December 6, 2009
Posted in Child Alters, Compulsive Hoarding, Depression, DID Education, DID/MPD, Dissociative Identity Disorder, emotional pain, Internal Communication, mental health, therapy, Therapy and Counseling, Therapy Homework Ideas, Trauma, trauma therapist tagged A & E, AbuseConsultants, Addictions, Anxiety, Attachment Issues, Attachment to Things, Avoidance, Chaotic, Chaotic Thinking, Child Parts, Cleaning, Cleaning up messes, Cleaning your house, Clutter, Compulsive Hoarding, Confusion, Dallas TX, Depression, DID / MPD, DID Survivors, Disorganized, disorganized behavior, Disorganized thinking, disposophobia, dissociative disorders, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Eating Disorders, emotional pain, Grief, Healing, Hoarders, Hoarders: Buried Alive, Hoarding, Household Cleaning, Humiliation, Internal Communication, Kathy Broady, Keeping Clutter, Loss, Memory Loss, Messes, my house is a big mess, my house is an embarrassment, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, OCD, Organization, pain, Retail Therapy, Sadness, Shame, TLC, Trauma Disorders, trauma therapist, Trauma Therapy at 8:53 pm by Kathy Broady
Compulsive Hoarding is a cluttery mess!!
What makes this happen?
Have you seen homes that look like this?
Does your home look like this?
Compulsive hoarding, or disposophobia, is a psychiatric condition that affects millions of people.
Compulsive hoarding is an obsessive need to acquire and keep possessions, even if these items have little value, are unsanitary, or broken, or unusable. Numerous items are kept and not discarded. Instead of using the items already owned, or looking for items that are lost in the piles, new items are acquired repeatedly to the point that the clutter creates significant dysfunction in a variety of areas of the person’s life.
Compulsive hoarding is far more complex than it first appears. It is connected to a variety of disorganized chaotic behavioral patterns and disorganized thinking patterns. It typically occurs in combination with other psychiatric issues, such as depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), eating disorders, attention deficit disorders, addiction issues, trauma disorders, attachment disorders, etc.
There appears to be a biological base to this behavior as research is beginning to explore a genetic link to compulsive hoarding in generations of families. As children, many hoarders were raised by parents who were hoarders, so not only is it a learned behavior, but it could also be biologically connected. The area of the brain most significantly different for hoarders is the part of the brain that is responsible for focus, attention, and decision-making. According to research done at the University of Iowa, damage done to the to the right medial prefrontal cortex of the brain tends to cause compulsive hoarding.
Hoarders have a great deal of anxiety when pressured to let go of their possessions. They typically require external assistance, including professional assistance, to help with the cleaning and organizing tasks. Feelings of emotional overwhelm, intense anxiety, and panic attacks can be paralyzing for the hoarder. These increased anxiety symptoms create an inability to make decisions, stir up friction and emotional outbursts, lead to fatigue and exhaustion, and repeatedly interrupt the cleaning process. Letting the hoarder have control of the cleaning process and allowing time for the harder to build trust with the cleaning crew is particularly important to successful organizational efforts.
The clean-up process is intense and slow. Forcing a hoarder to clean too quickly will not result in long-term resolution of the problem. The problem is not just “clean up your house” or “throw this away”. The problem lies deeper within the person, and the struggles will manifest again in just a short-time.
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How does compulsive hoarding relate to Dissociative Identity Disorder?
Compulsive hoarding is an issue separate from DID / MPD, but many dissociative survivors struggle with hoarding issues.
DID survivors have a variety of issues that overlap with hoarding behaviors: intense anxiety, deep feelings of hopelessness, fear of being out of control, problems with focus and decision-making, attachment issues, loss and grief, depression, the need for memory reminders, disorganized thought processes, disorganized behaviors, etc.
