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Re: Hoarding consumer goods

Posted by Cindy W on April 18, 2000, at 8:47:56

In reply to Hoarding consumer goods, posted by boB on April 15, 2000, at 20:43:24

> This hoarding/spartan discussion is interesting. I have lots of books - at least half-a-ton, which I recently carried up a long set stairs, and might move again in three weeks if I get a job somewhere else. I have also abandonded or lost dear possession along the way, and I am considering dumping most of my unworn clothing if I move very soon.
>
> But there seems something circular in the tendency to diagnose a supposedly organic brain disorder based on how many possessions one drags around. If that is the case, our society is all very much obssessed, because we are very much addicted to purchasing consumer goods. Bags of thrift store clothes are no more evidence or hoarding than are three cars, a jet ski, seven television sets and a summer home.
>
> The relation of hoarding to mental disease started, I think, by examining the lifestyle of severely affected individuals. The circularity begins when we then say hoarding is evidence of a "disease" because some people with the disease have been known to hoard.

boB, As someone with OCD, I wanted to let you know it isn't a matter of circular definition. Just having stuff isn't OCD. I cannot walk through my house without tripping. I can hardly use my house. It is just a storage place for things I don't really need. Someone with valuable possessions uses them; I rarely use the stuff I have hoarded (I just get it to decrease anxiety). Having thousands of thrift store clothes I never wear has taken a toll on my life (it interferes with a lot...people can't visit, repairmen can't come fix things, I live in fear others will "find out", etc). Maybe it's a matter of degree, but it is also a matter of how much it interfere's with one's ability to be happy and function.


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