QUESTION:
Dear Dr. Heller,
My Mother saves everything - paper cups, tin foil, sugar from fast food stores, etceteras. Last winter I threw out of her house 140 yards of trash. this took a hole week of my vacation. Myself and my two brothers are having her house redone, and as soon as a room is finished, she fills it with junk. when we throw the stuff out, she goes out at night and brings it back into the house and hides it.
She has been doing this our whole lives. It put my father in an early grave. There is not a horizontal area that is not piled with paper. We think she needs help but she does not see a problem. I've asked her to seek help but she just blows me off. We are thinking about bringing a doctor here, but what is this problem called?
Please help. I've moved back home with my family and it's hard to even talk to her about this. She becomes very defensive and starts blaming everything on other people. Believe it or not, my two aunts, her sisters, were the same way. My cousins are going through the same thing and I'm starting to worry whether this is genetic.
Any help would be great.
ANSWER:
The most common reason is the OCPD - obsessive compulsive personality disorder. I believe it's a brain switch stuck on "danger" all the time. I go into this at length in "Biological Unhappiness." The problem gets profoundly better with high doses of SSRI's - especially Prozac. 60-80mg daily of Prozac is the dose I find gets the best results. The official OCPD criteria can be found at http://www.BiologicalUnhappiness.com/DSM-OCPD.htm. There are other diagnoses that cause hoarding - including the OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder). She can't be helped unless she recognizes there is a problem. The screening test I use for my patients may be of use to both of you.