When does a large collection become hoarding?

JennyNemesis - You are my hero. Could you teach me how to be you? Just a little?

I think there's a lot of valid information in this thread, about hoarding and the like. I just did a massive cleanout of my possessions yesterday and found so much random stuff in my room that I didn't know I had. (Old Doctor Who magazines that had been read and then shoved in a corner and forgotten about.)

I think that it's important to recognise that the behaviour of hoarding is not defined so much by what you accquire, but by what you do with it once you acquire it. I've seen OCD - my brother has very mild OCD, and used to suffer from needing to constantly wash his hands after touching anything, and my mother has a version where she fixates on the first thing someone says about a condition (mostly medical) and believes that's the answer to every symptom that comes up. (Example, she believes my dog has anxiety issues because he digs holes and destroys his toys, no matter how many times I remind her that he's still a puppy, and that's what puppies do. Her reply is that the behaviourist warned her a pound puppy might be anxious, so he's obviously anxious.) - and I can easily picture how that would escalate into hoarding.

From what I understand of the replies here, hoarding is an obsessive compulsive disorder that focuses on the inability to throw anything away from the fear of the reprocussions of that action - whether or not those fears are realistic. I don't think there's many of us here like that.

 

Some hoarders will also take to dumpster diving to try and "rescue" items. They're not going to do anything with those items, either. They may say "I'll give this to my son because he might be able to use it," but "It" is an old, gross, run-down thing that the son neither wants or needs.

Not sure if I put this in my post with the other links, but here's a list of hoarding symptoms from the Mayo Clinic's website. Sure, one or two of these habits might not lead to a sure-fire diagnosis of hoarding; I'm sure a lot of us live in a home with some degree of clutter, and I'm sure a lot of us have problems with procrastination as well. Neither of these symptoms - together or alone - should immediately make someone assume you're a hoarder. There's also a little blurb there about the difference between hoarding and collecting. While it doesn't mention artists, I think we can conclude that artists might collect random things for the sake of artistic means, and that doesn't mean they're hoarding.

But if you take those symptoms, and add the "stranger" ones (like taking used napkins from restaurants) then I think it would be plausible to start thinking that this might be cause for concern. Again, this might not hold up for artists who intend to use those used napkins.

True, hypocrisy is a rampant part of our culture. To go off hoarding for a moment, in the news today, a study had been published saying that while a lot of people had such an outcry for healthier food in fast food restaurants, not many people are eating them. Fatty food most likely wins over salad because it's full of fat, which our bodies crave for survival. That burger activates the pleasure center of our brains, we think the burger tastes good, and we remember company x's burger to be something tasty and pleasurable.

We're not only a society of consumers, we're a society of competition. I think that's what is initially driving our consumption habits. Competition is the force that drives people to believe that one product is better than another. There's so much psychology invested in both advertising as well as in your local grocery store. You see the joy on the man's face as he takes a bite out of company x's burger, you remember how much you liked their burger, and you will most likely order that the next time you go.

I think, when it comes to fast food, most of us fall into ruts, and we probably eat the same item every time we go because we know that's what tastes good. People are probably apprehensive of salads at fast food restaurants because they don't want to eat something they assume won't be as good as the burger they always eat.

 

I guess you could make the case that I might be in a quite minor sense a candidate for "hoarder" status in that I have a mental illness with a manic aspect that has led to a degree of obsessive collecting. As a child I had multiple, vast collections, most of which were perfectly normal for a child (horses, rabbits, wolves, tigers, miniatures, porcelain dolls, Disneyana) and some of which were distinctly not (at one point I had a small drawer full of acorns). But as I've grown older and more self-aware, and more well-managed, I've pared down my total number of collections down to three (discounting books and dvds, as everybody collects those one way or another) and I try not to have more than three of something I find particularly pretty because when the number gets above three my brain wants to classify it a "collection" and begin prompting me to add to it at every opportunity.

