The Hoarders Anonymous Thread. Sorting It Out.

[Solo]

There was a thread that I was involved in some time ago which was started by someone trying to understand why her Dh kept so much 'stuff' and couldn't throw anything away.

The thread quickly turned into a support thread for many MN hoarders and there was a large support network that evolved from that thread.

Eventually, the thread died and with it, certainly my 'support and encouragement mates' circle...

From other threads where lovely Mumsnetters have supported and given rl help, there have come other hoarders, untidy people and those who are just plain stuck in a rut admitting they have a problem. People like me that have become emotionally attached to stuff and it has taken over their homes and their lives. People that cannot cope after loss of different types (parent, relationship, job etc) and it just turns into one big nightmare ~ it certainly did for me following my relationship breakdown, my Dad dying and another nine people in my life passing away inside 11 months.
Personally, I feel that being unable to let anyone in through my front door means that no one can hurt me; I've pulled up the drawbridge, so no one can get to me and shoot me again.

I've always been a bit of a collector of things. I'm a make do and mend type and I can make something out of nothing. Trouble is that once I started to lose important things (people mainly) from my life, I felt unable to let anything made of something go...what if I could never get or have another?! that'd be terrible right?

So! that is a part of my story and here is a thread of support and encouragement (I hope) for others feeling overwhelmed by their hoarding, clutter and stuff. I am hoping that I can get my life sorted out and that there are others that will come along on the journey and perhaps also sort out their homes and lives.

I want to raise my drawbridge and invite friends in. Anyone else? :)

Poor DD Solo, was out last night so was up late! Have done some Ironing, need to tidy sitting room and kitchen!

cike Sounds like you are going to have another productive day.

solo Sorry to hear your DD is ill...Hope she feels better soon.

I have managed to finish the last few cupboards and drawers...every thing is sparking and in its own place.

I chucked loads of stuff and washed everything like the silicon bakeware which hasn't been used in a few months.

It is so pretty, I look in all the cupboards when I go into the kitchen.

I am adding a monthly job to my cleaning app thingy to redo kitchen. After all now it is done it should only take a couple of hours to wipe everything down and check dates on things iyswim.

Now I am sat down awaiting my tea, which my wonderful DH is cooking and looking forward to Doctor Who and a

Babies!! good for you!!! I am envious.

I am crap at this :(

Solo, You are NOT crap at this and you are never to think that again. You are working hard with the ebbs and flows which happens with whole house decluttering !

Truely it is the last 10% which makes all the difference but it has still took me 8 years to get TO the last 10%
I have plenty to do, that is only one room complete out of 8 and our room is storage central !

Decluttering made me cry today :(

We are focusing on the bedroom (both off this half term so trying to do as much as we can) and came across, among various things that made me sad, some stuff from the psychiatric hospital I was in as a teen. I wanted to keep one of the things - a card from all the school teachers when I left with lovely positive messages - but I know it's a bad idea because of how it made me feel. I read it a couple of times and binned it but only after sobbing on DH for a while. I felt even more ruthless about some other things afterwards, I'm getting better at recognising how I feel about things.

Finding this stuff made me sad and angry and hopeless. This was 12, 13 years ago and in some ways I feel like I'm no better even though everything has changed. The school there was so good for me but the memories are tainted with some other horrible stuff that went on, and I resent the fact my life was already so messed up that I had to be there in the first place age 15, that the school was a better and safer place than being with my family.

Really sorry for the rant. I may end up starting a separate thread at some point because clearly I am still struggling with my past. But I know you guys get it, the difficulty with letting go of stuff, so I hope you don't mind me offloading my clutter issues here

{{{fuzz}}} Of course offload here.

Sounds like you are processing a lot of childhood issues...be kind to yourself.

I just want to hug you. I had no idea that your childhood had been so bad :( I honestly don't know what to say, but have as many hugs as you can handle x No one should have to go through that.

You have been very brave, but very wise to throw those things away. It is lovely that the teachers wrote such lovely messages, but if it reduces you to this, then overall it's a bad 'momento' and should be thrown out. As hard as it was, you did the right thing.

