Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: Children Who Hoard

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Most people hear of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and immediately think of someone who washes their hands over and over again. Symptoms for OCD can vary. Hoarding is one of the least common OCD behaviors. You've probably seen some old woman on the news with OCD hoarding. She would save newspapers till they piled so high in her home that it was nearly impossible to walk through. This is called hoarding. You may wonder why she doesn’t just throw the newspapers out.  Well, it's not that simple.

OCD is a neurological brain disorder. The most common and successful way to help people with OCD is with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Exposure Response Prevention (ERP). The problem is this usually works for other areas of OCD, but not for hoarding. Researchers aren't sure why that is. There is one thing researchers have found; most people with OCD have a lack of serotonin in the brain. Serotonin helps nerve cells carry messages to other nerve cells. This stops the repetitive behavior of OCD sufferers.

The difference between collecting and hoarding is usually easily determined. If your child is collecting baseball cards or has a butterfly collection, this is fun and not hoarding. When the collection becomes bothersome to that child’s life, then it is hoarding. My son’s symptoms became so bad that in a matter of weeks, he could no longer attend school. Hoarding is something even the child does not want to do, but feels that they need to do it.  When I took him shopping, he would purposely enter the store with his eyes shut so he would not see anything that he may want to take home to save. Usually he still managed to gather a handful of useless dust to take home.

Now you may be thinking that hoarding is not so bad. If you have lived with hoarding or know someone who hoards, you will understand.  It’s one of the worst things to have happen to someone you love. I know because my young son suddenly started hoarding.