Where my dolls are concerned, "I have this and it's pretty" turned into "I collect bjds" when I ordered Darren, my fourth. That's when I really latched onto the idea of making a "cast" rather than just having one boy and one girl as models. But I make a distinction between the kind of collecting I did as a kid and the kind of collecting I do now. I limit myself with specifics, and I stick to them--I build casts rather than buying dolls for one larger collection. There are only so many characters in a cast (and only so many within a cast that I love enough to pay $300+ for a resin version!), so the collection has to "end" at some point. My Cirque dollies are a little dangerous to me in that regard because of the vast canon, but I've kept a reasonable hold on it so far... and the Supernatural cast will meet a definite end at 3 with Sam, so I'm safe there! (My 2 OC dolls-in-planning are characters I've carried around in my head since high school, and I don't have any others I'm quite that attached to.) I love reading about the characters people create for their dolls, but I'm leery of collecting that way myself, because I'm a little afraid I might never stop buying if I do.

That said, I'm wondering if maybe you meant to ask how one can tell when "having dolls" has become more about the having than the dolls. For that... I guess it's when you think more about the dolls you're fixing to/want to/might someday want to get than the dolls you have already.

 

I did the acorn thing, as a kid! It ended badly, because there was some kind of bug inside of the acorns. One day we saw a few of these little white larvae in my acorns, and we threw my collection out.

 

When does a BJD owner become a BJD Hoarder?
I think for a BJD owner to be a hoarder they'd have to buy hundreds of dolls and leave them scattered all over, often forgetting which ones they have an only buy them to buy them, Without any real use or purpose.
I very much doubt there are many of those around.

Have you been accused of being a doll hoarder, or possibly even thought you may be? and on what grounds?
My dad has accused me of being a hoarder. But he's one of those "i've watched this or read about this for an hour so now i'm qualified to diagnose you" types. SO he accuses me of a different thing or problem about 2 or 3 times a month XD.

I've seen Hoarders and i absolutely don't believe i'm anywhere close to a hoarder, doll or otherwise. I will admit that my boxrooms and knick knacks for dolls do take up a lot of space in my room. That being said, i have a pretty big room and my dolls aren't at the point where they are over flowing and hindering my living situation.

 

Sorry, I have to disagree with that. Your "significant" is not my "significant". I have far more that your subjective limit of 50, yet I don't wish to part with any of them. I would sell many, many other things that other people might consider more "valuable" before I'd sell the dolls.That does not make me a hoarder. It makes me a collector. My dolls are all well cared for, and do not impact my everyday life negatively in any way.

There is no magic number that transfers someone from collector to hoarder.

 

...not to mention, you could probably fit 50 pukis on a single bookshelf if posed creatively.

 

Yeah number in a collection really means nothing. I saw a guy that had hundreds upon hundreds of Transformers throughout its generations in a spare bedroom. That doesn't make him a hoarder; that makes him a hardcore collector. I have thousands of dollars worth of sketchbooks that used to take up my entire walk-in closet, and stuffed animals that took up my whole room. That didn't make me a hoarder.

Just because someone has a lot of dolls, they aren't necessarily a hoarder, they just love dolls, and love a lot of them.

 

I could only get past the first page so I apologize.

I'm a recovering obsessive compulsive who used to check every light in the house a hundred times and every faucet and every window\door and even the chairs because God forbid something happen like a house fire or someone tripping because it would be my fault and Mom would get mad and I would be to blame...

I used to have what I termed 'pack-rat syndrome' because I never told anyone about it, and I didn't want anyone to know about it. I fight with it still, but I'm mostly recovered -on my own-.

It came about because my mother used to clean out my room when I was at school, throwing away /everything/ I had and saying, "Well, it wasn't as if you ever played with anything".

So I hoarded everything I had. I hid things away wherever I could. Even candy wrappers I thought were pretty because I never knew what she would throw out. For years I kept everything I thought was "useful", because "you never know when you can use it". My mom did the same thing to a certain extent until I realized what the heck we were doing and we were surrounded by plastic boxes and wooden shelves of JUNK.

I sold things. I threw things away. I cleaned. I had to get rid of things. I couldn't hold onto stuff "just because I might need it".

It was taking up space, it was cluttering my life, and I couldn't take it anymore. It was...JUNK. It was stupid.

That. THAT is hoarding.

