What is Plyushkin syndrome and how to get rid of it: 9 ways

Fear of flying on airplanes, getting into a confined space - almost everyone has a phobia, a fear of something. Rational fears are a normal feeling based on the instinct of self-preservation, but sometimes it turns into pathology.

A phobia is an irrational fear of an object, situation or environment. Objects that are expected or encountered in reality cause a strong emotional reaction: anxiety or even panic. The person does everything possible to avoid the situation. At their worst, these disorders can cause severe anxiety, depression, and panic attacks. This stress triggers chronic pain, ADHD, sleep disorders, eating disorders, substance abuse, and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

Symptoms of a panic attack

Labored breathing
Nausea
Headache
Dry mouth
Cardiopalmus
Numbness
Chills
Shiver
Sweating.

How to determine if it is a phobia

This state goes beyond ordinary fear.
For example, a person may get scared when walking through the forest and sees a bear. This is a normal adaptive response, part of the body's fight-or-flight response to stress. A phobia is an irrational fear. For example, a person may be deathly afraid of dogs and try to avoid them in any way. In this case, most likely, a dangerous situation will not arise.

According to the American Psychiatric Association, symptoms must last for 6 months or longer, be life-limiting, cause behavioral changes or extreme distress, and not be caused by another disorder.

People have been terrified of the same situation for years. They are aware that their fear is unfounded, but they cannot do anything. In this case, you need the help of a professional, since in addition to psychological disorders, they can be accompanied by a variety of vegetative symptoms: rapid heartbeat, sweating, redness of the face, trembling in the body, dry mouth, nausea, discomfort in the stomach, difficulty breathing and even suffocation.

Experts have identified dozens of phobias. The list includes the strange and absurd - fear of flowers and beards - as well as more understandable ones: fear of the dentist or illness. Let's tell you what each phobia is called.

Mysophobia

People suffering from mysophobia, also known as germophobia, have an excessive fear of germs, bacteria, infection, and dirt of any kind.
Refusal of contact with others, constant hand washing and frequent and very thorough cleaning are signs of mysophobia. Those who have obsessive-compulsive order tendencies are more likely to suffer from it. If you find yourself worrying excessively about germs and it's negatively impacting your quality of life, consider seeking help from a mental health professional.

Hoarding disease can be overcome by patient motivation

If you explain to someone with a hoarding disorder that his “collection” is kept in poor, unsuitable conditions, and is very inconvenient to view, this may become a motivation to put things in order in the apartment. It is important not just to go and put things in order yourself, but to convey to the victim of the disease that order in the apartment needs to be maintained every day, and every thing should have its own place.

It is clear that one cannot expect perfect cleanliness from the patient, but the trouble has begun. Then you can also say that there should be somewhere to sit in the room, otherwise a loved one will come and be forced to stand, and so on in the same spirit.

Psychiatrists explained that it is very important for the patient to be interested in his “treasures”. Albeit infrequently, but sometimes showing interest in the person himself and his “collection” is very important for his self-esteem and awareness of his importance.

Communication with a patient is always difficult, and victims of Diogenes syndrome also tend to isolate themselves from the outside world, which can often lead to aggression. However, it’s definitely worth a try, because it has been proven that this method of “home psychotherapy” can have a positive effect on the patient.

In severe cases, when a person does not make contact at all, has withdrawn into himself, and every day replenishes his “collection” with all sorts of rubbish, a psychiatric clinic is needed here.

A person will not go there voluntarily, which means a trial and recognition of the patient’s incapacity is necessary. And here is the most interesting observation: a person who seems completely inadequate, when examined by specialists, turns out to be completely mentally healthy. And there are more than half of such cases. People just choose this way of life.

Agoraphobia

It is estimated that about 1% of adults suffer from agoraphobia. A separate category of phobia, this type of anxiety disorder causes panic when a person encounters certain places or situations. He feels that he has no control over the situation, and getting out of it may be difficult. A common type is fear of loneliness, or monophobia.

What are they afraid of?

Crowds;
stay home alone;
open spaces;
public transport;
confined spaces.

