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Hoarding Disorder

Forced clean-outs are very traumatic. The hoarder can feel alienated and lose trust with all involved.  When they lose trust, they will no longer let anyone into their home.  This means that when they need help (for medical reasons, etc.) they will not reach out.

When my great-aunt was alive, she wouldn’t let anyone enter her house.  When she called me asking for help, I was glad that she trusted me. I had gone to the store to pick up her groceries and she let me into the house and requested that I pour the orange juice from the big container into smaller containers that were easier for her to handle.  There was mold on the inside covers of the smaller containers. “Please let me wash this out,” I asked. “No, it’s fine,” she protested. I asked if I could bring out some trash for her, but she protested again.

For me it was agonizing not going against her wishes and grabbing all the trash that I saw.  But I knew that if I did anything to upset her, she would not let me in the house when she truly needed help.  A month later, she fell. Her sister and aunt found her, but were unable to physically assist her. She threatened her sister and aunt so they would not call for help.  She finally conceded and allowed them to call me.  If I had broken the trust earlier, she would have lain on the floor, fighting with her sister, for who knows how long.

I would spend an hour or two crying after every time I entered her home. It killed me that she lived like that, especially knowing that I couldn’t do anything to help.  At that time, there were no television shows or books about the hoarding disorder.