Hoarding...not just on TV

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

moneysavingmumofone wrote: »

*skulks in quietly*
Hi everybody. I havent been around in ages, in this time I have completely cleared/cleaned the front room/kitchen/bathroom TWICE and everytime its gone back to its original state. Its a constant battle but I really really need to get it all done as I may possibly be swapping flats with someone and I cant even take pictures at the moment let alone let someone in!! :eek: Really sorry I havent been around, sometimes I find talking about my 'issues' makes me feel 100x worse but I do really appreciate the advice on here and the not feeling alone! I hope everyone is well. xxx

Hiya msmoo - Ms Moo!

The stuff that was there has either been reshuffled instead of cleared, you've acquired new Stuff to fill the gaps or you've done tons and you just can't see how much you've actually achieved in the time.

Any ideas which it is?



Any ideas what your trigger items are? (the ones you find difficult to deal with/feel compelled to buy/keep, etc)



Do you really want to move or are you a) subconsciously sabotaging any swap or b) wanting to escape the difficult feelings the Stuff represents/disguises?

SpikyHedgehog

alec_eiffel wrote: »

Sorry to go back to perfectionism again but I was talking about it with Dh last night and the conversation always turns to MIL. Her house is always just so and while it's quite calm and not unhomely it's also unchanging. It's a huge deal to even replace a lamp that breaks as the exact lamp isn't available so there's a massive song and dance to get something that fills the exact space the other one did. To me that's really stifling.

Anyway, I was reading one of my favourite blogs this morning and this paragraph jumped out -

"...for all of my perfectionist tendencies, I actually adore imperfection. Imperfection is a sign of hope that things will improve. Imperfection is full of promise. Imperfection makes that which is beautiful look even more so by comparison." from Door Sixteen.

I like that. I really dislike perfection when it comes down to it, it's frustrating. I don't like matching things, I'm happy when a new thing gets a mark on it for the first time so I can relax around it and it becomes a real thing to use not a museum piece. Imperfection is more relaxing.

DS1 was talking about why he feels more comfortable visiting my parents than the parents in law - because PIL keep the house 'just right' all the time, he feels uncomfortable sitting on the sofa and crumpling the cushions, there are no books to read... PIL would be devastated to know that he doesn't feel comfortable there.

alec_eiffel wrote: »

Shabby chic, granny chic, French country and all that vintage stuff that's doing the rounds at the minute isn't really authentic though is it.

It's all painfully just-so and engineered to look that way, it's not actually really knocked and banged though real life happening, it's carefully wire brushed and aged and "oh my word don't touch that I don't want to further damage the paintwork". So I can see why there would be a perfectionist thing there because it's all about creating an appearance rather than furniture really being knackered (aspirational lifestyle?). Or that's how it appears to me at times.

I don't like shabby chic, but am quite happy with real shabby stuff, and hadn't worked out why, but that's it!

valk_scot wrote: »

An update on the Ikea trip...

It's their 25th anniversary of opening in the UK so today my local branch was giving away gift cards to the first 250 folk with Family cards through the door, ranging from £1 to £250 in value. So since I was planning to go anyway I made a slight effort to go earlier than I would normally, was 239th in the queue and won a £50 gift card! And I hardly had to wait around at all, I got there five minutes before the door opened. Some folk had been there since 7am, for a 9.15am opening.

So my first thought was "Oh, what extra things can I buy with this???!!". But then sense kicked in, I don't need anything else from Ikea except that bed frame. So that's what I did, put the £50 towards the bed together with a "£10 when you spend over £60" voucher which I'd got in the post last week. £60 in total off a £89 frame, yeah! That will stop OH moaning I should think.

And I didn't buy anything else, no. I thought I'd see what the bed looked like once up and then buy two underbed boxes instead, to put the rugby kit in. Then he shouldn't need any extra storage out in the bedroom proper.

Fantastic, well done Val on the bargain and more well done for resisting!

SpikyHedgehog

valk_scot wrote: »

Currently heaving boxes of (possible) crap around DS's room. He does that wargaming/Warhammer thing and has dozens of boxes of things I don't understand about. Oh well, I will stack it all back neatly and he can rearrange it if/when he likes. We did have a major declutter of his room a few months ago thank goodness otherwise I'd have more than Warhammer to annoy me.

I am however going to have to deal with ten or twelve really huge Lego sets, of the kind that costs megabucks when new but are now worth sod all unless I take the time to build them up properly and check all the bits are right. This is not perfectionism btw, this is double checking your sales patter for Ebay to get the best price! No I can't rely on DS's word that they're all present and correct, we all know what Lego is like for losing bits out of sets.

