To think that a minimalist home means the person has minimal emotional baggage and unresolved issues, so they don’t need lots of stuff with emotional attachments?

[WryJadeWren]

Inspired by the other thread…

I believe a minimalist living space reflects someone with a clear mind and emotional clarity, someone who’s worked through their issues and doesn’t feel the need to hold on to material possessions for sentimental reasons. On the other hand, people who live in clutter or are hoarders are often holding onto things because of unresolved emotions or relationships. They tie meaning to their possessions as a way of keeping hold of the past and often struggle with letting go due to emotional or mental exhaustion. It seems like clutter is more about emotional baggage than about a lack of meaningful connections.

I knew a family who would say they had minimal stuff out of poverty....but... They told a story about paying high price for a new boy's t-shirt, then said no when I offered them free shirts (pristine condition, I had just bought a huge bundle from online) a few weeks later... that seemed odd, why wouldn't you take free clothes & store a few spare shirts to reduce risk of next high cost unexpected clothing purchase? I suspect that they were welded to a vision of "we each only need 2 spare of anything" .

One of the parents had poorly-controlled bipolar and maybe just couldn't cope with excess stuff, too.

How many knives and forks do you have? How many mugs?

I think we all might have different ideas on what minimalist is.

Is there a dictionary definition to it? I’m not a fan of labels but minimalist describes our home fairly well when I look at it in comparison to other people’s homes.

Yes you might have a lounge that has nothing on display on a shelf unit.

but you might have the junk all hiding in another room.
or you might have no books in your home.

We viewed a house once you'd have guessed had no one living there. Seriously nothing.

Im a minimalist exstream minimalist.
If i have issues i deal with them.
I dont blame my past for my future.
I am not sentimental or emotional.
I cant stand clutter.
Like my kitchen the only thing on show is my kettle.
Why have what im not using.
Something new coming in something old is going in the bin.

Yes but that doesn’t answer my question of how to define minimalist. A house that looks like no one lives there or an empty shelf while junk is piled elsewhere is psychotic. Why have the shelf unit if there’s nothing on it? 😕

We are minimalist if you want to put a definition on it. Not because our home is bare and white, but because we keep only the bare minimum of belongings. This looks different to, say, a single person living alone, because we have a young child. His bedroom has one shelving unit with 4 baskets of toys, his bed, an armchair, a lamp, and a bookshelf. Our room has a bed, a bookshelf, and one wardrobe with both of our clothes in it. We don’t own many clothes. We each have a pair of boots, a pair of trainers, crocs for the beach or garden, and a pair of wellies. We have 6 mugs, 6 glasses, 6 plates, and enough cutlery to serve 6 people dinner if we ever have guests. I don’t put a number on things specifically, if the number needed to change it would change but essentially we have only what we need and no excess (other than our chest freezer of food, and the things we bulk buy for value and store in our garage)

But our home is cosy and lived in. We have fireplaces, a basket full of wood, plants, candles, lamps, plenty of blankets for keeping cosy in the evening or for building dens, we have pictures we love on the walls, there are usually train tracks snaking around the house that my son has built. It feels lived in. I can’t bear a barren, white house.

Really? I think cosy homes with an amount of stuff signal comfort, joy, acceptance and celebration of a person’s self, including their past. That they’re at one with their emotions and comfortable to show who they are.

Whereas a bare house, to me, suggests neuroticism, lack of personality, stifled emotions or that they’re hiding something.

That or just different ways people’s brains work - visual thinkers vs conceptual or mathematical minds. which makes me wonder what the correlation is between aphantasia and minimalism.

Plus different attitudes to cleaning and what counts as clean.

I usually try to stay minimalist because I know I WILL get attached to things with emotions that aren't always positive (depends on the memory the item holds)

I think one thing which has put me off hanging on to things for sentimental reasons is having to sort through my parents’ home after they died. They weren’t hoarders and had an ordinary amount of stuff. But it was incredibly painful to have to throw away things that were really special and personal, like letters and cards. Of course I kept some but I couldn’t keep everything. My mum had been a primary teacher- and an excellent one. She had dozens of cards from children and parents thanking her and giving praise for what a wonderful teacher she was. I had to throw some of those in the tip and I sobbed while I did it. I don’t want my children to have to feel that way when I’ve gone so I think I have gone the other way and often get rid of things that I am actually sentimentally attached to.