How many trauma survivors do you know that did not have safe people to attach to? And how many survivors of neglect were left alone, isolated with no one to attach to? When children spend too much time alone, they tend to attach to items, toys, books, stuffies, etc. Attaching to stuff is better than attaching to nothing. It is an adaptive behavior in a painfully difficult environment. However, when this continues over time, the potential for these behaviors to develop into a compulsive hoarding situation increases.
The emotional pain from not having deep personal relationships or the fear of being near people can add to the need to connect with physical possessions or animals instead of people. Building a personal relationship with stuff, and with animals can add to a compulsive hoarding situation. Attaching to stuff can feel much safer than attaching to people.
With all the switching and amnesia that can happen with dissociative identity disorder, DID survivors can experience a lot of chaotic thinking and chaotic behaviors. It can be difficult to complete a task – you can be there, and then suddenly find yourself somewhere else five hours later, having never finished the task you started in the first place. These kinds of disorganized behaviors can leave unattended messes and growing clutter all around your house. Do your child parts pick up the messes they leave behind? Do your teenage parts pick up their clothes? Did anyone remember to finish the dishes? What about the mess those angry parts made? Who wants to clean that up?
The “I didn’t do that, so I’m not cleaning that up” concept can get very difficult for dissociative survivors. You might not know who made the mess in the first place, or the part that did it might not be around anymore, you might not know how to call them back, etc. You might not know who to assign to completing basic household chores. Developing system work and system cooperation can help, but in the meantime, there can be a lot of “that’s not mine” / “I’m not doing that” arguments. Clutter and external disorganization can build while you are sorting out these internal system issues.
How many dissociative survivors have trouble remembering if they have something? Do you own one of those things? Did you buy that, or just think about buying that? Or was that last year? Do you still have that? Or was that way back then? Where did you live when you had that? Or if you know you have it, do you know where it is?
Sometimes it is easier to buy the item again than find it or remember if you have it. While this can be a dissociative symptom, this also contributes to the “Shop and Drop” behaviors found in compulsive hoarding. Shop and Drop refers to a pattern of behavior where the compulsive shopper drops their packages and purchases in some unspecified place. Over time, the packages and purchases get lost in the piles of other clutter, and then when it is time to use the items that were purchased, the location of the dropped items cannot be found. It becomes easier to buy those items again, instead of finding the ones you had.
There is also the complication of accumulation by repetition. Compulsive hoarders will acquire and stash away numerous items that are basically the same. What if you buy everyone in your DID system a stuffie? How many stuffies will that be? What if everyone wants their own books? And of course, many of the different insiders will have their own shirts, their own pants, their own shoes, their own socks, etc. While it is extremely important that the insiders have their own things, the sheer volume of each of the parts keeping their own stuff can add to the size of an ever-growing clutter problem.
The same as with compulsive hoarding, things / possessions / items can represent memories. For DID survivors, memory is a very complicated subject. Having items that trigger memories, or remind you of certain things can be a significant part of a growing clutter issue. Loss and grief are hard emotions to process, and holding on tightly to the items that help you to remember certain people or events can be significant. It is particularly difficult to let go of an item that has emotional significance to you, especially if it feels like you won’t remember someone or something if you don’t have those correlating things.
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Here are a few ideas for addressing compulsive hoarding issues:
- Decide your current life goals, and keep only items that match with those life goals
- Explore the various meanings that possessions have for you
- Consider appropriate medications for anxiety, OCD, depression, etc.
- Work hard in therapy to address your emotional pain and other emotional issues
- For DID survivors, work hard on developing better internal communication and cooperation so clutter issues can be prevented or addressed
- Address your fears of letting go, or letting go of control – what is that about for you?
- Be honest with yourself about what you really need, what you will really use, what actually works, what you can actually fit into, etc. Challenge delusional thinking.
- Get professional help if necessary, especially if clutter is affecting your life
- Consider taking pictures of emotionally important but logically unnecessary items. Photo albums can be less cluttering than keeping all the actual items.
- Donate your excess to those less fortunate than you.
