Has anyone dealt with a minor (but longstanding) mental health issue themselves successfully?

[SolidGoldBangers]

I don't want pills, I don't want counselling and I am very wary of consulting the 'professionals' after reading about what happened to the poster who got SS right up her arse when she gave up drinking and consulted a helpline. (I will absolutely not put up with having officious fuckwits 20 years younger than me coming round my house with clipboards and patronizing me).

Your family's offer sounds ideal. You'll get to stay in control but have help on hand for the bits you can't manage yourself.

I agree with you about getting official help and would avoid it unless I'd exhausted every possibility of dealing with it on my own.

I think I might be (not) dealing with something like this myself, but I've always put it down to laziness rather than OCD, athough I definitely do have OCD tendancies in other regards.

Good luck with the baby steps SGB. I'm going to read some more on that site and try to establish another 'system' for clearing all this shite around me.

Thanks for linking that site Dittany, it looks really helpful.

Just want to say how very brave I think you are for posting this!

I would have been too much of a wuss. i also have a clutter problem, i think you have to work on it from the inside out - when I am doing OK I can get shot of stuff, when I'm not sure where my life is heading I hang on to it in case I need it.

I think once i find some stability somehow I'll be able to let go painlessly. Same for you maybe.

I'd like to clarify what I posted above because it sounds very rude and unsuportive. I don't think hoarding is about laziness. I'm sorry if it reads that way. I'd been looking at the Squalor Survivors website and I recognised my habits, and it made me wonder whether I'm not just pathologically lazy and recognise that I do actually have anxieties that make discarding my possessions very hard.

I hope you didn't read my post as me calling you lazy SGB. I was just thinking about how I feel about myself.

RC: No, not at all. I used to put it down to laziness myself.
I don't think there are 'underlying issues' though as I'm quite a cheerful soul with no traumas in my past - though I probably get a bit worse when stressed out by circumstances (debts, job insecurity etc). And there is something to be said for the whole recycling trend, I do find it easier to get rid of things if I know they are going to 'good use'.

Good luck, SGpiab, and also well done for the public acknowledgement and baby steps already taken.

This post has also helped me to realise that one of my very close friends is also a sufferer. She's very resistant to any suggestion that someone might be able to help her though - I guess she has to realise it for herself

Well done SGB, the first step is always the worst! Panic attacks were my problem, I can only echo what MadameDuBain said, once you realise that it's something you're doing to yourself and not something out of your control that's happening to you, the lightbulb moment will happen for you. Meanwhile I highly recommend this book if you're thinking of doing the CBT thing by yourself, I found it to be a real lifesaver and have recommended it to many other people who also swear by it.

Keep at it, the more you talk about it the better you'll feel!

Freecycle has helped me massively in getting rid of stuff. I can't bear the idea of everything just going to the tip, but if other people can do something with our broken stereo, or not-so-terribly-accurate scales, then good for them.

I just post that they are for collection only, and EVERYTHING that I have posted has been collected.

It's a joy.

Good luck with the de-cluttering etc.

agree with orangina. Freecycle is fab. You get the feelgood factor twice.
Once in clearing out
Once in giving away

Well done SGB- very brave of you to tackle this, and we're all behind you. I would say 'be strong' but you so obviously are.

I have decluttered a lot over the last couple of years.

My problem with getting rid of things was a procrastination/perfectionism problem.

I got started with Flylady.

Have a look at How to Declutter section from the website.

It is all about babysteps which was a term you used in one of your posts.

I would really really recommend a timer so that you can make sure you are doing just babysteps and not "crashing and burning".

Feeling shitty, terrified and a bit tearful is like, fairly normal when you realise there's something a bit wrong, isn't it? Mind you I have been reading too much about overzealous social workers and scaring myself...

Change is terrifying... of course it's normal to feel like that!
I hope you won't feel like that for very long though- you always come across as an amazingly 'together' person, with a no nonsense attitude, so I know you'll crack this once you start. Small steps soon add up- just one carrier bag every few days and the difference by christmas will be enormous.

I must admit I'm not going anywhere near flylady, I have an issue with the teethgritting smugness and evangelism of that website. On the one hand, I want a passable house, on the other, I am aware that housework is tedious shitwork and definitely not female destiny. I guess what I want to do is clear the hording and then I can have a cleaner .

I think understanding you have a problem, and acknowledging it is half the battle tbh. I was diagnosed with depression a while back (but have been coping with it since my teens) and I found accepting it meant that I could recognise when it happened, and could (to a certain extent) step away from it, make it something separate that I could choose to not do (that sounds amazingly simplistic I know, and it's not anywhere near as easy as that, but it helps me to see it as something that's notme)

Well done for what you've done so far, sounds like you're doing well