Health
Panic Hoarding by Enabling Spaces CIC
We seem to have entered a new kind of normal in recent weeks. The world has changed beyond measure. We are being asked to socially isolate, socially distance and shield ourselves, just some of the new terminology being added to our vocabulary. Many fundamental daily tasks have changed, going to work and school, taking a walk and even the way we shop for food and household goods.
It has been well documented in the press that there has been an upsurge in people panic buying leading to the need for strict measures to be implemented to ensure that everyone can shop for what they need. Many have witnessed queues of people lining up with their shopping trolleys filling them to the brim with groceries including tinned food, pasta and even a few toilet rolls and this has had a nationwide impact.
Some have called it hoarding and in some ways it is. They felt compelled to panic buy out of fear, fuelled by anxiety into fear purchasing…fear that they may run out of something, fear that they can’t live their lives or meet their obligations to others as they would want to, thinking that buying more things will make them feel better and secure. They acquire as much as they can ‘just in case’. They have stockpiled it in cupboards, in their spare rooms, in the corners of sitting rooms and have cluttered their normally clear worktops.
Did they ask themselves if they REALLY needed it? Did they consider the needs, and the feelings, of those people coming into the store after them who found nothing on the shelves.
We all sit somewhere on the Hoarding spectrum, we use our decision making skills to organise and sort our belongings and under normal circumstances we purchase what we need. Those affected by Hoarding Disorder constantly feel that compulsion to purchase and acquire, combine that with a lack of decision making and organising skills, this leads to hoarding. Hoarding Disorder doesn’t discriminate between gender, race, socioeconomic status or age. It can affect anyone!
In the work that we do, we encounter clients every day who have been subjected to judgement and even verbal and physical abuse because of their hoarding behaviours. Perhaps this recent spate of panic buying will open further discussions about hoarding and develop better understanding of Hoarding Disorder.
If you are affected by hoarding and need support please do get in contact with us.
Jo and Yvonne
Company Directors and Founders of Enabling Spaces CIC
01926 935055