- Consider new rules to live by: If you get something new, get rid of something old.
- Address your deep feelings of shame, embarrassment, humiliation, fear, sadness, etc.
- Work on building deeper and longer-lasting attachments instead of repeatedly discarding and replacing things (but keeping it just over there in case you want it again)
- Work on building meaningful attachments to people, learning to trust, and finding ways to connect
- Find healthy, meaningful ways to fill the voids in your life by doing more, and keeping less
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By:
Kathy Broady LCSW
www.AbuseConsultants.com
www.SurvivorForum.com
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December 21, 2008
Posted in DID/MPD, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Mind Control, Ritual Abuse, therapy tagged Abuser, Block, Break their Control, Breaking the Rule, Client, Complex, Control, Cult, Cult / RA, Dark Side, Day-side, De-programming, Decide for Yourself, Decision, DID/MPD, dissociative, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Extreme Abuse, Extreme Torture, Flashback, Freedom, Freedom of Thought, Governmental Experiment, Healing, Holiday, Inside parts, Insiders, Internal Part, Kathy Broady, Light, Light Side, Listen, Listening, Manipulated, Memories, Mind Control, Mind Control Programmer, Mind Control Technique, Organization, Owned, pain, Parts in the System, Perpetrator, Power, Power to Decide, Predator, Process, Programmed, Programming, Programming Control, RA, RA Abuse, Ritual, Ritual Abuse, Rule of Silence, sadistic, severe abuse, Sex Slavery, Soul-searching, split, Survive, System, Tested, therapy, Trauma, Trauma memories, Trauma Survivor, Trauma Therapy, Violence, Which side at 3:23 pm by Kathy Broady
“Have you worked with clients that have ‘extreme torture’ trauma history in cult-RA and/or mind-control (governmental experiments)? If so, what has worked?”
Thanks for the question. What a doozy!!!
Yes, I have worked with trauma survivors that have talked about extreme torture, cult / RA abuse, mind control and governmental experiment traumas. Bunches of clients through the years have spoken in detail about many of these things. All of these survivors have also presented with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID/MPD), as these extreme, sadistic tortures cause splits to occur.
That’s the easy part to answer. The harder question is addressing the “what has worked” part!
And since this is a ritual holiday weekend, I thought this might be a good time to address these extreme abuses. I am sure that many of my readers have been experiencing difficult memories and flashbacks this weekend. It’s heavy on my mind that many others could be experiencing current-day traumas as we speak, so it seems to be an appropriate time to address this topic.
As far as “what works,” that is a very complex question. The simple answer is, basic good trauma therapy, listening closely to the inside parts, soothing the pain, creating more internal (and external) safety, reconnecting those parts with the rest of the system, and addressing the concerns raised by those internal parts in all the normal ways, etc. Many of the very same processes that work to help heal “regular abuse” continue to be effective in addressing more extreme abuses.
Mind control and programming are very complicated topics. Most people who have been programmed with various mind control techniques have experienced some of the most hideous of abuses. Healing comes by processing the traumas, but also in freeing the mind from the controls of the abusers. The various techniques and approaches to de-programming are quite complex — I’ll write more specifics about that on another day.
Working with the trauma memories themselves is much the same — start by hearing the story of what happened. Because of the level of pain and violence involved, it is very common to have more than one insider involved with any specific RA memory. So, be sure to check with a variety of parts in the system to hear what they know, to understand what they saw or felt or heard or smelled. It is also common for a person to split off new parts during extreme tortures, so you might find that you are meeting a bunch of new insiders while you are working on these extreme abuses. These inside parts each helped you to survive some of the most horrible of abuses, so welcome each of them into your world.
It is absolutely essential to remember that the inside parts are not the “bad guys”. Don’t “kill the messengers” of this bad news. No one finds memories of cult / RA / sex slavery stuff to be good news. However, your internal people didn’t create these original traumas — they just lived through it, and they survived. So recognize them as your heroes, not as people to be feared.
