When does a large collection become hoarding?

when a new medical/social condition, or problem, becomes well publicized , it is then popular to to apply the half understood details of the condition to situations that bear no resemblance to the real problem.

it becomes an easy label for situations/ people that one does not understand or agree with.
there is a clear distinction between a passion or healthy interest in one or more subjects and "hoarding".
it has become popular to call anyone who owns more than a few similar things , or pursues avidly his/her interests beyond perceived "normal' levels, automatically a hoarder.

this is often from people who do not have any major interests of their own, or very different ones, who do not understand the other person's passion, are slightly afraid of what they don't understand, and therefore have to l have to stamp the behavior as "unhealthy".

there is no magical number that is the crossing line between an healthy interest or passion, and an unhealthy situation.
there is no tidiness or organizational level that goes from active, work-in-progress mess , to out of control chaos.

one can get in financial, health and social trouble with two dolls as easily as with seventy five.

heck, i know numerous doll people with normal healthy, social lives that have over a thousand dolls; mostly the result of 30-40 years of collecting and rescuing dolls and other remnants of childhood.

they may even not remember at any one given time EVERY single doll they have(they do have other obligations besides their hobbies) , but they do know most of what they have and enjoy it thoroughly!

if you can afford it , enjoy it, and sometimes clean up after the mess caused by the fun activities, then there is no problem!

on a side note , the keeping of dolls in boxes, when not being played with, is just another way of organizing things for some people.
it most definitely NOT sign of hoarding, it usually means quite the contrary.

 

I don't know what would be or would not be "hoarding dolls" that does not concern the diagnosis of compulsive hoarding Maybe when the place goes from being a little crowded to so packed it is actually dirty because the person cannot clean?

 

I removed the link...

I think I'm confused. What exactly are you asking?
I thought this had to do with compulsive hoarding because of the mention about the TV shows.

 

but the act of obsessively hoarding doll items is part and parcel with "compulsive hoarding".
these day , most people do not distingush between 'hoarding dolls" and compulsive hoarding"

however, the fact remains: to have a lot of dolls , or any object, is not automatically "hoarding"!
otherwise and collection, museum, library,university, database out there would be hoarding

most people "gather" things, few people "hoard" , relatively speakig.

the use of the word "hoard" is often used , like surreality said, as a means of shaming or controlling people with perfectly normal, healthy interests, by people who don't understand them and or don't like them.
for some of the people crying "hoarder" it is a form of a power trip; a witch hunt for what does not fit their narrow little definitions of how things should be.
and that is just as unhealthy as any compulsive "hoarding"disorders.

 

My hoarding is hoarding and it is inherited. My mother jokes to my father that the first thing she's going to do when he dies is hire a skip and chuck out all of his crap. My brother and I also are horrible hoarders - he with his addictions to model planes and computers/electronics and me with my addictions to dolls, CDs, and DVDs. (Not to mention the entire family has extensive libraries.)

All of the stuff gets used though. Most of it is organised (though my room is starting to be a bit too full.) and everything is in it's place, and I'm fully aware of what everything is.

People just are different. What one person sees as hoarding, another will see as perfectly acceptable. As long as you are still comfortable with the collection and not overwhelmed by it - and you can support yourself - it's not hoarding.

 

'When does a large collection become hoarding?' that's the question and I would answer that with when you can't move around in your house because every available space is taken up with your large collection. I'm a doll collector not a hoarder. My dolls don't take up all the available space only some of it, mostly in our bedroom. My hubby collects sports cards and coins and I collect dolls. We're not hurting anyone including ourselves. Our hobbies help us relax and give us something to do besides watch tv.

 

TLC has a nifty article about the difference between collecting and hoarding. So does PsychologyToday. Both show that collecting and hoarding are not interchangeable.

Judging by the info in both articles, it's safe to say that there is a definite difference between the two. From what I've read, I would say that one should really be concerned if you can't use your bedroom (even your bed), or some other room in your house because it's filled with doll items. If you can still get access to your bed, your closet, your dresser, or any other surface, that's probably a good sign it's probably not hoarding. However, if you need to sleep on the floor of your bedroom, or your couch because dolls are taking up your bed, then there might be a problem.

The OP seems seems relatively organized from what I've read, which I think is also a good sign it's not hoarding. I think, as long as the room is usable, then it's probably not hoarding.

