Essay On Hoarding

Even though, the exact cause of compulsive hoarding is not known, hoarding is more prevalent among individual who exhibit certain disorders already. Hoarding is commonly regarded as a subtype of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), occurring among about one-third of the individuals diagnosed with the disorder (Frost12). However, only about one- fourth of those complaining or hoarding are reported as having OCD symptoms. According to author Randy Frost and Gail Steketee in the book Stuff, recent reports argue whether hoarding is part of OCD and suggests that hoarding may in fact be a disorder all its own separate from OCD but do however share some of the same characteristics (Frost12). Other preexisting disorders that have a tendency to lead to someone having a greater risk of also developing hoarding tendencies or
Hoarding symptoms tend to appear “during two broad life periods-youth and late adulthood” (Sansone). Children as young as ten and twelve years of age have reportedly shown signs of suffering from a hoarding disorder. “The clinical manifestation of compulsive hoarding in youth may differ from that of adults as clutter may be limited to a smaller area in the youth (e.g. bedroom) and the nature of certain items is more constrained because of limited resources of children”(Storch). Due to the limited space that children have to save items many will begin to hide items under the beds or in different areas around the bedroom. The evidence that the child may be a developing hoarder may not be immediately obvious to the parents or caregivers as children are typically disorganized anyway. Children commonly begin to hoard items that are acquired, such as toys from when they were younger. Some children will even hoard school related stuff such as a nub of a pencil because it was given to them as a gift by someone important to them or old school books and papers. They will also hoard items that others