Essay On Hoarding

Summary and Response Essay “On Dumpster Diving” In the essay “On Dumpster Diving” Lars Eighner describes the wastefulness of Americans, how they view the poor, and how to stay safe while living the life of a scavenger. As he travels the streets with his companion Lizbeth he scavenges through dumpsters in search of the necessities of life. There are many people that are homeless in need of food.

Are there any safety concerns associated with this exercise? If so, list what they are and what

Hoarding is not currently considered an illness on its own right. Compulsive hoarding has been treated as symptom or subtype of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (Cluttergone).

Accidents: slips, trips, falls, burns, chocking, misuse of equipment etc.; illnesses: food-borne, flue, influenza, colds, asthma, seizures, convulsions, fainting, cardiac arrest, allergic reactions etc.

A picture of hoarding disorder is created through personal interaction and the diagnosis is supported by the DSM V.

People with hoarding behavior also may be suffering from a variety of other disorders. Many hoarders have problems with anxiety, separation anxiety, and attachment disorder (HelpGuide, 2010). Someone with separation anxiety and attachment disorder feels afraid to be apart from a certain person or object or is fearful of being alone. People with these attachment disorders or other attachment problems have difficulty connecting to others and

Anyone who suffers from a hoarding disorder knows the debilitating feeling that comes from living in a cluttered environment. Hoarding can result in physical, mental, social, emotional, and financial burdens. Each of these intense feelings can aggravate one another, causing a vicious cycle of events, which can eventually ruin a person’s life.

Obsessive-Compulsive disorder is a type of severe anxiety disorder that impacts an individual’s entire life and way of functioning. Obsessions are considered intrusive and recurrent thoughts or impulses that cannot be removed through reasoning. Compulsions are the repetitive and ritualistic behaviors and actions that associate with the obsessions. These compulsions are to be performed according to specific rules or methods and are thought to prevent or reduce stress and feared situations. Both compulsions and obsessions cause disabling levels of anxiety. The individual affected is often able to recognize the behavior as excessive and irrational, but is unable to control or stop the behaviors without intervention.

B. Compulsive hoarding could be a subtype of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), which is defined as an anxiety disorder characterized by unreasonable thoughts and fears (obsessions) that lead to repetitive behaviors (compulsions).

Risks come in many forms, for example, the risk of infection or the risk of personal injury from damaged equipment or dangerous lifting practises.

Because there was none, she became the first person to conduct a study on hoarding disorder. The study provided the first hoarding picture and also established that hoarding can run in families. A few years after this research began; two Smith students published the first theoretical account of hoarding that outlines the three dimensions of hoarding: clutter, excessive acquisitions, and difficulty discarding. Continued research about hoarding includes genetics, phenomenology, epidemiology, neuroimaging, and also how hoarding is shown in children and elders. Several Smith College students since 1993 have co- authored scientific papers on hoarding. In 2013, in Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or DSM for short, hoarding became an official mental disorder. It was considered a mental health disorder before but only a subtype of OCD. Now, because of the abundance of research that has been done and the studies that show people who display hoarding disorder had no other symptoms of OCD; hoarding has accumulated its own section in DSM.

Eighner chooses to dive into dumpsters not because he needs the material items he finds, but rather because he does not. In the conclusion of his essay “On Dumpster Diving,” Eighner makes it clear that he believes excess material objects are unnecessary and that they do more harm than good for a person, and this is true. Eighner accurately describes how having large amounts of material goods does nothing to improve the well-being or morality of the human race because holding onto physical possessions leads to the development of bad habits and traits within society.

Obsessions are unwanted ideas or impulses that repeatedly well up in the mind of a person with OCD. These are thoughts and ideas that the sufferer cannot stop thinking about. A sufferer will almost always obsess over something which he or she is most afraid of. Common ideas include persistent fears that harm may come to self or a loved one, an unreasonable concern with becoming contaminated, or an excessive need to do things correctly or perfectly. Again and again, the individual experiences a disturbing thought, such as, "My hands may be contaminated -- I must wash them" or "I may have left the gas on" or "I am going to injure my child." These thoughts tend to be intrusive, unpleasant, and produce a high degree of anxiety. Sometimes the obsessions are of a violent or a sexual nature, or concern illness. People with OCD who obsess over hurting themselves or others are actually less likely to do so than the average person. Obsessions are typically automatic, frequent, distressing, and difficult to control or put an end to by themselves. With these reoccurring obsessions continuously being played in the sufferers mind, they start performing repetitive acts that reassure them that their hands aren’t dirty, or the gas for the stove is turned of. This response to their obsession is called a compulsion.

Hoarding is defined as the acquirement of, and inability to discard worthless items even though they appear to have no value. Hoarding behaviors can occur in a variety of psychiatric disorders and in the normal population, but are most commonly found in people with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Those people who report compulsive hoarding as their primary type of OCD, who experience significant distress or functional impairment from their hoarding, and who also have symptoms of indecisiveness, procrastination, and avoidance, are classified as having compulsive hoarding syndrome (www.ocfoundation.com). An estimated 700,000 to 1.4 million people in the United States are thought to have compulsive hoarding syndrome.

Children of many ages are affected by these tremendous problems resulting from homelessness that have just become greater as time has passed. Homelessness leaves long lasting scars on these children (Crary 2). “The burden places upon these people can influence every facet of their lives; from contraception to early adulthood” (Hart-Shegos 2). All stages of life are affected by this experience of homelessness and severe problems can be caused in every stage.