Hoarding - A New Start

whitewing

Despite my recent posts, I am actually quite calm and content. This morning's appointment was cancelled due to the weather, so I have got ahead of myself on other things, which is always a pleasant feeling. DD helped me finish cleaning my chest of drawers this morning which she thought was great fun (having to say peepo every time she hid made it take 3 times longer than it should!)

I have also been working and getting that organised.

Think we're going to sort out DD's clothes this evening. She has outgrown some so we'll make a list of what she needs. She is still younger enough to do this a few times through the year. Luckily one of our relatives has a daughter that was born a year after her, so cast offs are a perfect match for the seasons for the younger one.

oystercatcher

Thank you for the warm welcome everybody. I carried on reading and have caught up with this thread and have had loads to think about. I love all the discussion of why we do it and have been thinking a lot about the past.

Then I remembered that I ought to actually DO something. I have health issues and depression both of which have caused a 'low grade' hoarding habit and acute untidiness to become a somewhat larger problem. It's very easy to make excuses and leave things until later.

So I decided to find 5 things..... and I did....and 5 more and five more...oh no more than 5! .....never mind

It's easy stuff but at least I have made a start.

I've just wiped out several sentences I was going to put as it's made me feel really uncomfortable....... lets just say I can relate to a lot of what people have been saying.

Hugs

mcculloch29

I bought some extra large bin bags from A!di and I'm delighted to say I've filled one with kipple and binned it.
Chiefly it was from my bedroom. I was blocking access to the window with bags and boxes of "stuff" - now down to 1 bag and 1 small box of useful /not useful but seasonal things (like the felt Santa sack for grandkids' presents and the tinsel I wrap round my walking stick for Christmas parties).
These are now in the bottom of the wardrobe. I can easily get to the window (and have observed how filthy the window ledge is). There were also some happy discoveries - two pairs of slippers I've barely worn have just come out of the washing machine, to be given to DGD and a friend, a full pack of wet wipes. a tube of No More Nails, and a roll of duct tape.

Why I ever thought the bedroom was a suitable place for the last two items is beyond me.

Left the above on the screen and have now filled a charity bag for the Air Ambulance, clothes that will only be worn by "fantasy me" - long skirts, and coats two sizes down from mine. One is a Dannimac in vgc , so I hope they get a few quid for that.

minimoneyme

Seen the new Ikea ad?
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zhDd36YMWSY
If only it were that simple

*hoarder goes back to lurking*

lostinrates

Oystercatcher...health really doesn't help sometimes. I know it too.

My pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is a clearer more ordered house is going to be easier for me (and others when I cannot) to care for.



I actually opened this thread thinking ' I must not be a control frwak, I must not be a control freak' over and over.

I am going out tonight, after a week of not feeling great and work load a little increased by the weather. Resident parent offered, (first time ) to feed the dogs.

'ok' I said, amazed.

'where is the scoop' asked parent

'in the food' I answered.


It's obvious, no?

Then

'dog dog will not go out'

Me'just don't give her the choice'

'but she won't go'

'don't give her the choice'

Parent raises voice at dog dog, and I think, NO!!! That's not what I meant. Just say it like you mean it. (she hates going outside in bad weather)

I am now listening to parent feeding them all in the 'wrong' places and struggling to get them to be ordered and to listen, it's very hard and my teeth are tightly clenched. My dogs know how to eat politely and in the 'right' places and out of the bowls and it's staggaring to me that someone lives here and doesn't take note that each one eats 'there, there and there' in winter or bad weather. But .....we have different priorities. The dogs are getting fed and popped out for a widdle while I am (ostensibly) getting some slap on to go out later and 'taking it easy'.

Taking it easy is bloody stressful. It will get easier....right?

frizz2

HI Everyone,
Still reading these posts with interest. It is helpful to think back to where it started and why, but for myself sometimes looking back is painful and does not get me anywhere positive. So I like to look forward and focus on one of my favourite saying "Life rewards Action." I like this because then I can focus on moving forward. Today I sold four books on Amazon and returned my library books. Also, sorted through four baskets and four drawers of clutter/rubbish. Found a credit voucher for £15 I thought I had lost and some change. Also had lots of doubles for things I thought I needed, sellotape, labels etc.
I am determined to see more leaves the house then comes in!
Keep up the good work everyone.

rosieben

Broomstick wrote: »

I like the phrase 'it was a sane reaction to an insane situation'.
....
Celebrate your survival skills and the way you were valuing yourself when the person/people who should have been valuing you were/are not. :T

Broomstick, I read your post and had a good cry; so many points I can relate to, it was cathartic for me

blossomhill_2

lir I wasn't sure if you felt we are control freaky or victims of controllers - don't answer until tomorrow, relax and enjoy your evening out!

I don't think I used to be controlling (I frustrated my colleagues no end as I always allowed them to make mistakes as it was the only way they'd learn, when they knew I knew the best way) but I certainly had to become controlling of my environment once it was getting crammed, as I couldn't afford to have someone wandering around opening doors or cupboards and revealing or destablising the stashed stuff.

