Do Most Hoarders Fail To Change Their Ways? How Can I Cause One To Become Normal?
No matter how rationally, logically or empathetically I point out the blaring obvious they continue accumulating junk (eg. books they don’t read, holding onto newspapers, cutlery when the kitchen’s already oversupplied). I’ve switched to yelling since all nice approaches have failed. I’m thinking of cutting that person out of my life (they value their junk over having friends or family).
Hi,
I can understand your frustration. But maybe you don’t know enough about hoarders. It isn’t their fault. They don’t do it to make you angry or upset you. If you can’t accept this and be there for them, then it is probably better that you do cut them off. Nicely. Hoarding is an obsessive tendency. Hoarders truly believe in their brain that if they get rid of anything, it can really harm them psychologically. I don’t know the exact reasons they do it, but I know there is fear behind their reasons and I know they can’t help it, just like a person with obsessive/compulsive tendencies. You know? The people who have to continuously wash their hands or switch on and off a light switch over and over again, etc. They CAN’T change their ways because you ask them too. It is one of the hardest disorders to control & they would need professional help to help them, and it takes a long time to overcome it, and lots can’t. Hope this helps some.
If you live with this person then just agree with them that you will occasionally dejunk the place – they will be incapable of doing it themselves and nothing you say or do will help them. By boss hoards junk – he even hoards other peoples junk if we so much as mention throwing anything out he will snaffle it into his own piles ‘in case it is useful’.
Personally I can’t stand junk, and I regularly purge my own spaces of clutter.
Take people as they are, you cannot change them, they will not change you. Or, as you say, cut them out.