Are you more likely to: throw everything away or keep everything?

In the street, the tendency is rather to keep everything, except when we talk about love life or, more generally, memories. In this context, throwing everything away seems a little less common. But overall, all genres combined, the answer is often the same: a bit of both.

Keeping everything can, in its most extreme forms, bring to mind Diogenes syndrome, a behavioral disorder which can notably be characterized by an excessive accumulation of objects, neglect of hygiene and social isolation.

But then, can throwing everything away also be pathology? In the testimonies that I have collected over the past few years, I have often noticed that the answer to this question quickly takes on a philosophical and personal dimension. As if throwing everything away could be the expression of anxiety, of a need to empty the void in order to fill it better. Conversely, keeping everything can sometimes reveal an inability to choose, to sort in your home as in your life.

These behaviors lend themselves easily to judgment. Two encounters, however, taught me to be wary of it.

As part of a radio show, I met a little man in the Franches-Montagnes who was as friendly as he was enigmatic. At home, the accumulation was everywhere. He kept everything, from wrapping paper to objects found at flea markets. It had become almost impossible to enter his house. Residents of the village told me that he lived with his mother and that when the latter died, the firefighters had to take his body out of the window, as the door had become so inaccessible.

He told me about his passion for Spider-Man and Marvel comics. He even had copies of “Amazing Fantasy,” which he took from his living room to show me. A real passion. Listening to him enchanted me. I went to meet him with preconceived ideas. I came away with more questions than answers about this need to keep everything.

At the other extreme, the compulsive need to get rid of objects can also be associated with certain obsessive-compulsive disorders. Here again, judgment is easy.

In the canton of Fribourg, I met a young woman who suffered from OCD and threw away everything. She told me about the anxiety that seized her when faced with each object she felt the need to get rid of. “I talk to him for an hour to apologize, I feel so guilty.” A moving moment, suspended in a daily life where everything goes so quickly.

Finally, throwing away or keeping is perhaps never a completely trivial action. Our relationship with objects says something about our culture, our education, our memories, but also our fears and our way of moving forward.

When does conservation become a burden? And when does throwing away mean wanting to erase a part of yourself? And you? Do you keep or throw away?

Valérie Ogier and Jean-Marc Richard give the floor to listeners, Monday to Friday from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m., on LFM.