The thing with looking back at childhood things, and identifying failings of our parents, is that we are dong it with the benefit of hindsight, from a hopefully wiser society and a knowledge of how thing could be. Some of the mothers we may think could have been more responsive were only really a generation away from the suffragettes! If anyone has seen the Janet Street Porter TV debate where a member of the audience quizzes her about why no-one did anything about JSaville, she is very eloquent in pointing out that it was a different culture then.
I am from a time when boys wore short trousers in winter and had legs that were chapped red raw and sometimes bleeding. Nowadays kids are asked to come into school with sunhats and cream in summer; in my day many kids wouldn't have had even a balaclava or scarf for winter. It wasn't right but it wasn't considered a failure to meet the children's needs; it was just how it was
I am not saying that the failings aren't failings; just that the gap then wasn't such a yawning one as it seems now

lostinrates

blossomhill wrote: »

lir I wasn't sure if you felt we are control freaky or victims of controllers - don't answer until tomorrow, relax and enjoy your evening out!

I don't think I used to be controlling (I frustrated my colleagues no end as I always allowed them to make mistakes as it was the only way they'd learn, when they knew I knew the best way) but I certainly had to become controlling of my environment once it was getting crammed, as I couldn't afford to have someone wandering around opening doors or cupboards and revealing or destablising the stashed stuff.

The thing with looking back at childhood things, and identifying failings of our parents, is that we are dong it with the benefit of hindsight, from a hopefully wiser society and a knowledge of how thing could be. Some of the mothers we may think could have been more responsive were only really a generation away from the suffragettes! If anyone has seen the Janet Street Porter TV debate where a member of the audience quizzes her about why no-one did anything about JSaville, she is very eloquent in pointing out that it was a different culture then.
I am from a time when boys wore short trousers in winter and had legs that were chapped red raw and sometimes bleeding. Nowadays kids are asked to come into school with sunhats and cream in summer; in my day many kids wouldn't have had even a balaclava or scarf for winter. It wasn't right but it wasn't considered a failure to meet the children's needs; it was just how it was
I am not saying that the failings aren't failings; just that the gap then wasn't such a yawning one as it seems now

I was talking about some of us being controll freaky. (perhaps an extention of perfectionism, or the uglier side of the same thing). But doesn't mean we didn't have controll freaky parents. I think both are applicable. I think my parents vacillated between unhealthily controlling and unhealthily remiss. Through healthy. We are none of us perfect.

Sun hats made me laugh. I was not brought up in uk. I am fair and when I came to uk for school peoe assumed I was mixed race, such was my time in the sun. I even remember the smell of hawaii tropic oil , not sun cream. The Saville thing...well....that too. I have heard the same through close connections who worked in media. I...hmm....I don't want to say more about that, but it was a different culture, I remember it first hand as a child.


I have a really strict rule with MYSELF that I also dish out to friends on the subject of parents. I always say.what happened to us before we were sixteen, maybe eighteen....it's their fault but it's gone, What happened after we were adults we are to blame for too...we stayed/tolerated/co depended. Sure,...we may have been 'shaped' to, but so were they once. I am not saying its not worthy of sympathy...just...perhaps not too much sorry for selfless over iyswim.

nightsong

Catriona_P wrote: »

It's also interesting that so many of us can trace our hoarding habits to how we were treated as children. I'm determined that my little one won't suffer the same fate as I have - but the point is, how? How do you avoid repeating the pattern? My husband is similar to my Dad and has already started saying things that remind me of what I heard from my Dad when I was small. I will NOT have that for our daughter and have told husband so. But still. I want to learn how to be respectful of her things (not so much an issue now but the older she gets it will).

This is such an interesting question for us hoarders who are aware of our tendencies and don't want to pass them on, isn't it.

For me with my boys it was about giving them control over their stuff. They were messy and they had a lot of toys - the latter was very much my doing, as I had so few myself and didn't want them to feel deprived the way I did. A lot of their stuff wasn't new, especially when they were small, so it was cheap enough. In retrospect I don't suppose it was really necessary for them to have so much, but it doesn't seem to have made them materialistic. We did talk about advertising with them - how the clever people who make the toys try to get all the children to want the things they're selling.

Anyway, I NEVER did what my mother did and got rid of their stuff without consulting them - or by putting huge amounts of pressure on (e.g."You don't need this any more do you? Think of the poor children in the hospital who don't have anything to play with - wouldn't you like them to have your doll/puzzle/book?" etc etc).

I did sometimes suggest that they might weed out anything that they didn't play with anymore, if they wanted. I took my own stuff periodically to charity shops and they got used to taking their unwanted toys along too. But it was their choice.

They've all grown up with plenty of quirks (!) but overattachment to stuff isn't one of them, I'm very glad to say. In fact my eldest lives with his wife in Berlin and they are two of the most minimalist people I know. They each have a few favourite possessions but like to up sticks when the mood takes them and don't like being weighed down by unnecessary stuff. Wish I could say the same!!