Also, from the OP's definition of hoarding, keeping dolls in boxes is just as common as it is to keep them out on display. A lot of owners view their dolls as investments, and try to protect that investment by keeping them out of of the elements, which could tarnish their value.

 

Those two articles were illuminating, writerm! The thing that struck me about the articles was the idea that people with hoarding disorder have different brain chemistry from others-- in particular, the parts of the brain involved with memory and sorting seem to be affected. So a hoarder will leave things out in plain sight so as not to forget. And instead of being able to sort items into groups s/he will put each into their own group. This makes organizing impossible, because each one is in its own category. And there's an OCD element involved-- the need to "collect them all," as well as perfectionism.

As a recovering perfectionist myself, and the child of a pack-rat (not a hoarder, but too much crap around the house), I can see some of these tendencies in myself. But they've been fully explored through therapy, and I'm lucky enough to have a husband who is my polar opposite when it comes to clutter, who helps me "edit" from time to time. Still, I worry from time to time (because I'm a worrier, too!) To stay rational, here are the questions I ask myself about my doll hobby:


Am I ashamed to show it to others or to let people into my house (not because of how much it cost, but because of its sheer size)? For me the answer is "no." I have thirteen dolls and I'm done for a while, even though there are a multitude I find charming. Thirteen is about my limit for being able to appreciate all of them, clothe and wig them, etc.

Is the hobby financially hindering me (i.e., causing me to fall behind on bills, causing structural problems to my house (the cable program on hoarding had a doll collector whose house was in danger due the weight of the dolls)? No, I am on a well-defined budget, and I stick to it.

Do I buy dolls or doll items to fill a hole in my life? No, although I was in this kind of place once in my life before I discovered dolls.

Do I have problems throwing or giving away my dolly stuff? No. At this point most of my dolls have enough to wear, but as I love to sew I'm making outfits as gifts for friends. It satisfies my creative impulses without cluttering up my office further.

 

I didn't notice this segment before, but this is so true.

A little OT, but this goes for a bunch of other shows about conditions as well. A few years ago, one of my professors told us that most hoarders aren't as extreme as the people we see on TV. It's hard to understand that, because I think most of us believe that when we see shows about medical or psychological conditions on TV (in this case, hoarding), that there's no way the media can bend things to make us think that there is no gray area - but they do. That's why it upsets me when people joke about "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant", because people don't expect there to be gray areas within pregnancy, and people don't know about real medical conditions that might make this happen.

But to keep things on-topic of BJDs, my personal preference for my dolls is to have at least one outfit (probably store-bought, because I don't trust my sewing 100%) per doll. I would think that something is wrong with my own collecting habits if I didn't want to save up extra money to get them clothes, nor did I want to sew for them. I also like naming my dolls, and I would think I had an acquiring problem if I stopped giving them names, also. That might indicate, in my situation, that these dolls might not carry the same "meaning" as they did when I first started buying them.

 

I suspect I have hoarding tendencies; I like having lots of pretty books, yarns, fabrics, and various crafting tools. And I will admit that sometimes I don't touch them for months. However, I also dislike things piling on the floor or randomly thrown in boxes, so that opposing compulsion keeps me from keeping more things than I can organize. If I can't keep my things organized in shelves or otherwise neatly put away, I really can't bring in new things unless I get rid of some stuff. If I am ever living in an abundance of space, I have no compunction about bringing stuff in. In fact, one of my dreams/goals for the future is to have walls full of books. I don't consider that hoarding in terms of it being a mental disease.

That said, I think the term hoarding (and accusations of other mental ailments) has been used too loosely by some to criticize habits that they don't approve of. Their opinion then become fact by the suggestion that you have a medical condition. Certainly if you can't get out of your house due to huge stacks of boxes, I'd say seek professional help. In most cases, though, I think it's just disapproval and a difference of opinion, and those kinds of things strains relationships all the time. ​

 

I agree that people use hoarding, as well as other conditions (like OCD, Bi-Polar, etc.) as blanket terms. It does a disservice to people who have been clinically diagnosed with the disorder by putting them into a stereotype. For example, with OCD sufferers, the media makes most people (who have not been around - or are - a diagnosed OCD sufferer) believe that ALL OCD sufferers are either very neat, or are afraid of contamination. But there's more to that.