Arachnophobia

Spiders can be scary and disgusting to most people, but an arachnophobe will have a greatly exaggerated, panicked reaction when encountering even the smallest of these eight-legged creatures. If you are so afraid of spiders that you avoid going to places where you think they might be, or you have to leave the house when you see them, you may be one of the approximately 5% of people who have this phobia.

A few more interesting phobias

Metro

In megacities there are many more irritants that can become the object of phobia. For example, after explosions in residential areas of the capital, residents began to fear terrorist attacks, and tragedies in the metro led to metrophobia.

And although, according to statistics, the most dangerous transport for life is road transport, 60% of Muscovites are afraid of the subway, especially escalators and crossings. According to experts, the very fact of descent is associated with increased danger, which is reinforced by the lack of air and the crush of irritated people violating each other’s personal space. By the way, the fear of the subway is associated not so much with unrest as with a long stay underground, usually from 40 minutes to an hour.

Workers

Against the backdrop of social cataclysms - the economic crisis and staff reductions - the most common is the fear of losing a job. Experts consider this a completely normal phenomenon, and moreover, theoretically - just theoretically! - the situation may become a reality. Therefore, a person tries it on himself and the more he thinks about it, discusses it with family and friends, the more real this image becomes in his mind. And then a focus of excitation is formed, and the next mention of contraction causes the appearance of obsessive pathological fear.

Stress, busy schedules and responsible work exhaust the psyche, opening up access to ergophobia - the fear of not being able to cope with one's work, Hellenophobia - not understanding scientific terms, kairophobia - the fear of new situations, Internetophobia - the fear of going online.

Urban

A popular source of fear for metropolitan residents is the likelihood of contracting an infection - molismophobia (especially in the midst of a pandemic).

Causes of abnormal hoarding

Syllogomanias bring a lot of inconvenience to their loved ones. In most cases, experts see the causes of Plyushkin syndrome in the following provoking factors:

Social maladjustment
. Some people cannot be considered full-fledged representatives of society due to their closed nature. From their existing dwellings, they create barricades in the form of unnecessary rubbish, visually protecting themselves from the outside world in such an unusual way.
Problems in childhood
. In this case, the child could feel a lack of attention from his parents regarding gifts and pleasant surprises. For him, in the process of maturation, each thing began to have a special meaning, so the accumulation mechanism automatically started in the matured person.
Traumatic brain injury
. After certain head injuries, a person’s worldview can change significantly. Officially, he will remain an adequate person, but behind the walls of his house he will be ready to accumulate mountains of unnecessary garbage in the form of napkins and other used material.
A generation of times of scarcity
. Such people can be equated to children of war who experienced hunger and devastation. If a person at one time was sorely lacking the most necessary things for existence, then he then begins to collect everything that comes to hand for a “rainy day.”
Depression
. Some women have the habit of eating away stress with chocolate or going on another shopping spree. People with Plyushkin syndrome, in any crisis situation, begin to fill their home with all sorts of unnecessary rubbish, calming themselves down in a similar strange way.
Mental illness
. In this case we will talk about schizophrenia, which is often accompanied by syllogomania. People with such a mental disorder are prone not only to inappropriate actions, but also to collecting unnecessary items for everyday life.
Loneliness
. Some individuals feel somewhat more confident when, in the absence of friends, they are surrounded by things. The amount of excess rubbish among the described individuals becomes simply threatening, because sometimes a person does not even have a place to lie down to sleep due to the filling of the living space with garbage.

The listed causes of Plyushkin syndrome indicate that the person has experienced a rather significant mental disorder. If people like to acquire new things, then this is not considered a deviation from the norm. Much more dangerous is the situation when a syllogomaniac carefully stores even broken pens and used syringes in the hope that they will be useful in the future.

Treatment of phobias

Seeing a mental health professional is the first step. A psychiatrist or psychologist may recommend cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), medications, or a combination of both. Some experts offer methods of self-hypnosis, acupuncture, breathing exercises, auto-training (all of them have no proven effectiveness).

Other popular methods are pumping, counteracting and modeling

Intensification involves full exposure to the phobia until the anxiety goes away.
Opposition gradually exposes a person to phobia.
Modeling is a passive treatment that involves watching others confront the phobia without harming themselves.

