Ultralite, if you were talking to me, you can ask me anything, I can always decline to answer.

i think you and I have different definition of "hoarder". Perhaps because I see it from the inside, and you see it from the outside. I would actually call rose quartz an extremely high functioning hoarder - because of the mind chatter. That to me, the impulse to hoard things, is the nature of hoarding. To you, the key element is the actual hoard.

There is a linein the pink panther movie about "yuri the trainer who trains." You see the hoarders who hoard.

I also think you can have a hoard without being a hoarder. Maybe you were depressed, or broke, or illl, or just completely overwhelmed - but if you aren't actually a hoarder, someone could just come clean all that up and teach you some good habits and you'd just be grateful.

what if you collect things but don't display them because the person you live with doesn't like them? When I lived with my parents I had 2 wide wide floor to ceiling shelves for my dolls. Mom and I both liked them. Dh says "not in here" until we run out of "in here's" and I fight for some space. (Yes, they would now overflow the original shelves)

"things I like" - for example, I like dolls. I enjoy looking at them and having them around and checking out how they are made and their clothes and the sculptural aspect of hands and faces. I chose which ones to collect by "I like this one" (and it fails under my discretionary budget) not by any hard categories or search for diversity.