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Hoarding Is a Real Disorder Suffered by Real People Essay

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Many people know the television shows, Hoarding: Buried Alive, on TLC or Hoarders on A&E. These reality TV shows feature hoarders and their families. The crews of the shows follow the hoarder for a few days to study how hoarding affects their daily lives. A professional organizer and a therapist are taken through the house to see what the hoarder collects. The houses are disgusting; many times, there are rodents, cockroaches, stacks of paper and garbage everywhere. The audience is shown interviews of the family members of the hoarder. The therapist and the professional organizer help the hoarder and the family cope with the compulsive behaviors and make an attempt the help the hoarder clear the house. Most times, at the end of the episode, …show more content…

There are many different types of hoarding including animal hoarding, bibliomania (hoarding of books), syllogomania (hoarding of garbage), larder hoarding (hoarding of food), and more (“Types of Hoarding”).
Hoarding is thought to be a symptom of obsessive compulsive disorder, but some hoarders do not have other symptoms of OCD (“Hoarding: Definition”). “Some estimate that that as many as 1 in 4 people with OCD also have compulsive hoarding. Recent research suggests that nearly 1 in 5 compulsive hoarder have non-hoarding OCD symptoms” (“The OCD Foundation: Hoarding Fact Sheet”). The International OCD Foundation fact sheet states:

Compulsive hoarding includes all three of the following:
1. A person collects and keeps a lot of items, even things that appear useless or of little value to most people, and
2. These items clutter the living spaces and keep the person from using their rooms as they were intended, and
3. These items cause distress or problems in day-to-day activities. The International OCD Foundation also says that signs of hoarding can be seen in the teenage years, but most people who seek treatment for hoarding are around 50. Hoarding is a lifelong struggle. Most hoarders live by themselves or with a family member who is also a hoarder. Severe hoarding cases are seen in one out of every 50 people, but less severe problems are seen in one out of every 20 people (“The OCD Foundation:

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