I know this isn’t necessarily healthy or the ‘right’ way to do things, but it’s just how I’ve become as a result of those experiences.

@lottiegarbanzo It’s a shame that your perception of minimalists is so negative. I do stifle my emotions so I think your perception is right there (at least for me), but I do have a personality! And I’m not hiding anything- I’m quite open about my MH and my suspected neurodivergence.

Suuuuuure.

…and those who got to a point where they had a breakdown and basically cut their past out of their life but are still dealing with pain and confusion and generally not in a great place.

Easy to tell the difference though right? 🙄

I just don't like clutter, and I don't like the environmental impact of buying loads of stuff I don't need. I don't think it goes any deeper than that.

I agree, cannot abide clutter. Those Live Life Love and similar banners/placards/ornaments and other bits of general tat that is sold en masse in cheap stores is awful.

this would be like living on another planet, to be honest. Each to their own, I’m not having a go. But I have a corporate wardrobe and shoes, my kids have sneakers, school shoes, pool slides, basketball shoes, football boots, we have 6 basketballs, they have at least 5 different basketball uniforms between them including training uniforms, then there’s footy uninforms. If we have my family or dhs family round to dinner or recently two of my closest girlfriends and their kids, any of those is 20 people, so we have at least 20 plates and cups and wine glasses and extra boxes of cutlery. And that’s just a tiny portion of our lives, there’s a younger child too.

4 mugs 4 sets of knives/forks

What's decoration got to do with it? Decoration on walls and celings etc don't make clutter and mess.

I don’t know what a corporate wardrobe is. I work 3 days a week in a professional role. I have 4 work dresses and 3 cardigans which all go well together, and a pair of work boots which I forgot to mention. My child is only young so absolutely there will be future hobbies that will bring things into the home. But we will still only own what we need and no more which I think is the key. It’s more about being very intentional with belongings and not about owning a specific number of items. Our lives are different so you need more things.

My son has a bike and a scooter, he has a mud kitchen and a swing in the garden and a huge garden container full of trucks and diggers. He is absolutely not lacking in things to play with and will hopefully enjoy many hobbies as he gets older.

Our home is small. We cannot host 20 people so that just isn’t our lifestyle. For our housewarming we hosted more people but just did a basic buffet with paper plates and borrowed extra glasses from friends for the day.

I have lots of baggage and depression and anxiety as well. I have a minimalist house because I can't be arsed with dusting.

You are talking about me😂
Im a dentist so my surgery is hyper organised. Everything has a place so you don’t have to think about it. All surface immaculate, and where possible free of anything unless we are carrying out a procedure. The drawers and storage are all organised. No dust, every surface is cleaned repeatedly throughout the day.
My home is the exact opposite apart from the kitchen and bathroom where I do insist on clean surfaces but I’m happy to have stuff out on the surfaces.
The hand washing routine carries over into my home life and the obsession with food hygiene and sell by dates. But I tend to be more relaxed about storage. However I will reorganise the dishwasher and cutlery and knives along with utensils are ordered for easy use.
But I am dust blind and relaxed about everything else.
When walk into minimalist houses they feel sterile like my work environment so they slightly stress me out. I suspect that it a need to delineate between working environment and home.

Thanks!

Interesting thread, plus I've just learned two things: The PP used a 'tautophrase' and Freud never said "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar".

@lottiegarbanzo : "That or just different ways people’s brains work - visual thinkers vs conceptual or mathematical minds. which makes me wonder what the correlation is between aphantasia and minimalism."

Ooh, aphantasia. One of my recent discoveries. Fascinating. The woman who introduced me to it, who thinks she has it, definitely has a house with a pretty uncluttered, minimalistic vibe. If she didn't have a husband and grandchildren I suspect it would be more so.

I don't own anything of sentimental value. I'm not even sure I could tell you where my wedding ring (from late DH) is and inhave nothing from when DC were small. I just don't attach sentiment to objects. I don't think that's because I don't have any sentiments though, just that I don't see them in objects.