Neighbor broke in my home caught in my dirty clothes

I am certainly having trouble working through this information. I have been living next to my neighbors for over 15 years and now that I have caught him in the act, he attempted suicide! He is back home now and I am certainly friends with his family but he hadn’t even been outside since the discharge from the hospital. I can’t help but be concerned with it escalating even though he is in therapy and clearly remorseful. I just can’t believe that he did it with my family in the house! The respect he has for my husband is deep so when my husband confronted him and the neighbor made a stupid story about playing a game my husband simply said that I don’t believe that and you know that is not true. You need to stay away from my family and especially my wife. I thought his wife was going to literally kill him!!

Hello Lbritten: Thank you for sharing this experience here on PC. Yes, fetishes can sometimes drive the individuals who have them to engage in some extreme behaviors. But, then, you obviously know that from personal experience.

I believe this is your first posted thread here on PC. So... welcome to Psych Central. I hope you find PC to be of benefit.

Wow, I'm sorry that happened. In grad school I took a course in abnormal psychology, particularly paraphilias and preferential sex offenders and, without knowing more, this sounds like it fits into that category. It's basically an intense sexual urge that is abnormal, like with an object or such. I read some case studies that were about people, usually male, who would break into houses and take or even wear items from the people in that house. If I recall correctly, such a paraphilia, specifically fetishism, is a need driven behavior and control of that need takes therapy and often medication. To some, the need is so overpowering that it occupies much of their waking thoughts. Some can still function while others drown in it. In my class I had the opportunity to interview a number of individuals and offenders who suffered from paraphilia and it was chilling in how much the particular need drove them and controlled their lives. What rational man would break into your home and wear your dirty clothes? To my recollection, most of them have some level of insight into their behavior and there is a lot of remorse as they know it's not socially acceptable or many times, illegal. I seem to recall that there may be some hardwiring issue in the brain, but also they probably had an experience with the object in their fetish and became aroused by it. Pure speculation, but this guy may have experienced this with a female relative's dirty clothing or perhaps even his wife's. Many times, they become desensitized to the stimuli and have to seek more intense stimuli such as with a neighbor's clothing. It seems like he feels intense shame over this.

I'm so sorry you went through such a horrifying and traumatic experience. I hope he finds some way to overcome this and I hope you both find some healing.

You need to call the police.