Hoarding Syndrome: What Causes Pathological Hoarding
Hoarding disorder is a mental disorder in which people display an obsessive desire to collect various objects and are unable to get rid of them, even if these things are the most ordinary trash.
In the International Classification of Diseases, 11th revision (ICD-11) and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition (DSM-5), this diagnosis is included in the group of obsessive-compulsive and related disorders.
In common parlance, it is also called Plyushkin syndrome, in memory of the landowner from Gogol’s Dead Souls.
Other symptoms of this disease include:
- severe stress when trying to get rid of things;
- anxiety about what will happen to these items in the future;
- difficulties in determining storage space;
- distrust of people who are interested in these objects or even those who simply touch them;
- living in conditions of disorder that make the home uninhabitable;
- alienation from friends and family
- problems with planning and organizing your life.
Plyushkin syndrome affects between 2% and 6% of the world's population.
It usually begins to manifest itself between the ages of 15 and 19, but its frequency increases over the years - according to statistics, pathological hoarding is more common in older people who have crossed the 55-year mark.
The development of the syndrome is influenced by tragedies that have occurred in life or existing mental problems, such as depression, dementia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, schizophrenia and others.