"Intensive therapy" course

With the help of imagination, the severity of pathological fear is reduced and a habit of the real or theoretical presence of the object of phobia in life is developed.
Then “practice” begins - a person tries to encounter this very object. If this is metrophobia, you will have to gradually immerse yourself in the atmosphere of the subway: first go into the lobby, stand there for a while and get out, the next day try to ride the escalator. Once you’ve adapted, you can take your first train trip, but it’s better accompanied by a loved one.

Plyushkin syndrome - what is it: a disease or a harmless habit?

Our readers probably remember the hero of Gogol’s novel “Dead Souls,” the landowner Plyushkin, who turned his house into a dump of useless things that he could not even imagine parting with. In honor of him, our doctors named a mental disorder characterized by an uncontrollable thirst for hoarding, Plyushkin syndrome. The disease has other names - Messi syndrome, syllogomania.

Many people have a desire to collect useful things. Some collect art objects, books, samovars and other things that are necessary and unnecessary at first glance. Others buy all sorts of little things at sales that can be used at least in some way around the house. Still others bring broken furniture from landfills with the intention of fixing it. Still others cannot part with a broken cup because it was a gift from a beloved aunt, or they do not dare take a stretched sweater to a landfill, hoping to wear it at least at the dacha. Are they all seriously ill?

Of course not! Some people are driven by interest in a particular era. Someone “pecks” at advertising bait and, buying an unnecessary thing, believes that it is really needed. There are people who simply live very poorly, and, not being able to buy a new item, pick up an old one and actually bring it into divine shape.

Where is the line beyond which forced measures and harmless addictions end and a pathological condition begins? Let's try to give our readers some guidelines.

Shopaholics, like plushies, buy a lot of unnecessary things at sales. Only shopaholics soon realize that they have purchased too much and part with it without regret, but sick people, alas, continue to believe that they have pulled off a profitable business and value every rag.
Thrifty people do not throw away old things, restoring them many times, but do not buy new ones in return while the old ones are still good. Patients with syllogomania constantly buy, take as gifts and bring new things into the house, while at the same time keeping old ones, even if they are already small, large or simply non-functional.
People with modest incomes can bring something thrown away by someone into the house, or shop at a flea market or a spinning top. However, there they are looking for what they really need. And syllogomanias buy and take away everything that is given to them and sold for next to nothing, regardless of whether there is any need for these items.
Collectors collect things that are united by some characteristic. The “Plyushkins” drag everything into the house.
Thrifty housewives make canned food for the winter so that in winter there are vitamins, salads and other vegetable snacks on the table. Cooks suffering from Plyushkin syndrome can preserve as much as they can. In winter, they try not to open cans of canned food, and in the fall they continue to fill the pantry.
People who love pets have one or two pets that they can take care of and feed stray cats and dogs. When it comes to pathology, one can observe that the patient brings into the house any cat or dog picked up on the street, but does not walk the pets or clean up after them.

The Plyushkins' home resembles a landfill. There is chaos and unsanitary conditions there. Gradually, patients with syllogomania stop taking care of themselves, sinking to the very bottom.

Typically, the development of the disease goes through three stages.

Patients strive to buy, borrow from friends, and bring into the house as many things as possible, believing that each item can be useful in the household. But at this stage, items are usually purchased on occasion at sales or received as gifts. At this stage, you can still pull yourself together and tell yourself “stop.”
Patients drag everything into the house, cluttering it. At this stage, syllogomania requires the help of a specialist. However, not everyone undertakes to treat the disease, since it has been little studied and the prognosis is vague.
At the third stage, patients stop taking care not only of their home, but also of themselves. They don’t go to the hairdresser, don’t cut their nails, don’t wash or iron their clothes, and don’t bathe. At the same time, they become withdrawn and unsociable. This stage is considered the point of no return. If you reach it, there will be no way back, recovery will become impossible.

The desire to collect a variety of things, excessive thriftiness and saving, a painful reluctance to get rid of old and unnecessary things are alarm bells. In order not to succumb to illness and maintain mental health, you need to learn how to get rid of old trash without regretting it. Below you will find 9 effective ways to avoid turning into Plyushkin.