If you start another thread please PM me and I'll be there with you OK x but I think this thread is fine for it, if you are happy to do it here, up to you x

ChillingInBloodLover is me in my Halloween Outfit for anyone who missed the big Cape Up

Ta daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

cike massively well done you :) or ... both if you'd like!

Babies ... oh go on, you can have as well!

CaptainSparklePants - welcome :) How have things been this week? Did you get anywhere with DH's clothing?? I think we might have spoken on your thread... but not totally sure. [I'm not a hoarder, but some of my best MN friends are so I hang out here with them x I have a lot of time for 'hoarders' and I have yet to meet one who didn't have 'an issue' creating the 'hoarding'. Do you know what 'caused' your DH's]

Solo - I am so sorry I missed your post after mine, that was 10 days ago now! I am changing my MN habits as I keep missing important threads because they aren't the most active so fall off of my Threads I'm On. I am not using Threads I'm Watching as welll, so hopefully that will be the end of that!

About all of the jabs etc, I totally agree with you. I think any 'evidence' against that has probably been funded by the drugs companies. I know 'anecdote doesn't equal data' but I just know too many people who changed after various injections. One of my friends had a little boy and he was a total delight, very engaging etc advance for his age (1yr) and he had the MMR - within a month he was unrecognieable and has various SN's. I had glandular fever and ended up with liver problems and although my liver readings seem 'alright' these days, I haven't been 'right' since. Other 'readings' are right at the bottom or top of normal as well... there's something 'undefined' going on.

Where will I find your thread about your DS - is it still running? So sorry to have missed it :(

Have you been able to do anything these past few days? Has your bed arrived yet?

Hi all, dosed with a flu, did absolutely nothing yesterday! Am wide awake at the minute, so put on a wash! Bank Holiday here in Ireland so going to take it easy

DH working today, so have attempted to light the fire, snuggled up on couch with DD3, watching a DVD!

I am still doing my daily cleaning routine but around the children now we are on half term.

I have decided to concentrate my daily decluttering session on the living room. Which isn't very logical as our bedroom has the most stuff to clear....through I piled everything nearly and cleaned our room top to bottom...so it can wait and noone except DH and I see it.

Whereas sitting in a 100% cleared living room would be lovely..so that is decided. I will be buying myself a rug as a reward when this room is done !

My main jobs in here are :-

1. Clear and Declutter all my craft cupboard. Later on throw cupboard and replace with small better condition one.

1. Sort out children's books and craft stuff.

1. DONE AND ONGOING Sort out laundry city and set up assigned ironing and airer space. Hopefully once the ironing pile has gone, I can relocate this somewhere else...but small house in winter, loads of people needing clothes...This is a pipe dream at the moment.

1. Clear and throw tall chest of drawers...DH will fight this one as he stores things on it but the drawers are collapsing and if it isn't here I can not dump stuff in it !

1. Clear small chest of drawers. Then reassign each child a drawer to be used for dress up clothes. I have all dress up stuff bagged on sofa and everything will be washed mended or chucked and only the best right size costumes are staying. THINK I WILL START HERE !

Hi I totally crashed in last week with a massive moan and have been busy so haven't reported back how rude of me!!

The day after I posted we went through dp's clothes that aren't folded away or hung up and over 90% got put in the "to charity pile". I was so proud of him as I know he struggles to let go. We also went through another big box of old paperwork and again, got rid of 90%! I hadn't seen the floor of his wardrobe since we moved in

I am not back at work until Thursday, so am going to have a massive sort out over the next few days. This afternoon I binned some old moldy hold-alls that he had put into bin liners a long time ago and hadn't had the heart to get rid of, so that's more space freed.

chilling hi I'm not sure what caused my dp's hoarding. He's not as bad as some you hear about, so maybe it's just how some people are? He definitely has the "but it might come in useful" attitude, and his parents and some of his other relations like to "collect" things, which is a trait he has inherited His uncle deals in antiques and his house was full of stuff when we visited.

