Many people know the television shows, Hoarding: Buried Alive, on TLC or Hoarders on A&E. These reality TV shows feature hoarders and their families. The crews of the shows follow the hoarder for a few days to study how hoarding affects their daily lives. A professional organizer and a therapist are taken through the house to see what the hoarder collects. The houses are disgusting; many times, there are rodents, cockroaches, stacks of paper and garbage everywhere. The audience is shown interviews of the family members of the hoarder. The therapist and the professional organizer help the hoarder and the family cope with the compulsive behaviors and make an attempt the help the hoarder clear the house. Most times, at the end of the episode, viewers see the hoarder making huge improvements in dealing with their illness; however, not all cases end with great success. These television shows usually show the cases that succeed in cleaning their house and coping with their disorder. Most people who struggling with hoarding are not this lucky. Hoarding: Buried Alive fails to show ways in which hoarding can be treated. Clearly, they bring in a therapist and show a clean house, but most times, this is not enough (Starr). According to Therese Borchard, 700,000 to 1.4 million people are affected by hoarding in the United States alone. Hoarding not only affects the hoarder, but also the family of the hoarder. Hoarding makes living conditions cluttered, creates disorganization within the household, and brings about extreme stress for the hoarder and the family member. Treatment for hoarding is a difficult task because most hoarders do not believe that they have a problem. Hoarding can be treated with medications or cognitive behavioral thera... ... middle of paper ... ...ve a mutation in their brains. “In hoarders, patients had less activity in a part of the brain (called the posterior cingulated gyrus) that involves visual processing” (Saxena). Because more and more cases are appearing, doctors and scientists are beginning to take it more seriously than in the past. There is no cure for hoarding, and like OCD, there most likely never will be a cure. There are things that help with the symptoms and make the hoarders life a little easier. Medications that are used for depression and OCD can be beneficial for the hoarder. These drugs can sometimes decrease the symptoms, but they do not work for all people with suffer with the terrible disorder. Therapists and organizers can also help, but there is not anything that can be done to cure hoarding. The number of hoarders seems to be increasing every year. People need to take it seriously.
Reading the story “On dumpster diving” by Lars Eighner it made me feel grateful for my materialistic things, because I would not want to experience dumpster diving to survive. Eighner has led me to question where I place my value. He has made me curious about what treasures could be found in dumpsters. Most of these items have lost their intrinsic value; however, they could hold great personal value. A can of food could mean a meal for someone in need. It has also made me wonder about what I throw away, and if someone has ever discovered what I’ve thrown away and used
...oermann et al, 2005). This has a tendency to lead to an insecure sense of one’s self. (Hoermann et al, 2005) A person with this disorder has a difficult time being reliable. This can be from constant career change, relationships and goals. These essential changes occur without any warning. (Hoermann et al, 2005)
I agree with his assessment about society’s throw away mentality due to the fact that I have seen it myself first hand. Recently I helped my sister move out of her dorm room at NAU and I was horrified to see all the things and edible food she was just dumping and what was worse, she wasn’t the only one. All of the kids were getting rid of perfectly good items in the dumpster, so it’s no wonder that dumpsters near college campuses are one of Eighner’s favorite places to scavenge. In his article on page 3, Eighner elaborates on student’s wasteful habits, “but in the case of discards from student apartments, the answer may be that the item was discarded through carelessness, ignorance or wastefulness.” I believe agree with Eighner that some people have a pack rat mentality while others just throw it away. My parents are a good example of this and I think it has something to do with the way that they were raised. My mom is a pack rat, holding on to everything as long as possible and giving away to charity what she doesn’t want anymore. She squeezes every last drop out of a toothpaste tube or a shampoo bottle, while my dad will throw it away half empty. My mom was raised in a single parent household, where money was tight and you used what you had… my dad however, was raised in a more affluent home and money flowed more freely. In fact, my mom does her own dumpster diving fairly regularly in our garbage can by rescuing stuff out of the garbage that my dad has thrown away, including belts, pants, shirts and hardly worn tennis shoes. She doesn’t keep the goods, but instead gives it to Goodwill or the church clothing drive. My dad is her antithesis and is definitely part of the throw-away society. My dad has little sentiment attached to stuff and like Eichner mentioned on page 6, “knows there is plenty more where what we came from.” After reflecting on
1. The main idea is not only that owning stuff is not the key to happiness, it’s also that consumers today own more than they need to thrive which directly impacts the environment. Hill illustrates the environmental impact by showing statistics of global warming today versus the past century, and how consumerism is leading to a hotter climate. Hill debunks claims of buying happiness by discussing a study where stress hormones spike to their highest when people are managing their personal belongings. Hill’s most prominent example that consumerism is not the answer is himself, as he discusses some of the most stressful times of his life being right after coming into a large sum of money and buying whatever he fancied. When Hill concludes his article, he states that “I have less—and enjoy more. My space is small. My life is big” (213).
Survivors are individuals who possess the characteristics of love, pain, fear, and hunger when they are faced with challenges and adversities. Consequently so, survivors usually act as catalysts towards change and growth by reinforcement and encouraging others to conquer any challenges they may experience. The novel Trash, composed by Andy Mulligan, investigates how individuals utilize these characteristics of love, pain, fear, and hunger in a positive way to further individual change and growth for both themselves and their community.