Of course, these internal parts with dark-side roots will have been taught dark-side things and would have been expected to behave in dark-side ways. That’s all they know. Don’t expect them to present as goodness and light when they have only participated in the dark worlds. Some of these insiders might not have ever even seen the day-side world or light-side activities. They will likely have been locked away from all that, contained and controlled by their perpetrators. They will be as disconnected from your everyday “normal” life as you are from their hidden dark worlds. They will have been already told how terrible and horrible your day-side world is, and they will be initially resistant to your efforts.
This is normal. Don’t get discouraged. The perpetrators planned ahead for this and have created various system “blocks” to prevent easy access to these parts.
The fact that you are meeting them is HUGE. They are courageously breaking the first rules given to them by even admitting and showing their existence to you. Breaking the rules of silence is not easy, so expect the road to be bumpy. And, these dark-side parts will need a lot of time to work though the years of gunk they have experienced.
Healing comes as you can claim these parts as your own people. Listen to them. Hear their experiences. Address their concerns, fears, anger, etc. Remember, it is very likely that they have heard ONLY teachings from the dark side. They won’t initially believe you or agree with you. They have already been taught and programmed to think dark things.
This is an important point in your healing. Do you truly believe that the dark teaching of the cult / mind control programmers is the life you want to lead? Or, do you want to figure out and do whatever it takes to have a life based on the light side? This decision will be tested over and over again, but it belongs to you and only you. No one in the world can literally “make you” be who you do not want to be. The programming controls can make it hard for you to be yourself, and those controls can influence your behavior, but you as the person, with freedom of thought, and the power to decide for yourself, can genuinely break their controls over you.
Let me say that again: you as your very own person, with freedom of thought, and the power to decide for yourself, can genuinely break their controls over you.
This is hard. It is not easy. They do not put in years of programmed training-trauma-abuse for no reason. Those predators have had every intention of controlling your life, for your whole life.
Breaking their control can happen. It does happen. I’ve seen it happen. BUT, it will take a whopping lot of hard, grueling, intense work on your part.
There is an entire book of information to write on this topic. But, none of the things that “work” will matter two hoots if you haven’t gotten this first step down pat:
The fact is, all the people in your system belong to you. The programmers will have told the dark ones, they belong to “them” — that is a lie. The people in your system came from your head — from your splits — from your life. They are yours. Healing from RA and mind control means that you are willing to do what it takes to get them back, and to show them that they do not have to stay stranded or stuck in those dark worlds.
Here are some soul-searching questions to ask yourself:
- What could your dark-side people say to you that will push you away from wanting to work with them?
- Do you really want parts of yourself to be controlled, manipulated, owned, and used by the cult or programmers or sex slavery organizations? Why or why not?
- Are you willing to do what it takes to claim all your inner people back to you? Why or why not?
- Are you willing to hear in detail what these dark-side parts have been through in their experiences? Why or why not?
- Are you willing to fight on their behalf, even if they are mean and ugly to you at first? Why or why not?
- Have you read RockingComplacency’s article about RA? If not — please do. http://rockingcomplacency.wordpress.com
These fundamental decisions are crucial to your healing work.
To get through the process, you will need to be firmly planted on one side of the fence. You can’t play both sides.
Which side are you on?
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by:
Kathy Broady LCSW
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Hoarders have a great deal of anxiety when pressured to let go of their possessions. They typically require external assistance, including professional assistance, to help with the cleaning and organizing tasks. Feelings of emotional overwhelm, intense anxiety, and panic attacks can be paralyzing for the hoarder. These increased anxiety symptoms create an inability to make decisions, stir up friction and emotional outbursts, lead to fatigue and exhaustion, and repeatedly interrupt the cleaning process. Letting the hoarder have control of the cleaning process and allowing time for the harder to build trust with the cleaning crew is particularly important to successful organizational efforts.
