Ways You Can Help a Hoarder
Hoarding is the buying or acquiring of material possessions when one is either depressed or going through a series of emotional stress. The disadvantages of encouraging hoarding, is that it gets to a point of becoming an addiction. A hoarder may need external help to stop indulging in the activity and you might be their only source of assistance. Most hoarders might be defensive if you directly get to them. Hoarding at other times is confused for collecting. With the collection, most collectors are never embarrassed about the items they acquire for themselves. Hoarders will spend so much money in buying items that they are of less value in the society and hide them. If depression is not dealt with, hoarding becomes an escape for most that may make them end in lack of money. Some of the materials purchased are usually just bought and kept in hiding places. Hoarding is a serious activity that needs to handled in friendly ways that are briefly highlighted here.
It is important that first, you create time to always check up on the victim as many times as you can. During these visits, try indulge or introduce other profitable activities that the victim can take part in. Depression is a state that most victims try to hide to look as though they are happy when they are suffering from within. It is only when you create bonding moments that you will be in a position to know what the hoarding victim is emotionally dealing with.
After you get close to them that the hoarding victim lets you in on their space, you should avoid attacking them for their growth habit. In as much as you will want to take everything you see and deal with them, this will be seen as attacking, which you should refrain yourself from. If you force or start commanding for cleaning up of the room and littering of the items that seem to be of low value, you may be attacking the hoarding victim as much. Everything takes time, even addiction gradually stops, but after some time, might be after a short or long time.
It is close to impossible to help someone that is suffering from something that you have little or no knowledge on. Hoarding is a psychiatric case that so many people are not aware of. If you want to connect and have the hoarding victim see you as someone they can rely on, you should listen to them, learn of these struggles and what makes them sad.
You should avoid indulging in activities with the hoarding victim that involve spending or acquiring more items. With hoarding, a victim can eventually turn out to be a beggar or result in taking loans to keep up with the activity.