Hoarding - A New Start

Jazzyj_2

Good Morning and thank you for your comments.
I decluttered a drawer yesterday (Posted on the declutter thread as I fall into both category's at the minute)

I know how the hoarding started and it wasn't as hoarding believe it or not. I was boxing stuff up out of the way from a particular pair of prying eyes. I had no reason to do this (definitely no secrets to hide) other than I just couldn't bare someone treating me this way. And its easier said than done to change the situation when certain aspects are involved but thats irrelevant for the minute. Don't want to bore you
Life went by, loads was going on and not good and unsupported so the cycle began. Ferreting away from a nosey parker, never having time to go back and sort the boxes and then more being added!! Work took over.......maybe I let it, part time became 7 days a week until all hours and that was me running away from the problems I suppose.

Anyway in the last year I have made loads of progress albeit slow. For me the clutter and hoarding overlapped. Suddenly it seemed so hard to part with things especially in huge batches. I have got rooms back and don't intend on re-junking but I am left with two rooms that are full of boxes. bags etc. I took 8 sacks of black clothes to the cash place last year (many new with labels) and got £22 which gutted me BUT if I hadn't taken them then they would still be sitting here no doubt so at the time it was a no brainer. I also CS'd many sacks as well.
Today I am feeling pretty low............can't understand that as I felt so positive yesterday but maybe thats the healing process:)
My health is poor (largely due to mould that I was inhaling and didn't know) so I get really frustrated that I can't do everything yesterday.
I want to do stuff today but I have work to do so maybe thats the problem.
Spoke to my DD this morning before school and we are going to donate all her good toys etc to a children's home if we can.
I will keep on coming back for the support , everyone needs a pat on the back and thats why we are all here.
Have a great day everyone xx

whitewing

I'm on a downer too today, but I know it is just one to ride out. DH is tired, having been ill so was off work at the weekend which meant he was in my way. I feel out of sorts and fed up and full of half finished jobs.

Think I'll feel better by tomorrow evening though as I will get more opportunity to catch up.

Have 11 books to package up and send off this week.

suzitiger

lostinrates wrote: »

I love using candles but hate it when they finish. This often means I hang on to the last dregs and end up with candle Richard, in a house where we use candles very often and practically. As part of my 'new lifestyle' I want to change this and relish the last of the candle and the enjoyment of new ones not to ring the changes or to save the old dregs of an old one, but rather because the old ones are finished.

Oh well done! Its reading this forum that makes me realisie where some of my problem areas lie, I am the same as you, I hate it when I finish a candle so i also save the dregs. I will stop now as you are right, life is too short for candle dregs haha!

tattycath wrote: »

I've now got 34 listings up.

Yaaaay excellent news, i am glad that you managed to find the 'oomph' to get those thing on. :T

This_Year wrote: »

I'm the same. I just can't do it yet, so am not even attempting to. Too many family hurts to try to get my head around.

One step at a time with the family cards...I still hoard cards but I did dramatically reduce my collection last year and I do enjoy looking through them from time to time. I will look to have another go soon and thin them out a bit more. Slowly but surely...:rotfl:

suzitiger

Thanks once again for your wise words GQ and putting things into perspective

Jazzyj wrote: »

I know how the hoarding started and it wasn't as hoarding believe it or not. I was boxing stuff up out of the way from a particular pair of prying eyes. I had no reason to do this (definitely no secrets to hide) other than I just couldn't bare someone treating me this way. And its easier said than done to change the situation when certain aspects are involved but thats irrelevant for the minute. Don't want to bore you
...
I will keep on coming back for the support , everyone needs a pat on the back and thats why we are all here.
Have a great day everyone xx

It is interesting to hear how everyone starts out. I liked reading your story, and well done for tackling it. Yes we are all here to give you many pats on the back, you deserve them :T

I think I have always hoarded, but my main problem started when I moved to the North and I bought EVERYTHING with me. I thought it was only fair that I didn't keep things at my parents house anymore after I finished Uni.
That was a good step, as I knew I could only go through it to get rid of things when it was all here. But MY here we are 4 years on and I am STILL trying to get rid of things.
Yes alot of stuff has gone, but things have come in and I am very bad at saying no to hand-me-downs....but as we all know this is not a quick process and I am glad that I have a house move (now next week!!) to kick me into action

JellyBox

On candles - I've just started actually using mine. They are all coated in thick layers of dust, but some are 10 years old and have been kept because I like them too much to burn them. Makes no sense at all! I keep buying more, and things to put them on and in, but wasn't using any. I also had a few with misplaced sentimentality (bought by people I don't see much anymore, etc) and burning some of these has also allowed me to let go of some of the emotional hoard associated with them!