Having 50 dolls that I play with and love and will use and have used /isn't/ hoarding. It's obsessive, yes, because I love to create things, but it isn't hiding things in the back of my closet for fear the monster my mother was will come in the middle of the day while I'm at work and throw them out.

Hoarding is a psychological illness. And only the hoarder themselves can recover from it. They have to realize that holding onto those things isn't going to help them. It isn't protecting them. It isn't bringing back the panda bear puppet that their mom tossed into the trash and said, "don't even think of sneaking out to rescue him because I drove him all the way to the dumpster at your dad's workplace, because I'm smarter than YOU".

[breathes]

Whew. So I guess my vote is...it isn't hoarding unless you're buying them and hiding them, afraid they're going to be hurt or taken away.

My kids...they get bumps. They get played with. And they recently had a play date with my mom and the five year old niece. Yes, even the Volks limiteds because they have the Lalaloopsy fanclub. And we had fun.

I'm not afraid anymore. I just have a big family. A big, unruly family that happens to gather a little dust every now and again. :3

 

I would have to say hoarding goes hand in hand with compulsive buying. When you see a doll and you 'just have to have it' even though you don't have the money or space or are buying for the wrong reasons and probably plan to sell it later to get another one. It's a vicious cycle.
Also I am of the opinion that you should be able to recite your dolls in the order you bought them, their given name and there sculpt name. If you can't remember that much YOU HAVE A PROBLEM! Once you have gotten to this point you really don't care so much about each individual doll and can't be expected to maintain them properly either. In my opinion 50+ bjds with more than half being SD sized is ridiculous. Where on earth are you going to put them? Not to mention most of them are going to get neglected, and really, what is the point in buying them if you're not going to enjoy each one. Still, this doesn't necessarily make you a 'hoarder', but the dusting alone would be a nightmare. Not to mention changing that many outfits...I have seven and I can hardly find time to dedicate to them all, and I only work part time.

 

YES!

I would've quoted your whole post, because you bring up a lot of points that've been made already.

When I was writing my posts, I purposely tried to stay away from "If you have this many dolls, you might be a hoarder" because there are people on this forum who have 50+ dolls and are fine. We shouldn't be pinpointing hoarding behavior on just how much they have. You don't know what that person's living situation is; they could be in a very large home that can comfortably hold 50+ without having them risk falling or being piled into heaps.

It's not just how much you have, it's also what you have, if you use it, and why you have it.

I noticed that you mentioned shame, and this can also happen with hoarders. A lot of hoarders will see absolutely nothing wrong with what they've got. They're perfectly fine sleeping in their cars, and are fine with having 18 cats in their small apartment. However, there are people who do find what they're doing is a bad thing, and they are ashamed of what their situation is now. They know that they really shouldn't have this much stuff in their home, but they just can't control themselves. Sometimes, they need a therapist to help them gain a new outlook.

My mom used to do that when I was little. I never caught her until one day I decided I wanted to play with one of my toys, and went on a hunt to try to find it. A few days later - when I came up empty - my dad pulled me aside to say she had thrown it out. I'm still a little bummed about it when I think about it now.

You have to be very strategic when it comes to hoarders and trying to control the chaos of their homes. You can't just go nuts, enter when they're not home, and throw out everything you see. You might throw something that actually IS important out, but you also need them to be OK to part with things. They've grown attached to these things, and suddenly realizing that you've thrown half of their things out can backfire.

I also remember someone mentioning having a room for their collections. That doesn't count as hoarding. If you have a room dedicated to showing off your collections, then that room is being properly utilized. It's not a bathroom that is unusable because you have no room.

 

Thinking about it some more...
I would definitely have to say yes, hoarding in it's self is not about how many you have but how you possess the ones that you do have. Most people here are not hoarders, however I still think some of them have ridiculously large and irrationally unmanageable collections with a bad habit of buying dolls they don't even care all that much about just to say they have it. Still they might be more of a compulsive buyer than a hoarder. It's a little difficult to distinguish the difference sometimes.