There is evidence that the orbitofrontal cortex is associated with emotions and decision making and, lesion to this area may cause severe impairments in the process of using emotions to make decisions before carrying out certain tasks. Therefore, patients with orbitofrontal damage may suffer from the inability to make appropriate choices by acting impulsively. Moreover, they may ignore the consequences of their behaviours as they will not be able to understand the thoughts and emotions experienced by other people. Finally, they may engage in disinhibited social behaviours such as obsessive gambling, hypersexuality, drugs and alcohol abuse and excessive swearing.
The author, Lars Eighner explains in his informative narrative, “On Dumpster Diving” the lifestyle of living out of a dumpster. Eighner describes the necessary steps to effectively scavenge through dumpsters based on his own anecdotes as he began dumpster diving a year before he became homeless. The lessons he learned from being a dumpster diver was in being complacent to only grab what he needs and not what he wants, because in the end all those things will go to waste. Eighner shares his ideas mainly towards two direct audiences. One of them is directed to people who are dumpster divers themselves, and the other, to individuals who are unaware of how much trash we throw away and waste. However, the author does more than direct how much trash
“Surveys of people experiencing homelessness show that about 25% of the homeless population suffers from some form of mental illness... ,” (Homelessness in America). The homeless peoples’ mental illness can be thought as a result of their loneliness, past experiences, or unhappiness. There may be something haunting he/she that makes them have to struggle with their thoughts and endure the emotional stress. A homeless girl named Rebecca tells her story. “I slash myself to turn emotional pain into controllable physical pain. It's not usually to kill myself, just to help cope with the pain of the past,” (Rebecca’s Story). Rebecca is an example of a young girl who was being abused by her parents and eventually kicked out of the house. She dealt with her troubles by giving herself physical pain and coping with the past. She later on meets volunteers who cared about her and was one of those who
Hill, R., & Stamey, M. (1990). The Homeless in America: An Examination of Possessions and Consumption Behaviors. Journal Of Consumer Research, 17(3), 303-321.
Animal hoarding is an issue in every division of society around the world (Donaghey 2011). Whether rich or poor, there may still be an animal hoarder living right next door (Donaghey 2011). In some situations there may be obvious signs that a person is a hoarder; however, others live seemingly regular lives to the public eye and the problem is growing. Animal hoarding is a growing problem because of the lack of understanding of the issue and lack of action.
This case paper is about Lucinda, a 20-year old single female, who suffers from the Cleaning/Contamination Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) condition since she was very young. She is characterized by intrusive thoughts, images, and/or impulses that cause distress (obsessions) and repetitive behaviors that are performed to neutralize these intrusions (Coles, Schofield & Pietrefesa, 2006), i.e. her repetitive cleaning and washing behaviors. Her anxiety became so excessive that it interfered with her daily life. She perceived that some undesirable object(s), in this case the germs, were still on the things that she will come in contact with, even after she had repeatedly washing and/or cleaning them. Her anxiety further degraded both her social and occupational functioning, which resulted in considerable impacts to herself, her friends and family. In additions, her anxiety also caused her not be able to function to her fullest potential academically and to socialize with her friends and family as much as she wanted to.
Obviously, I completely disagree with Eighner's purpose in writing "Dumpster Diving". I think the whole thing is preposterous. The way he makes a general assumption about how everybody's is wasteful is pure ignorance. It seem as if he is saying that the reason why people are homeless is because we throwing out things. Eighner is trying to tell us that people will remain homeless until we start saving more and wasting less, but that's not how it works. Most people don't choose to be homeless. Some even start out having their own companies, or just simply having jobs and comfortable live...
This story explains the science behind dumpster diving and the different techniques people use to scavenge for treasures that was once other people's trash. The author, Lars Eighner, talks about the pros and cons of searching through dumpsters to find food or other items that could be useful when you do not have much money to spend on essentials. Lars Eighner told multiple stories of crazy things he would find that people would just throw away. He Explains why a college campus is one of his favorite places to scavenge through dumpsters because of all of the spoiled kids who are very wasteful and just throw stuff away. He says, “Students throw out canned goods and staples at the end of the semesters and when they give up college at
OCD has symptoms such as compulsive hoarding, extreme anxiety, depression, and food aversions. It currently has no sure cause but it has said to be a product of genetics or abnormalities in the brain and serotonin levels as controlling serotonin tends to help in treatment of OCD. Obsessive Compulsive disorder is seen in 2.3% of Americans. It’s more prominent in adults than in children.
This happens through minimising everything in one’s life, including their households as well as other belongings. However, over time people will realise that those things they currently own are not requisite, therefore throwing them away is not an awful thing at all. In fact, when a person removes all their possessions at home, other things will open (Gardner, 2018). When getting rid of all their expensive belongings, people will realize that those things are not a necessity, therefore can be discarded, and they will end up saving a lot of money. Subsequently, people will save plenty of time due to the several amounts of work load they have removed. Moreover, plenty of money can be saved easily through applying a minimalistic lifestyle. The simple thing needed to make their life much easier is very easy to carry out. People will realise some day that when they need less money, they do not have to work as much (Gardner, 2018), and this is what minimalization does, it makes life simplistic. Therefore, having a minimalistic lifestyle helps a person become more relaxed since they will have more time to complete less things, which is what everyone hopes to achieve in their life, joy, and