DIOGEN SYNDROME OR PATHOLOGICAL STORAGE

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

With the help of this text, we will try to investigate the phenomenology of a person burdened with Diogenes syndrome, and we will make an attempt to look at the world through her eyes.

Senile squalor syndrome

To begin with, let's separate the psychiatric diagnosis from the completely healthy, but somewhat exaggerated need to accumulate around us a huge number of things that we cannot use. The first condition is associated with age-related, organic brain damage. It is no secret that old age, which many call “reverse development,” is accompanied by significant changes in the emotional and volitional sphere. These include growing suspicion, unsociability, fear of impoverishment and harm, and, accordingly, a tendency to hoard. There is a feeling of inferiority and dissatisfaction with oneself. Old age is a time when a person is offered the chance to integrate all the events of his life into a whole picture and enjoy wisdom and peace. Or this does not happen and all that remains is to explain the dissatisfaction with oneself by past mistakes that can no longer be corrected. The feeling of one's own unfulfillment does not allow one to “saddle” the chariot of fate and direct it into the future.

This disorder is only partially associated with Diogenes. Namely, in the place that concerns the marginality of the ancient Greek philosopher, his desire to ignore social norms, to put personal virtue in the first place among life values, and not social achievements. On another important point - the passion for accumulation - this symptom refers to Diogenes as white to black, since the philosopher is known to have thrown out his only cup, striving for simplicity, when he saw a boy drinking water from a stream, scooping it up with his palms. Stepan Plyushkin - this is whose image could complement the description of the symptom, since as is well known from the course of school literature, even the clothes of Gogol's hero consisted of an amazing number of decrepit and heterogeneous things.

Obsessive hoarding

“Throwing out the trash, the main thing is not to start looking at it” - folk wisdom

Plunging into meaningless hoarding, people are more likely to inspect the past than to master the present. In the existential dimension, this corresponds to a melancholic worldview.

Sometimes it is a pity to part with things that are anchors for pleasant and exciting memories. As if, throwing away an object that is now useless, we betray those experiences that are forever associated with it. And we also throw them in the trash, refuse them and lose access to them. As if the memory is a decorated Christmas tree that becomes pathetic when the toys are sent to be stored in the attic.

The problem is that you often cannot see the forest behind the trees. Numerous items that, with a fair amount of skill, could really be used, are lost among the mass of the same, set aside for later. Often we do not even remember about their existence, paying attention to them only when it comes to cleaning. We are surprised at the fact that they have not yet found a use for them, and even more so - how did they manage to live at all without using these dusty treasures. And again we send them to the storerooms, but already loaded with meanings and expectations. And so it can be repeated indefinitely.

The truth behind these movements of objects from the zone of indifference to the zone of interest is quite simple, but at the same time it may not seem very pleasant. It lies in the fact that everything that is stored by us is not actually used. Otherwise, it would be at hand all the time. In fact, to preserve means to own useless things that have no meaning other than the symbolic function of “preserving memories”.

Schematically, you can outline a zone of keen interest in which there are objects related to the current life situations. It can be something related to work, current hobbies, anything that maintains the usual level of life comfort. Periodically, as the landscape of activity changes, some objects leave this zone, and some find themselves in it. And this is a completely normal process. Objects, like players of a hockey team - someone plays in the major league, someone went down to the first, and someone, due to various circumstances, either sat down on the bench forever or ended their sports career altogether. It is important to be able to part with what actually turns from a support for interest into a burden.

In Gestalt therapy, one of the values of good contact with something is the ability to put an end to it at the right time. If this does not happen, then the relationship cannot be completed and then it cannot be said with certainty that anything has taken place at all. Because it will never end. To end the day, I need to close my eyes and fall asleep. End the relationship with this day in order to build a relationship with a new one. Can you imagine what would happen if you were in a state of insomnia all the time? So here it is also impossible with things to be at the point where nothing connects us. It's like I'm chronically trying to take something else from them, even though the relationship is over. We can say that this is a special way of ignoring reality.

The fear of ending the relationship with the attachment object is reminiscent of the anxiety of a small child who is experimenting with his own existence autonomous from his mother. Here he moves away from the arms supporting him, separates from the support and enters the space of freedom and uncertainty, in which everything depends only on him. It is both frightening and inspiring at the same time. When the excitement becomes too much, he returns in order to “recharge” with support, the experience of togetherness. But what if it is impossible to leave the mother so completely? If you keep it in your field of vision, because you can't take some “fireproof” amount of confidence and recognition and make it a part of yourself?

It seems that things somehow give stability in a changing world, and this stability is literal - sometimes the weight of the trash reaches several tens of kilograms. It is as if the experience that has taken place needs to be confirmed by accumulated cultural artifacts, as if the integrity of a personal history can be lost by relegating its material components to the trash heap.

