When to pick everything up becomes a real disease

Photo Ben Pelosse
Denise prefers to remain anonymous, as several members of his entourage are not aware of his state of health.

Étienne Paré

Thursday, 22 march, 2018 01:00

UPDATE
Thursday, 22 march, 2018 01:00

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“Before, you had to do slalom on the walls to move “, launched from the outset, Denise* through the piles of objects and papers that clutter always its housing. The sixties reaching a disorder of accumulation compulsive (TAC) will be returning from far away.

A few years ago, 42 spatulas filled his drawers. Over 5000 books were crack its libraries.

“Of course, I didn’t read them all. Buy books compulsively, this was a way to have the knowledge of another. I was planning what I wanted to be, ” meditate on the one who initiated a therapy it has now been four years.

Heal one object at a time

Each time that she was receiving someone in her home, Denise rushed to hide everything in the cupboards. With the time, its closets were too small. Denise is isolated.

“I knew that I had a problem, but I procrastinais. I was too afraid to throw away something I would need later, ” she recalls. Like most people who has been diagnosed with a TAC, Denise also suffers from an anxiety disorder.

Still today, the stress came over him when she decides to sort through his old stuff.

Disease or trauma ?

“After a few seconds, it is necessary that I stop because it becomes too intense. The TAC is a chronic disease. One does not ever heal. It still remains a challenge, ” she says.

The TAC usually develops in childhood, note Natalia Koszegi, psychologist and coordinator of research at the Centre for studies on emotional disorders compulsive.

“At the beginning, they’re just collecting objects, and gradually, it becomes problematic. But we also see people who begin to accumulate suddenly after a significant event. “

When Natalia Koszegi has begun its work on the TAC there is a ten years, few experts were discussed.

The disorder was not even recognized by the DSM, the reference manual in psychiatry.

There was that reality show that was interested in it.

“It has allowed many people to realize that they had a problem,” says dr. Koszegi.

But Hoarding, which aired on TLC in early 2010, has also perpetuated false beliefs, she insists.

“It is not true that throwing everything, all of a sudden, it solves the problem. On the contrary, the person may be experiencing trauma. It is a process that stretches over years. “

One step at a time, Denise is putting his life in order. Its 5000 pounds, he remains “more than a thousand,” she says.

*Fictitious name

The first colloquium, quebec on the TAC opens today in Montreal.