Yes, there are plenty of people who are organized to the point of obsession, and there are people obsessed with being clean, but there are also "checkers" as well as hoarders and people who have to perform certain, and sometimes odd, rituals. People who are "checkers" will check if they've locked the door, for example, several times a day or even more than that. We've already discussed hoarders, so I won't get into that. Lastly, there are people who feel the need to do certain rituals or bad things will happen.

My personal pet peeve is when people misuse the word 'antisocial'. No matter how you slice it, it doesn't mean what most people think it does.

To once again keep this on-topic, if you can manage having close to 100 dolls, can navigate your home without a lot of hassle, and can use every room in your house the way it was supposed to be used, then I think you're OK. If not, there might be an issue.

 

If keeping your dolls in boxes makes you a hoarder, then I'm one. Let's just ignore that I have destructive rabbits that live in the living room (one of them loves, loves, loves to eat doll shoes) and that my fiancé is afraid of dolls. My fiancé lives in the same house as I do and he has as many rights to go into in all the rooms as I do, so my dolls are boxed up or in a closet when I don't play with them. I take my dolls out when he's not home or when I take my dolls out I tell my fiancé "I'm going to take a few dolls into the living room, just so you know it and won't be surprised by them." Once in a while I let a doll sit in the living room, but I can see how uncomfortable it makes my fiancé, so back to their boxes or closet the dolls go.

Name any of the 29 full dolls named in my profile or any one the floating heads and I can tell you where they are stored and if they are stored in a box with another doll, which other doll is with them. I don't keep good track of the doll clothes and such, though. Those get bought and then disappear into the large doll clothes box. Sometimes I go through that box and wonder when I bought a particular item (as in, I'm surprised to find out that I actually bought it).

It is not the number of dolls or how you play with your dolls that makes you a hoarder. It's the pathological side and the denial. If you have so many doll boxes stacked up you can't even see through the windows and you still claim there's no problem, then you may think of yourself as a hoarder.

 

Idrisfynn is right, hoarding is a psychological dystunction, one that those afflicted fail to recognise, so basically the hoarder fails to see that their "collecting" is anything extreme or unusual. People can make the architecture of their house unstable and be living day to day surrounded by hazardous waste that they are blissfully unaware of in the stacks of collected treasures. They still do not see that they have a problem because it is a mental illness.

The fact that it is a mental disorder or illness, either brought on by injury or trauma, or as part of a congenital problem, means that it has nothing to do with "collecting" dolls. I am not basing this on TV shows or reading definitions on Wikipedia or wherever, just having known 2 people who had this problem and the misery it caused their families. One person had a lot of other mental disorders from being deprived of oxygen at birth (or that was the explanation their family was given) and later went on to also have a compulsive hoarding problem which became extreme. It didn't start out that way, it escalated after his mother died, before that it was just collecting.

The second person who I knew only as a very old man in his late 70's, he had been relatively normal before a car crash in his fifties, after recovering from brain injury and getting out of hospital his normal hobby of collecting showbiz memorabilia became magnified to frightening proportions. I helped to clear his home after his death and it was frightening to see how this man had spent the last decade of his life, living in a tiny warren of passages between the stacks of treasures. As I say, I knew him for a few years before his death and on many matters he seemed perfectly normal. He didn't seem to "see" the precarious skyscraper stacks of old theatre programmes and what-evers and insisted that everything he had was neccessary to his well-being.

So basically we have the Catch 22 situation where commenting on here, that "no I don't have a problem, I am not a hoarder" means absolutely nothing. If you think you are a hoarder then you probably aren't, but if you swear that you are not that doesn't mean that you are - or that you aren't... it's something the individual will be incapable of calculating.

Take a look around, schrodinger's cat might be somewhere in that floor to ceiling stack of boxes

 

I fail to see how keeping your dolls boxed means you are a hoarder. It means you like keeping your dolls in their boxes.

Hoarding is a mental illness with a number of serious symptoms. Simply because someone has a collection of items does not mean they are a hoarder, even if that collection is kept stored away.

 

When I, at least, mentioned dolls in boxes vs dolls you want to share and display, I did not mean 'dolls in boxes' as ANY dolls kept in boxes or 'on display' as dolls always being out and displayed. I know and understand that many collectors prefer to keep their dolls in boxes to keep them safe, just like many prefer to keep them out and on display all the time. I meant large numbers of dolls that are ALWAYS in their boxes after the initial purchase, stacked or piled, so that the dolls are never seen, for any reason, after entering into their stack or pile, with those stacks or piles being large, taking up enough room to be dangerous or making room un-usable. By 'displayed' I meant either keeping them always displayed, or else bringing them out and displaying them either to do photoshoots, share with friends or family who are interested, or for doll meets, or other such things where you are happy to share them with others.

