Gift hoarding raises questions

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Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: What does it mean when a person hoards their presents and doesn’t even wear them or display them, just keeps them in drawers, all wrapped up except for an opening at one end? This holiday when my the cousins were here, we cleaned out our old aunt’s house (she died) and she had every gift given to her for years and years in a bunch of dressers.

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Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/12/2015 (3931 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: What does it mean when a person hoards their presents and doesn’t even wear them or display them, just keeps them in drawers, all wrapped up except for an opening at one end? This holiday when my the cousins were here, we cleaned out our old aunt’s house (she died) and she had every gift given to her for years and years in a bunch of dressers.

The gifts looked totally perfect, and weren’t very dusty, like she cleaned them. The rest of her house is not cluttered, but she has several dressers in one room chock full of gifts. I just don’t get it. What’s with the gifts, when she hoarded nothing else? It’s bugging my mind at night. Can you please explain this?

— Faithful Reader, North End

 

Dear Faithful: People think hoarding is hanging onto everything, but that’s not necessarily true. There is sometimes a theme, and in this case, it may have been an attachment to people who gave the gifts. The hoarder may feel afraid they might lose that person, so they need to keep all the things they give as presents. Some people may have started this gift hoarding with a traumatic event, such as a Christmas when they got nothing at all, or a Christmas when somebody important died, and now all they have left of that person is the gifts they gave.

Some people are afraid to damage anything they got as a gift, so they leave it in the wrapping. Others don’t have much that’s new or pretty in their lives, so they keep these presents in their collection and take the gifts out occasionally and enjoy looking at them. It’s not about being dirty or messy, and is nothing to be mocked. In this case, it may have been proof your aunt was loved and cared about.

 

Please send your questions and comments to lovecoach@hotmail.com or Miss Lonelyhearts c/o the Winnipeg Free Press, 1355 Mountain Ave., Winnipeg, MB, R2X 3B6

Miss Lonelyhearts

Miss Lonelyhearts
Advice Columnist

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