Hoarding and Body Dysmorphic Disorders

Upon publication of the DSM-5, there were a lot of ignorant people laughing at the “new” disorder “hoarding,” and giving it as an example of how the DSM-5 encourages over-diagnosis of “normal” individuals. Such people do not understand the dire nature of this disorder. An individual with hoarding disorder finds it extremely distressful to discard objects, regardless of their actual value. These objects fill up their living spaces, leading to impairment of the individual’s ability to live a healthy, functional life. 


Hoarding has recently reached the popular eye due to TV shows like A&E’s Hoarders or TLC’s Hoarding: Buried Alive. I haven’t watched either of these shows, so I don’t know if they are a good representative of the dangers of hoarding. But I can give examples of such dangers:

To go along with my Adrian Monk theme in my OCD post, Adrian’s brother Ambrose Monk is an extremely agoraphobic hoarder. In the episode Mr. Monk and the Three Pies, Ambrose’s house is set on fire, and he is unable to exit the house – partly due to the lack of safe pathways through his piles of newspapers. 

If you like real-life examples, I have an acquaintance with hoarding disorder. She fell in her home and was unable to get up due to the huge piles of junk surrounding her. She lay there three days before someone found her. Luckily, she was holding a jug of juice when she fell, so she survived surprisingly well during this time.