, pants, shirts and hardly worn tennis shoes. She doesn’t keep the goods, but instead gives it to Goodwill or the church clothing drive. My dad is her antithesis and is definitely part of the throw-away society. My dad has little sentiment attached to stuff and like Eichner mentioned on page 6, “knows there is plenty more where what we came from.” After reflecting on
If you walked in the fifth flat on Philmore Avenue, the last thing you’d find is legroom. Stacks of boxes, books, bags and any other entity known to man can be found just in the hallway of this bizarrely looking apartment. You think it couldn’t get any worse?
other people’s possessions. Many times they will do anything to get a hold of what it is they want from
Hoarding is an addiction that is both socially debilitating and alarmingly enigmatic. While compulsive hoarding is classified as it’s own respective disorder, it is also a rather extreme form of addiction. Often kept under wraps and undiagnosed, attention is seldom brought to the secret lives of hoarders.
Animal hoarding is when an individual has a large number of animals that he or she may not be able to take care of. The life that these animals are living can cause serious illness and even death. The
Have you ever thought about the possibilities of becoming homeless? I think about that almost every day; I try to comprehend and picture in my head the life as someone that lives on or off the streets of New York. New York isn’t one of the cleanest places in the United States, but it sure has one of the highest percentage rates in the U.S. for homeless people. In the 21st century, people raised in the U.S. are not taught about the struggles of homelessness and what they have to go through to survive; most people don’t plan on becoming homeless and became homeless due to the fluctuation in the market and various other problems. Also not only the homeless, but people in depth (people struggling to pay bills or drug addicts) and other people suffering also has to survive.
Animal hoarding is an issue in every division of society around the world (Donaghey 2011). Whether rich or poor, there may still be an animal hoarder living right next door (Donaghey 2011). In some situations there may be obvious signs that a person is a hoarder; however, others live seemingly regular lives to the public eye and the problem is growing. Animal hoarding is a growing problem because of the lack of understanding of the issue and lack of action.
Compulsive hoarding has been universally defined by researchers as a chronic behavioral syndrome that is categorized by three unique qualities: the extreme retention and failure to dispose of an abundant quantity of useless objects, living environments so condensed with clutter that it compromises day-to-day living for its occupants, and finally a significant provocation of anxiety or distress caused by the hoarding (Franks et al. 79). Although the definition of compulsive hoarding is universally accepted, the cau...
A clean home is something that should come easy for anyone. Most people would consider anyone with a dirty and cluttered home to be lazy or filthy, but many are unaware of the psychological disorder Hoarding, which affects about 5% of the population, both men and women (Neziroglu, n.d.). Hoarding is the act of one having difficulties separating from their belongings. Although many confuse hoarding with collecting, there is a significant difference from the two. Those who collect, gather a specific product as a hobby or a profession, but those with a Hoarding disorder keep items without a notable worth and it accumulates in areas that were previously used for living. It is believed that hoarding is caused by a deficiency with a person’s information processing or led by a cognitive disorder, or a disturbing emotional shock (“The Hoarding Project”, 2016
Hoarding is a mental illness which leads its victims to live in squalor. Hoarding is a form of obsessive compulsive disorder. This is commonly referred to as OCD. OCD is a mental illness that causes obsessions which lead to repetitive behavior. In contrast, minimalism is based on not having a multitude of things. Minimalism promotes a clear mind. This tool is based on reducing things that cause stress. Theoretically, less stress puts an ease on the mind. The tool of minimalism is also used to gain better awareness. Through awareness comes a better understanding of situations. As a minimalist, having less stuff can lead to being more focused on the important things. Things such as relationships, health, dreams and passions. Minimalists only own things that add value to their