Everything that has happened before must be linear and irreversible. For example, a disc bought in an underpass on the occasion of the end of the session should always be somewhere nearby as a symbol of the fact that this event is still important. Even if this film has never been watched since then. As if one cannot refuse something and recognize it as insignificant and irrelevant. It is like the preservation of life in a strictly metered set of ingredients, as if without one of these components the sensations would become impoverished and their quality would be significantly degraded.

Perhaps somewhere in this lies self-pity, the inability to admit that some choices from the point of view of a life perspective were not very successful. The fear of starting life from scratch and stepping forward, leaving familiar retreat territory instead. This is a kind of replacement for an action by preparing the conditions for this action, as if the chaos accumulated around in some magical way, without your participation, is organized into a complete and beautiful form.

In order for something new to appear in life, it is necessary to give way to this.

One of the best ways to deal with hoarding is to use creativity as a resource for growth. Accumulation is a kind of stagnation, while creativity, full of risk, mistakes and inspiration, personifies the exact opposite of stability and stagnation.

Social isolation

Social isolation means not only voluntary seclusion, in which a person spends most of his life on the territory of his home, but also separating himself from self-evident social norms. Isolation narrows the world down to a habitable space that sets its own rules. Everything else outside does not seem to exist, and then the symbolic message of the recluse is very simple - leave me alone. And then many questions arise - what happened between him and the environment? Why did the excitement and interest that we usually have in the world as a collection of diverse possibilities roll back like a sea wave at low tide? Curiosity leaves reality, and it loses its attractiveness and shape, like a balloon without gas.

In my opinion, the main metaphor of Diogenes' experience is not connected with solitude, as a symbol of maturity and spiritual search, but with disappointment and hopelessness. When investments made in rapid social growth do not meet the main expectations, namely, they do not increase the amount of happiness and do not bring satisfaction. When the social role is brilliantly played, and the performance ends and the audience leaves the VIP box, the emptiness on the stage turns out to be so huge that it is impossible to throw a curtain over it. The frustration becomes so strong that the best way out is the ability to want nothing at all. And then chronic sadness takes the place of disappointment.

Diogenes makes the complete opposite out of fear of being abandoned - the desire to leave everyone first - and turns unconscious melancholy into dignity.

No shame

Normal, non-toxic, shame is an important regulator of human behavior. Shame helps regulate the level of mental arousal by stopping uncontrollable activity where the other person's gaze appears. With shame I affirm the importance of seeing the other. If there is no shame, then everything is possible. On the other hand, shame appears when it comes to ourselves. When what happens is very intimate and has a direct bearing on us "real". Lack of shame also suggests that I have little idea of who I am.

Shame is a feeling that arises in contact. For shame to appear, it takes someone who observes and shames. Shamelessness, therefore, is a consequence of the total depreciation of those who were previously dear or to whom it was possible to listen.

Now I am describing these phenomena in order to build on from this in the future, asking the eternal question - what to do with all this?

Loneliness and negativism

The owners of Diogenes syndrome demonstrate their self-sufficiency in every possible way. One gets the impression that not only do they not need contact, but the attempt of loved ones to be with them is perceived as a threat. Perhaps this threat is associated with the fear of disrupting the usual way of life, since the way of existence of Diogenes rarely finds support from others. Or maybe a feeling of threat arises in response to failure will provide itself with sufficient support and then Diogenes' own discontent is projected onto others, turning into suspicious activity, from which one has to defend himself.

So Diogenes denies his need for the environment. But as you know, behind demonstrative experiences their complete opposite is often hidden. The inability to establish trusting relationships with people leads to excessive fixation on the kind of "intermediate" objects that potentially useful objects become - a strong connection is established with them,the rupture of which provokes the return of flooding loneliness.

Prevention and correction

If Diogenes syndrome is a road from society to itself, then the best way of prevention is to support the opposite process. Perhaps the Diogenes syndrome appears as a reaction to despair to find one's place in a foreign world, and then the world has to be formed around oneself, from the available trash and waste of other, more successful people.

In Gestalt therapy, an important sign of mental health is a well-organized exchange process between the body and the environment. When the needs, recognized in the body, find their satisfaction in what is outside of it. The “Museum of Useless Products” in which Diogen-Plyushkin lives creates an impenetrable barrier around the body through which life cannot penetrate.

As one hero said, "when the cup of suffering is overflowing, it must be given back." You can do the same in the case of Diogenes. For example, keep yourself only what is useful at the moment. Or at least just beautiful. Man is what he supports. The effort that is unfolding here and now. It is more important to focus on the exchange, on interaction with oneself and the environment, than collecting the results of this experience. According to Mamardashvili, the past is the enemy of thought. If you devote a lot of time to revising what has already happened, there may not be enough effort for the present.

Helping Diogenes lies in trying to turn it in the other direction - from devaluing relationships in the direction of recognizing their importance, from disappointment in the opportunities that are provided by the world, to the value of his own being, from an endless revision of the past and preparation for the future (what if all this rubbish will come in handy and will save the world) to immersion and presence in the present.