According to the dictionary, hoard means "to accumulate money, food, or the like, in a hidden or carefully guarded place for preservation, future use, etc.". This people have no use for their things, they just *need to keep it*.So, the show was following 3 people that had the disease. Yes, it is a disease. The treatment does take time, medication and patients need to have willpower to overcome it. Alos, it goes beyond lack of organization. Most people do not understand that.
Two of them were a couple, and the problem is their parents had been hoarders before them (ironically, the woman was an interior decorator). So the behavior was "copied" from childhood. It was taking a toll on their marriage. They were on the verge of a divorce, and decided to undergo therapy and hire a professional organizer to help. They made a lot of progress in the course of the show.
The third person was a lady who suffered from OCD and hoarding was one of the symptoms. She was alone, had no job and nobody to help her. Her case was very extreme, she was being evicted because her apartment was not up to fire code. She had all her walls covered with bookcases and shelves, all packed with things. She would walk down the street and see something in somebody's garbage that she thought useful, she would fetch it and take home.
Because she was under government care, she could only have one session with a doctor per week, and her medication was scarce. Although she was making progress, it was very limited due to minimum resources. In the end, she was able to get a court order to postpone the eviction, but she would still have to vacate her place and had nowhere else to go. I felt really sorry for her.
If anyone is interested in watching the documentary, the entire hour was posted on the Obsessive Compulsive Foundation website.
1 comment:
It gets even worse when people hoard animals (I think they're called animal hoarders).
Usually it's dogs or cats, and it's *really* horrible what happens to the animals.
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