 

It's always great to have the hopelessly judgmental speak out on psychological issues, likely without a degree in such or any case history or interaction with those people to make the claim that 'they have a problem!' It always gives me such warm fuzzies when someone believes they know someone else better than that person knows themselves and has to shout it to the rafters.

According to you, I HAVE A PROBLEM. *thundercrash* Somebody ring up dolly protective services, pronto! Horrors! (Here is where I do my shocked and horrified face.) Note: I also don't remember the names of my cousins' kids, how many there are, or the order in which they were born. Those are actual people, with considerably more importance.

I really love it when people talk straight out of their hind end like this, because let's be really blunt here, that's exactly what the quote above is. People enjoy their dolls in different ways. Yours ain't the only way. Maybe you don't have time for yours, but plenty of people have considerably more than seven and have no problem whatsoever enjoying the whole of their collection in their way without some sort of psychological illness, which is all fine and dandy because it's their possessions, and their life.

The real 'illness' I see way too much of is how damnably quick some hair-trigger, self-centered-and-self-important 'my way is the only way that could possibly exist!' thinking is common in present day society. Yeesh. It makes me wonder if the reason people who think 'outside the box' are valued more and more these days is that too many seem unable to get out of their own heads long enough to even find the box in the first place, let alone an egress.

 

My mother-in-law was a hoarder. It got so that no one could go upstairs in her house. My (now ex) husband couldn't get his collection of pristine in the jacket albums (like, 700) to sell because of the junk blocking the stairs. & it was junk - papers, torn clothes, broken jewelry, etc. So sad.
As for moms throwing things out, WELL! My mother, bless her little housecleaning heart, threw out my stack of comic books back in the 60s (saying: you won't ever get to college reading this junk) - that stack included the first Spiderman comic. I will NEVER let her live that down - every time it goes up in price at an auction I email her....She also threw away my entire box of Beatle memoriabilia ~sigh~ She really wasn't being mean. Just cleaning...
I make sure to always give boxes to Goodwill every year - I hate to actually throw things away mind - & if I can't organize it or store it, I throw it in the give-away box. I do NOT ever want to end up like my mother-in-law! But I also don't ever want to be like my mom, who really doesn't keep things around at all There is a happy medium.
As for my dolls, I've been collecting for years - & I keep them out on display (non BJDs here). I have a specific plan for my resin dolls which I'm keeping to. I'm getting ready to do something I have needed to do for years - which is REALLY go thru my 1000 or so books ~sigh~ & get rid of the ones I don't need - I do that to a certain extent each year but I've got textbooks from university that have gone out of date they are so old (40 years). I need to get rid of a bunch so I can display the dolls I want - good excuse to clean I say LOL

 

I have a disease. Often, I can't remember my own name. Often, I don't remember what I was doing. Often, I can forget how to brush my teeth or use a fork. It's not progressed to the point that I have to have constant care, but on a bad day, I forget simple tasks and short term things. Long term things aren't too bad, but if its anything within the past five years or anything "care taking", it takes a hit.

Everyday is a struggle. But according to you I'm a hoarder, since I can't remember those things off the top of my head and I need a list at times (even though I can remember that "sometimes I call that guy the one with the funny floppy body" threw a red spiky ball at me when I was putting him in his bag to go shopping).

However, I can also remember that the guy on my headboard (who was once Kazutaka, now Aiden) went to the Sleep Center with me when I had my first sleep test when it was in the old building. And then when I had the second one, I took Corbie, who was Asher, but is now Sergei (he's had more changes than me).

BTW, it's "their" not "there". :3

 

Wow. Just wow.

I actually cannot tell you the ages of my nieces and nephews, and they're people. Hell, I actually have to sit and think about how old my sisters and brother are when someone asks me, and it usually requires me to do math starting with how old I am. It's simply information I just don't really care about. I can't remember all of the dolls I've owned. It's been a lot. I have better things to do with my time than worry about memorizing things like that.

I know it's difficult for the feeble minded, but a lot of people have jobs and places to live and are intelligent adults capable of handling their finances to the point where, yes, they can afford to own and store 50 SD sized dolls. I know it's hard for self centered people to realize that other people have different ways of doing things. It's a struggle for them to understand people play with their toys in different ways, and some people don't even need to play with their toys to derive enjoyment from them. It's tragic really.

