From the moment when we enter school, we are under social pressure to conform. This process continues throughout our lives, as the public media, and the people we know, influence our purchasing decisions. These choices include who to vote for, and which soccer team to support. But there are less obvious pressures too, including the social drivers of compulsive hoarding.
The Social Forces Governing Our Possessions
We live in a consumer-driven society. It influences what we purchase, how we use it, and the things of social value we take pride in. Most of us hang on to social indicators from our past, from our school photos to family memorabilia.
These social pressures influence the things we acquire, how we use them, and whether we keep them or not. Therefore, it is not surprising that social drivers of compulsive hoarding, influence the clutter in hoarders’ homes too. These pressures also help explain why they have such difficulty discarding their clutter.
Social Drivers of Compulsive Hoarding in Action
The social forces behind consumerism, encourage us to believe that possessions are the path to status and happiness. This phenomenon also helps us understand why hoarders have such difficulty, letting go of their clutter.
Indeed, these forces help us understand the sharp growth in self-storage parks across England. Their customers seldom ever return, except to add more things to their collections, to which they often seem irreparably bonded.
Our Possessions Define Our Public Persona
The consumer movement flooding across Britain defines our social position, and our social status too. Our possessions shape our national economy, and how we view ourselves as a nation. We keep buying more, whether or not we have the space for it in our homes.
The social drivers of compulsive hoarding fit neatly into our general obsession with things. The same realities that define us as individuals, shape compulsive hoarders too. They explain why they are so obsessed with their clutter, and agonize over parting with it.
Shadows of Compulsive Hoarding in All of Us
Compulsive hoarders may be at the far end of the consumer spectrum, but they are still shadows of our own consumer loyalty. As we approach the halfway point in this article, we ought to remember hoarders are not an alien species.
There is a potential hoarder in every one of us, waiting for some life experience to creep out. We should therefore not judge compulsive hoarders too severely. They are not separate from us. We are, in the greater order of things, soulmates. Hoarding is an involuntary disorder we all have shades of.
Hoarding Culture and Gathering Consumerism
There is evidence of a shift in how we relate to our possessions over time. Consumers are tending towards the excessive accumulation of things, whether or not we are hoarders. We could make a good case for social influences being behind this trend too.
We can trace the growth of this culture in the UK, since the close of the second world war. Our parents, the baby boomers, emerged from a period of deprivation, to a post-war consumer boom. Collyer’s Syndrome, as they called compulsive hoarding back then, surged in parallel with the growth in disposable income.
Psychologists, faced with a new enigma, concluded this phenomenon was a new form of obsessive-compulsive behaviour. In other words, they saw a ritualized pattern that helped ward off social anxiety. This fear of how others see us, can cause some to retreat from society.
Reconciling Compulsive Hoarding Drivers
We now understand that the culture of hoarding develops through both individual psychology, and sociological pressures. Anxiety and emotional attachment to possessions can combine, and ignite the social drivers of compulsive hoarding we describe here.
These processes materialize as increasingly cluttered living space, that compulsive hoarders are too socially embarrassed to share with friends and neighbours. The one dynamic feeds off the other as the hoard grows, while the hoarder shrinks away from social contact.
Impact On Hoarders’ Friends and Family
The friends and family of compulsive hoarders are often left confused, and alarmed by their hoarder’s behaviour. The last time they entered their home the hoarder silently watched, as they surveyed the clutter that had grown since their previous visit.
Their hoarder, on the other hand, did not understand all the fuss. They were doing what came naturally to them, in terms of the social norms and standards of the consumer society, as they understood them.
However, there may come a time when those friends and family have to intervene, for the health and safety of their loved one. They may have to relocate their hoarder to a care home, as gently and compassionately as they can.
How to Clear a Hoarded Home of Clutter Easily
If you find yourself facing the question of how to clear the clutter next, then you may be interested in Avery Associates’ home clearance service. Our offering is a three-stage process.
First we search through the clutter, and retrieve personal documents and anything of real value, and hand these over to you. Secondly, we collect and clean what would interest charity shops and second-hand dealers. Finally, we remove the clutter, clean the home, secure it, and hand you back the keys.
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