[kach22i]

Originally Posted by pavulon

a cut and paste:

Without exception, hoarding is always accompanied by varying levels of anxiety and sometime develops alongside other mental illnesses such as dementia and schizophrenia. Recent neuroimaging reveals peculiar commonalities among hoarders including severe emotional attachment to inanimate objects and extreme anxiety when making decisions.

Hoarding both relieves anxiety and produces it. The more hoarders accumulate, the more insulated they feel from the world and its dangers. Of course, the more they accumulate, the more isolated they become from the world, including family and friends. Even the thought of discarding or cleaning out hoarded items produces extreme feelings of panic and discomfort.

From here:

The Psychology Behind Hoarding
When does cluttered turn to hoarding?
Posted Sep 05, 2014
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hope-relationships/201409/the-psychology-behind-hoarding

Hoarding is considered an offshoot of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), but recently this categorization is being reevaluated. It’s estimated that about one in four people with OCD also are compulsive hoarders. It is possible that some time in the future hoarding will become its own distinct category. In the meantime, it’s very real, and more and more people are opening up about the difficulty hoarding presents in their lives..........................................

Researchers, doctors and psychologists continue to search for effective treatments for hoarding, and Americans continue to observe the accumulation on the TV screen. When a world is awash in anxiety, worry, and fear, and when accumulating things becomes a way to deflect and manage those feelings, the stack will keep getting bigger and bigger.

Odd, I thought the Wiki page on this topic said it was related to depression.