 

I have this same problem, and when asked will sometimes have a momentarily lapse of how old -I- am. And will have to have a mental conversation with myself. My mother will often cycle through her sisters names first when wanting my sister or myself before every getting to ours. Often times never actually calling one of our names before saying.."You know who you are come here!" And I would like to think were important to her. :P

Some people are just bad with names and dates, I know I am. I have one doll and will sometimes forget when he showed up. As it's been mentioned numerous times everyone plays differently. Just because something is important to one person does not mean it'll be important to another. There are far more important things in my life then when my doll showed up, like making sure I spend time with my dying grandmother, who doesn't even remember who I am let alone basic tasks, because she's got Alzheimer.

My doll has two outfits and has spent the last several weeks in just one of them. I really don't feel the need to change his clothes everyday just to be happy. He basically just sits on my dresser staring into space sometimes collecting dust, because you know what just having him there DOES make me happy. I don't have to do anything with him, or brush his hair or takes pictures of him to enjoy him.

And yes someone can buy something simple because they want it, and just to have it around, serving no purpose other then it being there. No that doesn't make them a materialist slob or negligent simple because you don't like it. Please stop worrying about what other people do, enjoy your stuff and let the rest of us enjoy ours.

 

you can never have to many BJD'S
that is impossible

 

I guess someone would call me a hoarder, as I have 63 dolls. I like getting them clothes and all, have more eyes and wigs than I know what to do with. But I am trying to get rid of those that I don't need. I honestly don't have friends outside the hobby, and my family...well, I never was close as they all lived basically close to each other and I'm an hour away. I don't know the ages of my second cousins, or third. Even my cousins I can't. I have no brothers or sisters, and will never have kids cause I can't, and even if I sold the entire collection, I MIGHT have the chance at an adoption, but now that's not even certain! Or a shot at having a baby with the help of science but I have such bad luck it wouldn't take. So they've become my kids, my family when I have no one else to turn too.

I want to own a place where people can drop off unwanted animals, but I'd hoard them. I'd end up not being able to care for them so I know I can't do it. I don't see my collection as hoarding but there are a couple of the dolls I have to really think on their names. Most I can look and say "Oh, that's Naru, that's Jason, that's Alex, that's Rowan," etc. Sure, three don't have names, but two arrived last week, and one is just a head, and I think I want some work done on him. But I don't see it as hoarding. In fact, I've scaled way back. Now I want to get bodies for the heads I have, and just a few extra.

I see pretty ones, but so far, none SCREAM...in fact only a few did but all the ones I have, they have names, save those 3. I could sell a ton of them but there are certain ones who'll never go.

All of mine are in my room. I basically just sleep in there anyway. Seeing them makes me happy. So if I'm a hoarder...*shrugs*

(I do have the pack rat thing...but after a bit, sometimes I wonder why I keep things and toss it, or donate it if it really has a use, like an old fish tank that the fish died. Sometimes I keep catalogs then realize I don't need it, cause I'm not buying anything and out it goes. At least you can walk in my room! Sorta...scrapbooking stuff is out on the floor...*blush*)

 

I can't even remember my best friends birthday. I often forget my mother's age--hell, the only reason I remember her birthday is it is exactly 6 months to the day after mine. I *don't even know* who all of my cousins are, or who half my family is (not so much my memory though)... does that mean I have a problem?

Okay, so maybe it doesn't seem so wise to some that someone would have so many dolls, especially larger dolls, but that doesn't mean you need to go so far as to say they have a problem. They don't have a problem at all until the collecting become damaging... And I can guarantee that once I get my collection under way, I may not forget their names, but I'm almost certain I'll forget their sculpt name. Does that mean I have a problem? Even if I have like 5 or 6 dolls? No.

I'll just say that you shouldn't be so quick to judge just because someone can't recite to you all the dolls they have. If someone has 50+ dolls...even if *all* of then are SDs, if it isn't damaging them, if it doesn't negatively affect them, their family, or their living space, then there is no problem to be had. So back off and let those people enjoy their large collections of resin in peace.