Hoarding: A Fatal Obsession

Meet Patrice Moore, 43, resident of a 100 square foot windowless apartment in New York City. For years, he has received many pieces of mail, ranging from junk mail, books, magazines, and newspapers. Most people would recycle most of this mail after their significance dwindles, but Moore continued to stockpile them, eventually filling up most of his apartment. One day, his actions almost determined his fate, when an avalanche of paper products came down on him, leaving him stuck alone for days. Luckily, his cries for help were heard by his neighbor, where we was rescued and given medical help immediately for his injuries.
Meet Homer and Langley Collyer, two brothers who lived in a Harlem mansion. Similarly to Moore, they for over four decades

When most people hear about hoarders, they think they are outcasts, ones who are obsessive with collecting items as a hobby. In reality, they are unable to see what their hoarding problem does to them, almost as it is an unstoppable addiction. To understand why people hoard, knowing what exactly hoarding is the foundation to treating the problem. Hoarding, as the ADAA defines it as is the persistent difficulty to discard certain or all processions, even if their value is dwindling. (ADAA). Hoarders constantly find difficulty in any decision making, most notably the inability to discard items. There are multiple reasons why an item would be difficult to discard for hoarders, including future value, uniqueness, and personal value, most commonly. This inability sets them apart in society, and classifies them as a sufferer of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD, for short). Hoarding is not a disorder by itself, but is classified as a branch, or type of OCD due to a hoarder’s persistent thoughts (obsessions) and behaviors (compulsions) in relation to his or her processions (TLC, 2014). But Hoarding could be broken down in two different secondary branches as well,

Dramatizing the situation, shows like A&Es Hoarders and TLCs Hoarding: Buried Alive depicts hoarders as traumatized, shameful people who are confronted by psychologists to help treat their anxiety and help them make their decision to clean up their pileup. These psychologists bring up how not only their life is affected, but the lives of loved ones, friends, family, and any others directly affected. All of this is followed by professional cleanup crews, who are specialized for sanitizing clutter made from hoarders especially. The cleanup is relieving for the crew, family, and friends but painful for the hoarder. Concurrently, during most of the series of both shows, they heighten the intensity, simply to make a quality, lack of boredom television show for its viewers. The reality is, most hoarders do not go through the intense stress conveyed through the show. This has heightened a controversy on whether or not the media negatively or positively grabs the attention of Hoarders. The media plays a positive role in bringing up more attention to the problem, causing more research by professionals to better understand and research the assistance of hoarders, but also negatively contributes to the misinformation of hoarders, overdramatizing the situation to the viewers (Van Pelt, 2011). To go