Temporal-spatial relationship

Hoarding is, for all intents and purposes, a geometrical phenomenon - it is a spatial happening. Besides the psychological games, hoarding is mostly a spatial problem. It may seem at first glance like it’s just a logistical or practical problem, but it’s more restrictive than that. Children of hoarders will have a hard time bringing friends over (telling them about it even); they will be anxious with any guest and they will have the famous ‘doorbell dread’ - which is a great source of anxiety -, among other things. This constant tension and state of fear will lead to PTSD and, if you don’t change the situation quickly, it will evolve into CPTSD. You may be gaslighted into thinking this is just another of many lifestyles, and that it’s up to you to change and adapt, or move on with your life, but curiously that wasn’t necessarily how hoarders themselves were brought up.

This could give us an inkling that it's not just hoarders that create hoarders, but adverse circumstances that kickstart it. Otherwise, we would just see family lines of hoarders. This also can give us some hope that the chain can be broken, which many CoHs themselves believe to be the case.

Most likely, there are many different people with different backstories that became hoarders, and this makes it essential to have some level of compassion and understanding. It’s a mistake to hold on to ill feelings, to resentment and vengeful spite – even if you feel you have been wronged, and you’re in the right, because you have the moral high ground. You’ll only burn yourself. You don’t want to live your life in detriment or because of the hoarder; you should do and make decisions because they are right. Just focus on moving on – don’t collect; don’t punish and don’t waste time. You should advocate your actions because healthy behaviors are better, because investment in self-destruction is toxic and suicidal, and because, if you have no other options of escaping by yourself, you may have to negotiate and show your parent(s) how your future is their future, by proxy.

Hoarding is a spatial limitation and constriction, this means that the set of possible arrangements and social ‘games’ and pastimes gets substantially reduced. It is a strategy to change the rules to ones that only play advantageously for the hoarder. But if we analyze it correctly we will have no problem in realizing that no human being with intentions of living a healthy life with social interactions, with a significant other and for building a family or even use their house to improve their status or advance their earnings, can even flourish in such an environment.

Note: hoarders do this to alleviate their negative feelings. By being the worst they test who stays or leaves, at their worst.

The reason for this being suboptimal even for the hoarder is that, since he is most likely depressed, anxious, tired and hopeless (between all other difficulties that prevent him/her from moving on), it isn’t adequate for healthy human development and as a productive lifestyle. And what he ends up doing is forsaking his duties and responsabilities and forgoing a practical environment. We can look at the hoarder’s behavior like a form of self-amputation to make him/her ineligible for certain roles, as well as being eligible for only roles that an 'amputee' can do. Like an abled civilian that cuts a toe to evade war and be put in a lighter office job.

Instead, what ends up happening is that, little by little, the hoarder becomes progressively more committed to his state of affairs and the snowballing of his procrastination and stalling. As he/she and others around him begin to slowly accept and adapt to this, the hoarder finds external pathways that keep on making that sacrifice of house chores less rewarding and more easily expendable.

At the same time, the hoarder is often resistant to change, and he is often resentful of others having the better end of the stick. If you depend on the hoarder as provider, it will make him a ruler and a rule setter. This furthers the child being stuck (and stunted) even further down in the parent's regime. All this contributes to the hoarder wanting life to stay as static as possible. But on the other hand he/she still seeks to fill the void prompted by insecurities, fears, and unknown expectations. This forces the hoarder to psychologically bind and feel comfortable with their past self, their past stage, and their past experiences. And this emotional connection with the comfortable and predictable side of life makes them resistant to any change that does not spawn from them and their emotional core.

But a child, in this environment, can’t endlessly sacrifice for the greater good. Sooner or later the child must create borders to make sure the parent won’t sacrifice the child him/herself. (This is very akin to the theme of the 'devouring mother' (as you see in the 'Hansel & Gretel' story) - also known as 'engulfment'.)

The borders are not just physical or spatial, that’s superficial and accessory; the real borders are psychological, in the need to individuate and develop a life plan as well as transform into the projected life plans. The child needs room to become a person capable of surviving on his/her own accord, and not stay forever under the parent’s wing, or worse, the parent’s grasp.

It’s going to be tempting for the hoarder to start sabotaging the child even in different levels, in order to maintain stability, meaning, and predictability. But the child must push back if he/she is to survive and develop into a fully functioning human being.

Nothing is harder than overcoming a person you depend on that not only won't help you leave, but will sabotage any moves you make towards your own independence.

The mechanical cycles that go from acquiring objects to hoarding them should have its own logic. Daily habits allow for item collection - as items are stored they don’t take the time to organize them in a structured sense, where rational storing rules should apply, such as FIFO, FEFO, and LIFO, and organizing shelves, and cabinets, by adding older things to the front and newer things to the back, so as to always obey those previous rules. Instead, they just leave anything anywhere, or at the places close to their comfort (maybe the entrance) which makes items stack like a stratified timeline.

This makes it much harder to remember previously acquired items and prevent redundancy. Since they don’t use the Socratic Method they live life as if every event and change were contingent. Ironically, by not accounting for time-event frames of reference and not being mechanically inclined, they end up being slaves to both time and space – neither taking the perspective to analyze time frames and behaviors in longer time frames nor being able to strategize their spatial usage according to most common behaviors, ‘games’ and pastimes, and according to the frequency of either those aspects.

Life happens to them spontaneously and they can’t seem to gain ground against their own actions, impulses and what happens to them (predictable or otherwise). If they knew how, they could even account for the unpredictable by measuring the average of novelty. But the problem is that most of their lives is out of control, in fact they increase the complexity and intricacy of their lives by feeding their house with new items.

Memory is one the most important components of this behavior, for various reasons. Some objects are more intimate and nostalgia-inducing, having to do with maintaining and rehashing good feelings and a sense of identity; and other reasons behind hoarding have to do with the constant visual reminders of to-do later tasks. It’s incredibly inefficient to have endless signs lying around as reminders. It would work much more effectively to have organized agendas and to-do lists. But since their life is chaotic, unpredictable and spontaneous, they never spend time organizing and being parsimonious. They either commit to their work, or use their emotional regulation tactics, or they rest in a low energy state – they only have two drives. And they end up half-assing everything they do as they try to be perfect, ending up instead being unorthodox, cheating themselves and others and being chaotic.

The hoard functions as a barricade, and can be viewed as a forcefield to keep people in or out - either inducting them or pushing them out. Each person that enters the hoard is forced to play by its rules and limits. The hoarder is its king as it is the person whose life is, ironically, least affected by the hoard. The hoarder is obviously the most affected by it but inside it he is not. The hoard serves as microcosm where rules are oriented around the hoarder's psychology. From this point onwards the people that are stuck inside it are swirled around this mind-space and effectively enter the 'shared fantasy'. By belonging to the 'club' people will have to accept the rules of the hoarder and not tamper with the objects, which means that people are below the objects in status because the objects are the hoarder. Like tentacles to an octopus or a web to a spider, the objects are fragments of the hoarder and interfere with his psyche.

Not only does the hoard hinder movements and activities, it also keeps people in or out. It's a test to see who needs the hoarder so much that accepting the hoard is better than not accepting it. This makes the hoarder the king.