My references for hoarding are, as a few others here have mentioned, taken from knowing hoarders in real life. I, for several years, dated a guy who, along with his mother, is a horrible hoarder. When we first met, I put it off as 'clutter', but it was a LOT of clutter. Mostly antiques, and paperwork, that filled a lot of their home. I know one room was un-usable when we met, and their back patio also had a lot of stuff stacked on it. But the longer I knew them, the worse it became. I know of 2 seperate triggers in their lives that took them from 'pack rats' who just didn't clear out as often as they should, to full out hoarding. After both triggers, by the time I left the relationship, they had 3 rooms in the house that were usable. They had to, as there was a little one in the family of 3 with health issues that needed in home nursing staff either at night, or during the day, for several years of my knowing them. So, they kept the living room, kitchen, and bathroom usable. Cluttered, but usable. The 'spare' bedroom that was SUPPOSED to go to that child? Floor to ceiling boxes. Stacked and packed so tight you could barely get the door open. The older son's room? You could barely get to the bed, and see the computer. You could not get into the dresser or closet, or walk on the floor. The mother's room? Stacked floor to ceiling with boxes so only a small space inside the door in front of the dresser was accessible. Turns out there was a second bathroom off the mother's room that I didn't even know existed for the first few years of the relationship. Then they started to fill the back yard with piles of boxes and stuff. 2 sheds floor to rafters full so you could only open the doors. I've spoken to people who still speak to them now, and things have only gotten worse. The side yard, back yard, and walkway along the front of the house from the driveway to the front door, are piled with boxes, rotting newspapers, toys, play equipment, and such that will never be used, can't be gotten to, and are such masses that it's hard to tell what might actually be in them under all the newspapers and bags covering it all. I really have no idea, with the amount that was in the yard when I still visited them, let alone how that has grown, HOW they've not been reported to the city for it by any of their neighbors. On top of the stuff...they also tend to collect animals. Or at least, they did when I knew them.

Back on topic here, though...a collection of dolls CAN turn into hoarding. And I would say that I would, personally, think that someone might be a doll hoarder and need help if they had boxes of dolls stacked or piled in rooms, hallways, the yard, whatever, that made the space unusable for anything, INCLUDING having 'dolly time' with their dolls. A large collection, even one kept boxed for whatever reason, on the other hand, the owner would still have their rooms usable, able to have 'dolly time' in whatever fashion they enjoy, and still be able to share their collection with other collectors, friends, or family, who are interested. Even if sharing with those interested is only pulling 1 or 2 dolls out of boxes to show off, instead of pulling out EVERY doll.

 

I certainly never meant to imply myself that there's anything wrong with keeping dolls in boxes. I have a demented feline who would love to attack my dolls for their wigs if they were within his reach, so I totally understand. It's harder for me to understand if someone keeps dolls in their boxes from the moment they're purchased and never takes them out to play with them at all, but it's not my place to judge why people do things. When I explained why I personally don't feel like a hoarder, I was only referring to myself. Everyone else can make their own judgements.

I have both OCD and bipolar disorder and have been under treatment for them since age 15, and while it's annoying to hear people use them as catch-all terms for anyone who's a bit obsessive or moody, there's a point where I've had to just let go of the frustration - constant anger at people misusing medical terms isn't going to be of any benefit to my health either. Certainly, OCD can take many forms. I'm not overly obsessed with cleanliness at all, that's just one possible aspect of the disorder.

 

Mine is people using the word "schizophrenic" when they mean "has multiple personality disorder".

I notice none of the examples of hoarders provided seem to involve actual BJD owners. This hobby is small enough that there probably are very, very few cases of this, possibly even none at all.

I live with my parents these days, meaning I have a bedroom and part of a spare room for storage, so my collection has to be crammed into far too little space, which makes it seem more unwieldy than it is (I'm at 13 currently, with lots of clothes, wigs, etc). I used to be a packrat but I've moved too many times to keep that up. I wouldn't see any collection as hoarding until it made, as in examples above, much or all of the house basically unusable -- or an actual diagnosis was made by someone in the proper field.