Have to get OH to carry the boxes of bed frame bits up for me so I can make it up and then shove a few bits and bobs underneath.....nonono, I don't mean that do it? It's just that the room is now at that point of maximum chaos and I'm getting fed up with it. It's very tempting just to shove said chaos out of sight tbh.

No, no! You mustn't mix up the Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000 and the Lord of the Rings stuff together! He will then go around telling you the difference between them all so you will know next time how to separate them properly! Even when you say 'Well, darling, maybe you could just put them away yourself and then you'll know they're in the right sets'

Picklepot wrote: »

Hi All

I think i need to change my name to churning queen :mad:
I could cry with my frustration at the inability to get my stuff out of this house.
Anyhow cutting long story short Dr has sent me for loads of scary tests. I am never ill so have worried my self silly not about my symptoms but what????
It goes like this.. what if im ill, people have to come into the house or even worse sort through my stuff and organise my stuff and make decisions about my stuff AND what if i have something sinister or have to have a big op, precious time will be wasted sorting all this stuff what a waste of time when i could be doing important family stuff.

I know i am being completely neurotic but have managed to send:
2 bin bags of paper shredding into compost bin,
2 further bin bags are waiting for recycling
1 bin bag (14 items) out to CS today
1 bin bag of textiles (21 items) to CS today

Why oh why does it take panic to spur me into action? I think i have been happily filling charity bags in the past knowing that i will probably not ged rid of it any time soon!

Picklepot, do not put yourself down! You are doing it, of course it is hard, becasue it took a while to get to so much stuff!

RAS wrote: »

It is sometimes called the imposter syndrome - spending your entire life waiting for people to find out what a useless twerp you actually are.

I have spent ten years or so (when not apologising to the person who provided therapy for some years) learning not to brush off praise. Tell me I have done something well and I look completely blank; after all I have just done my job. I have now stop rejecting it and pointing out that the speaker is mistaken.

At the most crass, I was attacked some years ago and spent the ensuing months going over scenarios, dreading the court case. In my distorted mind, the prosecution lawyer would know every small thing I did wrong as a child and adult and would shred me publicly. Eventually I worked out what was behind all this (because I did not speak up about things that someone else did and somehow learned that I was equally guilty). I had been waiting nearly all my life for the police to convict me of someone else's crimes basically. Once I worked that out, I was able to move on and to deal with the situation reasonably well.

But the imposter syndrome feeds on our belief that we have to do things perfectly and nothing else is acceptable.

And, on our belief that everyone else is doing it right. We are the only ones doing it wrong. If other people do make a mistake, oh, they've made a mistake. If we make a mistake, it's because we are failures.

Well, we're not failures! And we can do it! (And I'll tell you that but not myself...)

moneysavingmumofone

Jojo_the_Tightfisted wrote: »

Hiya msmoo - Ms Moo!

The stuff that was there has either been reshuffled instead of cleared, you've acquired new Stuff to fill the gaps or you've done tons and you just can't see how much you've actually achieved in the time.

Any ideas which it is?



Any ideas what your trigger items are? (the ones you find difficult to deal with/feel compelled to buy/keep, etc)



Do you really want to move or are you a) subconsciously sabotaging any swap or b) wanting to escape the difficult feelings the Stuff represents/disguises?

Hi. I think its the first two. Things find their way back into the front room so quickly. I just like *stuff* in general, usually householdy bits. Doesnt help that I like so many different styles and if its a bargain I cant resist. Which is stupid as inevitably it just gets hidden underneath all the other junk and I cant enjoy it! I suppose it is B, we've lived here over 6 years now and its just been miserable tbh. I cant stand the sight of this place and the memories it holds. I want to run away and it will all be better but of course it wont be like that. *sigh* x

SpikyHedgehog

lostinrates wrote: »

Hmmm, well, the DIY board have looked at my post there and obviously decided I am batty (an astute lot I guess) and no reply.

They don't seem to answer as quickly as we do, don't panic yet!

valk_scot

SpikyHedgehog wrote: »

No, no! You mustn't mix up the Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000 and the Lord of the Rings stuff together! He will then go around telling you the difference between them all so you will know next time how to separate them properly! Even when you say 'Well, darling, maybe you could just put them away yourself and then you'll know they're in the right sets'

Oh crikey, I'm not taking them out the boxes or trays or anything. I'm just taking the various containers down off the shelves, moving the shelves then putting the boxes back. I'm not mixing anything important up. I've lived with a wargaming OH for over 30 years now and know my place when it comes to wargaming stash.

