OCD; CHRONIC HOARDING
or,
Trying To Survive Our So-Called Lives
Chronic Hoarding Symptoms Observed at Home:
Stacks of newspapers from previous years.
Piles of cardboard tubes from used toilet paper roles, left in a pile along side a toilet.
Stacks of hundreds of video workout tapes. She only views them and uses them to trade for other workout tapes in order to broaden her collection. This has become a full-time occupation. She makes no attempt nor is there any room to exercise!!
Hundreds of one-gallon plants she bought over the past few years and never took care of. They all died and were costly.
Buys bulk food items (ie: grains, flours,nuts) and never uses them, resulting in insect larvae hatching out and crawling on the ceiling.
All rooms (except for 2) in our 1900 square-foot house, 3 BR/2 BA, are filled with her disorganized possessions scattered overall. The two exceptions are a small office room into which I’ve gathered all my remaining possessions and boxed them, and we sleep on the floor. The other exception is a bathroom which I keep clean and organized.
She never:
Washes her clothes or puts them away, even when I do the wash and fold them for her.
Cooks meals, washes dishes or offers to help clean and organize the house.
Most drapes remain closed during the day, no one is allowed to enter the house.
No social life.
No answering the phone.
Refuses to obtain a paying job since beginning of our marriage in 1987.
Frequently talks to herself, creates balding on a certain area of her scalp by pulling on her hair over-and-over and sleeps a lot during the daytime. Is this symptomatic of O.C.D.?
How this affects me, the spouse:
I feel depressed and hopeless about the situation ever improving. These symptoms seem to have started soon after out marriage and have been on-going since then. We’ve been married 17 years. The house is virtually unusable, I have to eat standing up at the sink or sit outdoors. I’ll seek an on-line forum addressing the issues of spouses of OCD-CH’s.
Please refer to the following URL’s:
http://www.ocfoundation.org/1005/m100a_001.htm
See link: "What is Hoarding? Compulsive Hoarding Syndrome"
See link: "Support Groups and Personal Recovery; How Compulsive Hoarding Affects Families"
See link: Treatment Provider Articles: "Roadblock to Successfully Treating Compulsive Hoarding"
http://understanding_ocd.tripod.com/hoarding.html http://www.homestead.com/westsuffolkpsych/Hoarding.html
http://ocd.stanford.edu/
L. Koran, M.D.; Dept. of Psychiatry, OCD Clinic, Stanford, CA.
lorrin.koran@stanford.edu
Pioneering work: Drs. Randy Frost and Gail Steketee
Book: "Obsessive Compulsive Disorders: Practical Management"; by Michael Jenike, M.D.; et al; 1998 Mosby Press
Notes: Compulsive Hoarding is a complex phenomenon with poor response to treatment. CBT (cognitive-behavior therapy treatment) is best. Pharmacologic treatments: poor results; start with SRI’s (seratonin reuptake inhibitors) to treat the usual accompaning depression. I need to determine if CBT is most effective when used with or without drugs. Perhaps type of therapy selected is patient-specific after an initial SRI-exploratory period.
Nov. 2004
Photos of the rooms in our house, taken Oct. 2004: