Story Published: Apr 14, 2006 at 12:25 PM PDT
Story Updated: Aug 20, 2006 at 10:11 PM PDT
and KATU.com Web Staff
CONNECTICUT - It is an affliction that goes far beyond being a simple pack rat.
The compulsive, uncontrollable urge to have, to collect, to keep and to possess things far beyond the limits of reason afflicts millions of Americans and people around the world.
They are hoarders, people who want to keep everything and cannot force themselves to get rid of anything.
Hoarding is an obsessive/compulsive disorder, or OCD, and recent studies suggest that part of the problem for hoarders is not just their limitless urge to accumulate things, but also a mental condition that manifests itself as an inability to divest themselves of what they have collected.
Linda Macintosh is a hoarder currently under treatment. She wishes her home, where every room is now filled with items ranging from clothes to empty boxes to old newspapers, was clean, more normal, more livable.
But Macintosh just can't bring herself to get rid of anything, including an old dishrag that she holds as dear as diamonds.
She says the thought of throwing away an item makes her nauseous, brings on headaches and other physical ills.
Now, Macintosh is participating in medical studies to determine why she and other hoarders stack seemingly worthless items up to the ceilings of their homes.
Doctor David Toland says brain scans taken while hoarders throw away even a simple item - junk mail - shows that they perceive getting rid of something as punishment.
Now, with therapy, Macintosh is making headway against her mental master.
She doesn't dumpster dive anymore. She is slowly getting rid of a few things, but has rooms full of items still to go.
What made her seek treatment? She says a failed relationship was the tipping point, the ending of which she blames on her hard-to-hide hoarding habit.
All she wants now, she says, is an end to the hoarding, a clean house, and someone to share it with.
She is hoping continued treatment can deliver her from the grips of her hoarding OCD.