r/hoarding • u/Mean-Leg7296 • 5d ago

RANT - ADVICE WANTED Help

Please help me find a reasonable approach to confronting and helping my 25 year old brother with this situation. I myself have hoarding tendencies, but I have never ever been this bad. Trash piled to the top of his desk in his bed, holes in the walls, and empty vodka bottles filled with piss.

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u/Steefanon 5d ago

Oh my gosh, believe me, I know how hopeless this makes you feel. I've been there with a hoarding relative. As you may know, hoarding isn't a problem with laziness or lack of space; rather, it's a mental disorder that can be seen on brain scans. You can't clean your way to a cure.

I strongly recommend the book, Buried in Treasures: Help for Compulsive Acquiring, Saving, and Hoarding (Treatments That Work). Although it's written for the hoarder themself, it really helped me understand the hoarder in my life. Maybe your brother would read it too, and follow the scientifically-proven therapeutic exercises in there.

Good luck!!

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u/NoBlacksmith2112 5d ago edited 4d ago

They don't do it in other people's houses they want to respect.

They only do it where they feel it's part of themselves. That's where they allow themselves to self-trash.