(Still can't tell the difference between an orc and a snotling though.....:rotfl:)

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

moneysavingmumofone wrote: »

Hi. I think its the first two. Things find their way back into the front room so quickly. I just like *stuff* in general, usually householdy bits. Doesnt help that I like so many different styles and if its a bargain I cant resist. Which is stupid as inevitably it just gets hidden underneath all the other junk and I cant enjoy it! I suppose it is B, we've lived here over 6 years now and its just been miserable tbh. I cant stand the sight of this place and the memories it holds. I want to run away and it will all be better but of course it wont be like that. *sigh* x

Imagine you're trapped behind a wall of things.

You originally started building that wall yourself with items that made you feel good for a short period of time, to protect you from the bad feelings and stop them getting in.

But over time, the bad feelings and experiences and memories have climbed into that wall, scuttling around the base, nesting in corners, lurking in the shadows. You're scared to move anything in case a great load of those bad feelings come tumbling out over you. So you've added more onto the wall. hoping that'll be enough to keep the bad things out. But it's just provided them with more nooks and crannies to colonise. One false move, one thing thrown away wrongly, and you believe it could all come crashing down, smothering you in bad things.



How do you get out? Do you carefully pick at each terrifying thing in turn, poking at it, scared to shift it? It's stopping you escaping.


Either you take it down in segments, dealing with each bit of the wall as it comes, say a three foot stretch. Break down, clear, dispose, the bad feelings slink away to another part of the wall. Until they are all clustered in one little bit that seems the hardest to deal with.

Or you don a hard hat and batter the hell out of that wall with a sledgehammer. The feelings scatter. Nowhere for them to go, no hiding place, so they swirl around you as you batter on through.


With the first option, it's effective, but long, drawn out and vulnerable to delays and distractions. With the second option, it's big, dramatic and there's lots of rubble removal at the end.



But either way, when the dust settles, you're standing, blinking in the sunlight.


That wall is what's keeping you from reaching what you want. How do you want to tackle yours?

moneysavingmumofone

Jojo_the_Tightfisted wrote: »

Imagine you're trapped behind a wall of things.

You originally started building that wall yourself with items that made you feel good for a short period of time, to protect you from the bad feelings and stop them getting in.

But over time, the bad feelings and experiences and memories have climbed into that wall, scuttling around the base, nesting in corners, lurking in the shadows. You're scared to move anything in case a great load of those bad feelings come tumbling out over you. So you've added more onto the wall. hoping that'll be enough to keep the bad things out. But it's just provided them with more nooks and crannies to colonise. One false move, one thing thrown away wrongly, and you believe it could all come crashing down, smothering you in bad things.



How do you get out? Do you carefully pick at each terrifying thing in turn, poking at it, scared to shift it? It's stopping you escaping.


Either you take it down in segments, dealing with each bit of the wall as it comes, say a three foot stretch. Break down, clear, dispose, the bad feelings slink away to another part of the wall. Until they are all clustered in one little bit that seems the hardest to deal with.

Or you don a hard hat and batter the hell out of that wall with a sledgehammer. The feelings scatter. Nowhere for them to go, no hiding place, so they swirl around you as you batter on through.


With the first option, it's effective, but long, drawn out and vulnerable to delays and distractions. With the second option, it's big, dramatic and there's lots of rubble removal at the end.



But either way, when the dust settles, you're standing, blinking in the sunlight.


That wall is what's keeping you from reaching what you want. How do you want to tackle yours?

*sniff* You have a wonderful way with words JoJo. I want to bash the hell out of it!! Its been drawn out too long now. Battle helmets on! x

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

moneysavingmumofone wrote: »

*sniff* You have a wonderful way with words JoJo. I want to bash the hell out of it!! Its been drawn out too long now. Battle helmets on! x

[hands Ms Moo the sledgehammer]


:T:T:T

Brighton_belle

GreyQueen wrote: »

Not really impressive at all, hun, I live in such a tiny place that all those things I do could be done in one morning, if I didn't have ME. As I do have it, I space them out over a month.

Well it mightn't be impressive to you, but it is to me!:D I couldn't face pulling out the wm and fridge freezer just to clean. Pulling out the WM is really difficult - it's heavy and awkward and in a confined space under the counter,so hard to get a good handhold.
If however the WM or fridge freezer has to be pulled out for other reasons, I do take the opportunity to clean the floor.

I've been trying to psych myself up to wash the kitchen and bathroom floors for the last 5 weeks (They do get swept regularly). Just can't find the spare energy. My idea of luxury would be to have someone sweep and wash all the floors in our home every fortnight...However, I don't let it make me unhappy that the bathfloor hasn't been washed. There are better ways to use my sparse energy resources... preferably having some fun:D