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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This thread reminds me of a coworker I used to have at a university. She had kept every paper copy and every paper press release that ever came across her hands. She would print out all her emails and had them in folders. She had piles of papers everywhere, including on the floor. She had done this for decades.

Finally, all the office furniture had to be moved and everything cleared because they were putting in new carpet, new paint, and were converting some closed offices into cubicles. She was absolutely distraught. A whole team of us tried to help her go through and recycle, trash and generally purge. She was having panic attacks.

Finally, we got the idea to get bankers boxes and tell her it was all going “to the university archives.” That allowed her to let us get in and get it out. We of course then recycled and trashed most things, but we did indeed send a few papers to the archives.

Her home was even worse after her death.[/quote]

Obviously this is a manifestation of mental illness, and at its most extreme it results in hoarders who cannot even discard their own excreted bodily fluids and solid waste.

Treatment of hoarding disorder is still in its infancy and the disorder is one of the most difficult to bring under control because too much treatment focuses on purging the stuff and cleaning the living or workspace and expecting the person to maintain the new  normal. But inside their head they still have all the issues with abandonment that lead to their inability to let go of anything. [/quote]

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