I am now enjoying them much more than I was when they were collecting dust, and it means I will be able to have some lovely new ones at Christmas.

whitewing

It strikes me with all these hoarded cards, candles and food that we could probably do Valentine's Day and Shrove Tuesday from the contents of our houses.

That will be my aim. Token gestures here only - I'm not that bothered about the day itself but I like seasonality otherwise it's the same day in and day out.

lostinrates

whitewing wrote: »

It strikes me with all these hoarded cards, candles and food that we could probably do Valentine's Day and Shrove Tuesday from the contents of our houses.

That will be my aim. Token gestures here only - I'm not that bothered about the day itself but I like seasonality otherwise it's the same day in and day out.

Dh away for shrove tues day AND valentines. So no gestures here.

But I might do something romantic on Saturday.

lobbyludd

suzitiger wrote: »

It is interesting to hear how everyone starts out. I liked reading your story, and well done for tackling it.

I like it too: except for my first 5 years of life - when I was apparently preternaturally tidy, I have always been messy, chaotic and cluttered. The hoarding aspect took hold when I started to live with ex. the marriage was abusive, life felt very unstable, I didn't know when/if it would end, and when I did end it, the divorce dragged out for 4 years, with no certainty that I would be left with anything. I started to just keep everything, partly in case I was left financially with nothing, partly because he demanded that nothing in the house be thrown away and partly as an emotional safety blanket. I still have a lot of his things (he has yet to remove anything that the court order states are his - divorced for 1.5 years now!).

I am fighting the urge to buy duplicates of his things (drills etc) which I don't have room for (becasue I'm storing his), in case he does descend to take everything one evening. rationally, I know he is unlikely to, as he resist my attempts to give him these things, and even if he did, how likely is it that it would be on the same day as an emergency drill needing situation whilst all shops are shut and my umpteen neighbours with borrowable drills are unavailable?

not at all likely. yet, I feel that buying a drill all of my own will make me feel less panicky/uncomfortable. peculiar things: minds

Byatt

SJ, you don't have to find a justification to post here. If you feel safe and comfortable being here, then here you post. I know when I posted my pictures of before and after a couple of people said and maybe many thought, that the before wasn't "that bad"...in terms of what you see on tv, no it wasn't, but for me it was, and well anyone visiting would think so too. Hoarders don't start with floor to ceiling stuff, it builds up over a long period of time, and that was my worry, I was normalising my behaviour to such an extent that one day it would be "that bad". I'm not a naturally tidy person and my mind chaos is reflected in my home, when the chaos subsides, I can be tidy.

I've realised the last couple of days after dealing with some urgent paperwork yesterday (urgent because the deadline was being reached) that I had been putting off for weeks, that I have a real problem dealing with finances, by that I mean the paperwork, whether it's bank statements, bills or accounts. As a result, the chaos in my home has increased recently as I've tried to surround myself with clutter so I didn't have to face this one thing (I have a couple of others too) I had to do, by a set date. I have such an aversion to it, mostly because ex let me deal with everything and then blamed me when or if it went wrong or I made a bad decision, but also because I don;t want the responsibility but as it's only me I have to be responsible.

BUT, I don't want to do it anymore!! I realise my mind and body is rebelling against it, but of course that's unreasonable. I want to say "you deal with this you bastwerd, I'm not doing it anymore!"

I know a few have mentioned perfectionism, we did chat about it on the first thread as we realised many of us wouldn't/didn't start things because unless it was perfectly done, we thought it was better not to do it at all!

lostinrates

Well, I was just looking around the bedroom and saw one of those bloody perfume boxes I threw away again this weekend. Oh yes, that butter wouldn't melt in his mouth husband of mine has fished it out again.

It's re binned and going out to the wheelie before he gets home on Friday.