The Seeds of Hoarding

I ponder when hoarding actually happens for a person. Is hoarding a characteristic that lies dormant and given the right set of circumstances grows like bacteria in a Petri dish? Or is it something totally brought on by life reaction?

I can’t speak for the hoarder but only from my experience as a significant other in hoarder’s life. I’ve spent many nights dreaming of how I would clean up his mess, get rid of his stuff and even wondering what it would be like if our house would catch on fire.  I find these thoughts a little extreme and fruitless all at the same time.

Looking back on the past 30 years, I’ve searched our shared experience for clues to this hoarding.  As a young woman in my mid 20’s I was naïve about life in addition to just being naïve about people in general.  Recalling our dating relationship, we both had been hurt by our previous relationships.  We found a comradery in that shared hurt and we also had been casual friends in high school.

I noticed things at his place, lots of things sitting on furniture, a bedroom full of stuff and a walk in attic with a substantial number of boxes.  I assumed he was a bachelor that didn’t know how to keep house and didn’t give it a second thought.  When we decided to marry, I was to move into his house as I had an apartment.  He said he would go through his things and downsize.  I was to do the same.  We would not keep duplicates of items. 

I got rid of keepsakes, things and other house hold items so that we could combine our possessions together.  I started out with about a third of what he had and probably ended up with a fourth of what he had.  He moved a few things around and didn’t get rid of anything.  Most of the duplicate things we got rid of were my things. First clue.

I was frustrated about that, but I concluded that he was busy doing other things.  We were young and this really didn’t seem like an issue and we got married. It didn’t even occur to me to not get married to this man because he kept a little too much junk in his house. Reflecting though, the hoarding was there from the very beginning and I didn’t have a clue as to how it would impact my life with this man.  This tendency in him, however it manifested in his life, was there before I was entwined in his life.