Hoarding and Neurodiversity: What’s the Connection?
Thursday, September 11, 2025. Thanks to the University of Kentucky for inviting me to speak to their community on this issue. I wanted to more fully address a question I was asked about hoarding and neurodiversity.
When people hear the word hoarding, they often imagine a reality-TV spectacle: stacks of newspapers, narrow walkways, and a kitchen buried under clutter.
But in everyday life, hoarding is more complex—especially when we consider how it connects to neurodiversity.
Hoarding isn’t just about keeping “too much stuff.”
For many neurodivergent souls, it’s tied to the way their brains handle memory, attachment, and uncertainty. What looks like disorganization from the outside can be a coping strategy on the inside.
ADHD and Hoarding: The Executive Function Link
People with ADHD often face challenges with executive functioning—the mental processes that handle planning, prioritizing, and decision-making. When every object feels like it might be important later, letting go becomes harder than it seems.
Psychologists first began studying hoarding as a distinct behavior in the early 1990s, when researchers noticed that some people’s attachment to possessions couldn’t be fully explained by obsessive-compulsive disorder (Frost & Gross, 1993).
Research shows ADHD is one of the strongest predictors of hoarding disorder, with as many as one-third of adults who hoard also meeting ADHD criteria (Tolin et al., 2011). What looks like procrastination is often working memory overload, making clutter a by-product of the ADHD brain.
For more on how emotions drive these patterns, see my post on emotional hoarding.
Autism and Hoarding: Special Interests and Comfort
For autistic souls, hoarding often arises from special interests, sensory regulation, or a desire for predictability. A drawer full of ticket stubs or a carefully organized shelf of collectibles may provide comfort and stability, especially in a world that feels unpredictable.
The difference between autistic collecting and clinical hoarding often lies in distress. Collecting feels meaningful and structured, while hoarding becomes overwhelming and disruptive (Storch et al., 2016). Both, however, reveal the autistic brain’s gift for creating order and continuity.
Curious about the overlap between clutter and emotion? Read Untangling Physical and Emotional Hoarding.
Emotional Regulation and Sensory Anchors
For many neurodivergent people, objects aren’t just objects. They are anchors for memory, identity, and safety. Discarding them can feel like erasing a piece of the self.
This is especially clear in families where hoarding patterns ripple across generations. To see how these dynamics play out, visit my post on Emotional Hoarding in Families.
Hoarding as Coping, Not Character Flaw
Hoarding has long been misunderstood as laziness or irresponsibility. But when viewed through the lens of neurodiversity, hoarding is better understood as a coping strategy for managing anxiety, uncertainty, and sensory intensity.
Before hoarding disorder was recognized in the DSM-5, researchers debated whether it was best understood as an anxiety disorder, a subtype of OCD, or something entirely distinct (Grisham & Norberg, 2010).
This fits with broader research showing that individual differences in how people regulate emotions—especially suppression versus reappraisal—can profoundly shape relationships and well-being (Gross & John, 2003).
Cultural context also matters. In the U.S., consumerism and stigma combine to complicate hoarding behaviors. I explore this further in A Deep Dive Into American Hoarding.
Moving Forward with Strength and Compassion
Supporting neurodivergent folks who hoard isn’t about “fixing” them—it’s about working with their strengths. Helpful strategies include:
Breaking down decisions into smaller steps.
Using external organizational supports like visual cues or accountability partners
Therapeutic approaches that reduce shame and focus on resilience
If you’re interested in community approaches, I share ideas in Group Therapy Ritual for Emotional Hoarders.
Final Thoughts
The connection between hoarding and neurodiversity is layered, intimate, and deeply human.
These behaviors aren’t flaws—they are signals of how the brain navigates attachment, memory, and uncertainty.
Decades of research—from Frost and Gross’s early work to more recent studies linking hoarding with ADHD and autism—make one thing clear: hoarding is best understood not as clutter, but as a deeply human way of regulating emotion and holding onto meaning (Frost & Gross, 1993; Tolin et al., 2011; Storch et al., 2016).
When met with empathy and understanding, what once looked like “too much stuff” begins to also reveal stories of resilience, creativity, and the search for safety.
Be Well, Stay Kind, and Godspeed.
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