Diogenes: “As I could no longer find the trash can, I started throwing trash on the ground”

Bastien, 44 years oldlived for eight years with the Diogenes syndrome, a behavioral disorder often caricatured and misunderstood, which results incompulsive accumulation of objects and wasteoften associated with a lack of hygiene bodily and domestic. However, originally, nothing predisposed him to develop this syndrome.

The descent into Hell

While he was at the head of a rotisserie in the markets in the Paris region,he earned 5000€ per month and went on trips several times a year, Bastien fell into alcoholism, which caused him to lose your driving license twice. So he sold his business.

“From one day to the next, I found myself in precariousness, almost on the street. I lost my colleagues, friends, hundreds of clients, neighbors… I isolated myself, I no longer had any plans. I approached mass distribution to apply for a department manager position but all the company managers told me that I would not be able to accept orders since I had been a business manager. Time passed, I stayed close eight months without activity. As a former individual entrepreneur, I was not entitled to unemployment and I only received RSA after the third month. Waiting for, I went to the Restos du coeur and to the social grocery store to be able to feed myself” he recalls. This is where the ordeal began. He begins to pick up objects to the right, to the left, plastic chairs, pieces of wood to make shelves, cushions… in short, things he thought he would need sooner or later. These objects pile up in his 25m2 studio.

“It’s as if a wire had disconnected in my brain, I had a blockage”

At the same time, he found a temporary job unloading trucks. “I put all my soul into it but I returned home exhausted, with great physical pain. I did less and less cleaning, I consumed more and more alcohol and I sank into depression. I was in denial, I bought heavy-duty trash bags but when I wanted to use them, I couldn’t. It’s like a wire got disconnected in my brainI was stuck. As I could no longer find the trash can, I ended up throwing trash on the ground.”

4 years to cram in until the day…

Four years later, Bastien realized the extent of the situation. By searching for “compulsive hoarding” on a search engine, he found himself in the description of Diogenes syndrome. But, at the time, this disease was still perceived as that of the filthy and the lazy. As a result, he lived as a recluse at home for all these years, inviting no one. “I had to push the door with my shoulder to get into my apartment. I would turn down the sound on the television when someone walked past my house to pretend I wasn’t there. I lived in fear and insecurity, with windows and shutters closed” he remembers. THE women who shared life by Bastien during this period did not deviate from the rule. “I admitted that my apartment was a mess, because I knew that if they saw the state of it, they would never look at me like they used to.”

“I turned down the sound on the television to pretend I was away”

To try to get out of it, Bastien first consulted a psychiatrist addictologist before following an cognitive behavioral therapy (TCC). But none of these therapies bore fruit. He then turned to “extreme cleaning” companies of which he deplores the methods. “I was asked if there was room to put a skip outside my house, I found this lack of discretion and kindness very evocative. All these companies care about is showing before-and-afters on TikTok.” he denounces. Having managed to quit alcohol thanks to the community, he began looking for an association to help him declutter his apartment. Pierre Ludosky, president of the association “Surviving Insecurity” better known under the name Diogenes Assoheld out his hand.

“He came into my house with simple overshoes, he did not wear a diving suit as we can see in the television reports, then he confirmed that I was indeed suffering from Diogenes syndrome, which no one had done before. He had a better role than all the psychiatrists and psychologists that I had consulted until then” explains Bastien, full of gratitude.

Gentle and caring decluttering

The decluttering was done in consultation with Bastien, to find out what he wanted to throw away and what not. “All the items were cleaned and put back on furniture, it was up to me to put them back in the right place when they left” he continues. As for the price, the small inheritance he had just received from his grandmother proved sufficient. “Nothing was thrown away as it was, everything has previously been carefully packaged in very thick and opaque garbage bags so that the neighbors don’t suspect anything.” TodayBastien believes he is stabilized. “I sometimes have a bit of a mess, like everyone else, but it’s no longer a pain to throw away. I have put in place strict rules: no more objects on the ground. As soon as the coffee table is full, I don’t put anything on the floor. I also refuse when people want to give me objects“ he confides. His financial situation has also improved. Now he works to help people with this syndrome.

Thanks to Bastien for his testimony.