How do you know if you are a hoarder?

Is is obvious?

I have a lot of stuff. It isn't covering every floor space and my house if mostly functional, but you can hardly move around the basement or garage.

The dining room and kitchen tables are unusable, and our bedroom is so messy that there is a path around the bed and that's about it.

I get anxious when anyone gives us anything because I feel like we won't have anywhere to put it and I don't like when the kids get birthday presents because I feel it will add to our clutter.

I have no idea where to start in cleaning up. On top of everything, I feel like my husband has hoarding tendencies too. He has been diagnosed with OCD and anxiety and I with bipolar and anxiety. I have problems with social anxiety and agorophobia too. I am embarrassed to have people over. Our main problem is not having anywhere to put things and we live by a "let's stick it here for now" mentality. We have bills and junk mail/magazines everywhere.

I want a nice place to live, but I just don't know where to start.

You are not alone. I keep stuff just knowing I will need it later. I have still have boxes of stuff from when we moved over a year ago that I haven't gone through because I don't know where I would put. I know we need to part with some of this stuff but......

hiya BNLsMOM,

I have a mother who is a compulsive hoarder so more recently have been doing research on this... I found some interesting websites on my travels, they may help you too!
I cant post links yet as not written enough posts but if you type compulsive hoarding into google it will come up with some great helpful sites...
compulsive-hoarding(dot)org is a great site as it helps you define your hoarding a little better. understanding_ocd can be good to add your own stories and read others stories as well as getting support!

I am so proud of my mum, recently she has learned to let go a little and actually started getting rid of things that she knows she realisicaly wont ever use which is a massive step forward! I took her to the animal shelter where some of her things were being donated and she could see how much they needed these things (blankets, duvets pillows etc) and i think that really helped her knowing they were going to such a good home! Now we have begun to make more storage space due to getting rid of things, we can designate certain cupboards to certain things thus meaning its easier when coming to putting the right thing in the right place rather than the old "let's stick it here for now" attitude! hope this helps you a little xxx

I work as a carer for the elderly and see hoarding often.
It can be an anxiety thing.I think you can know it as a
problem if it gives you panic attacks trying to get rid of
any of it.Perhaps you are overwhelmed?
The elderly ladies I see can't even throw old newspaper adds
away.....even if its appropriate add for a 20 year old.....
A lady I knew with OCD couldn't throw her TEA BAGS away...

Oh well something to think about. Could you throw
something non-essential and only replace it with an
essential item?

kind thoughts for you and your hubby....Jjulia

Hoarding is one of my big problems. (Many problems, unfortunately.) People were coming into my home and taking things so I started bringing in 'stuff' to try to head them off. Now I am surrounded by good and not good stuff and don't know how to get around the problem.

I am OC along with depression, anxiety, total fear of people so can't ask anyone for help.

Thank you zainyzoe for your suggestions. I will try to do what you have suggested. Anyone else have suggestions? I want to do whatever I can to straighten out this mess.

Actually, one of the things I was hoping for was to meet others who have this problem to see how they handle it. Thank you BNLsMOM for starting this thread, and all who posted because it makes me feel hopeful there are answers.

Hi BNLsMOM, Just responding to your post on hoarding and I wanted to say that this is not an isolated issue regarding OCD, I too am a hoarder and have been since perhaps I was a child(unbeknown to me at the time undiagnosed at that point) as I would always find some solace in other peoples "junk" and treasure it. My parents were absolutely devasted as I would spend a lot of time rummaging through neighborhood hard rubbish refuge(spring cleaning season)looking for curios always hangin out by myself.Anyhow as an adult this issue became more reinforced when I lost my full time job and was officially diagnosed with OCD and it got to a stage that my father could not tolerate it and hence decided to eventually discard all my collections of curios which in turn I resorted to leasing a self storage unit that I have had for almost ten years to keep this so called worthless junk.A few years back when i a had a realpse of deep depression I took on the realm and wisdom pertainning to eastern thought and philopsophy which was a subtle and gradual help to me, that i concluded to let go of a lot of my posessions in the material form, but however , I still lease a self storage unit but mainly use it to fascilitate and accomadate my other ocd sympton that is sacred to me and that is.... storing documents and tax invoice receipts and shopping dockets(bundles of them all itemised by year and to the months and day) and use these as my proof of activity as to what I was doing on a particular day,if I should ever need to use it as reference to whatever reason....Any how please dont despair youre not alone and I dont think it is an unusual behaviour...just let time be the healer as you will know when the time is due to what is important to you and what isn't......Take care and best wishes and good health too you also.

Hi all, new to this site. About hoarding, my mother is one and she only has 'tracks' around her home. Her 'tracks' are 60% nespaper and clothes and 40% carpet you can see. And that's just the tracks, the whole rest of her house is stuffed with belonging she 'might need one day'. My brother and both my sisters have inherited this hoarding to a lesser degree, but they're still pretty messy even compared to a really messy home. I was the lest mess and the lest hoarding...but I still did it up until 2 years ago when I hired a cleaner to come in and clean. The deal was I cleaned with her and I learnt not only how to clean but she started pointing out to me how some of my stuf was a double up or out of date or just cr_p as sh'e call it. A defining moement was tidying the garage and she had me throwing out stuff I just couldn't believe anyone would throw away. Now looking back I see that is was really rubbish and I have no trouble cleaning out stuff and have rule like 'if I haven't worn it for ( how ever long) or used it for (how ever long) it goes to the second had store or into the rubish. Since doing this I have also stopped my 2-4 time a week visits to second hand store to buy more junk I 'may need one day' because it dawned on me I'll just be throwing it out when the cleaner comes around next. The money I save on not going to second hand stores is spent on the cleaner and I am now now embarrassed to have people around because of mess.

Thank you, everyone.

I did some cleaning of one room and I was able to donate several bags of old clothes. I only threw away things that were ripped or ruined. I felt better about donating things. As far as I know, they are still in bags in my husband's car "for now."