Hugs to fuzz you sound so brave. Not the same at all, but i came across some handwritten instructions from my dad explaining how to bleed a rediator, that he had written for me back when I was a student. He died 3 years ago. I sobbed and have kept them.

Babies how did you get on with all your jobs?

I completed 2. Children's books upstairs to sort and children crafts organised and boxed up for use.

Just getting up to do limited ironing and then tv and bed :)

Thank you all for the hugs :)

After crying we went out for a nice long walk yesterday which was great. I did feel upset again typing the above but glad I did as your responses have helped so much :) I feel much better today.

We decluttered a little more today but only one binbag as it was much more small fiddly stuff. I've put aside a load of stuff for my best friend who's a reception teacher - more than I'd originally planned. But I realised that actually much as I think the orchard toys games are great for example, the fact is they've outgrown them even DS who is 5 is desperate to play Grown Up Games! So all of them are going to teacher friend if they're complete, and the incomplete ones are being chucked. Loads that I've been hanging on to in case the missing pieces turn up what a waste! They've barely been played.

We also reorganised a lot of toys. There's been loads of DCs' toys in our room - TBF their room is tiny (apparently in some other countries it wouldn't even legally count as a bedroom because it's so tiny!) but they shouldn't be in our room. There's loads in the living room too.

Captain so sorry about your dad :( keeping those notes is a great idea. How sweet of him to write that stuff down to help you! Although it made you sad I hope you felt better after. x

Captain - Yes, I thought you were extremely rude to be honest.

Nah, not at all that's a HUGE result, well done both of you! :) Perhaps, as you say, your DH is simply a 'that'll come in useful' rather than an actual hoarder. There's a fine line, but there's definitely a difference. Good luck with the rest of it :)

My Dad died a few years ago too and finding something like that would totally floor me. I cannot throw a single thing away if it has his handwriting on it. Big hugs

Cike I am very envious of your fire :( I hope you are feeling better soon

Babies That's a good list :)

Fuzzy Glad you are feeling a bit better today x Well done on sorting all of the things out for your friend, much better the games go somewhere they'll be used than cluttering up your place. It's a bit tough when who 'era's' of toys are grown out of, but there's so much more to look forward to and it'll be so much nicer when they can find their things more easily and have more room to play. One bin bag of small things is still a lot sorted out!

I think when you have kids, especially if they have a small room, you just have to accept that there are going to be toys in another room and all you can do is get as much nice storage as you can fit and afford and try to keep tidy. It wont last forever and you'll soon be missing the times they played with actual toys!

Oh definitely chilling (love the Halloween name BTW! ) most of the toys will still be in the living room (in a tall Trofast unit) - because that's where they mostly play anyway, and it's their space too (unlike our bedroom which really should be just ours I reckon!). In fact when we had various social services professionals round a couple of years ago (I self referred when we were both struggling with illness/injury) lots commented positively on how child friendly our home was - perhaps it was their way of making us feel better about the mess :o but they did say they much preferred to see that than a bare living room where no toys were allowed.

The main reason we are doing this whole process is for the DCs really. I want them to be able to play properly, I don't want to have to say no when they ask to get a toy or activity out because I don't know where all the pieces are or because I can't face adding to the mess. I want us to have more family fun! :)

Fuzzy Thank you Would it be dreadful to post a LINK to the name change vote thread?

'Child friendly' I like that Were SS good/helpful?

It will make a huge difference when you are all sorted, it's much more relaxing for everyone when everything is organised and there's room to play - and you are doing really well

I have just seen how badly I'm doing - I think I'm going with shameless LINK HERE to make it super easy for you to vote

Just kidding - but it's a bit of halloween fun to vote for someone, anyone

Exhauuuusting morning and I haven't really done anything! Got rid of 2 bin bags plus a HUGE pile of books/recycling. DH was doing it though, I was sitting on the bed making decisions! I think the last couple of days has caught up with me. I'm now achy and stuff from sitting cross legged for so long.

We sorted through a lot more fiddly things. Boxes full of random shite. I found myself wishing I had the mental strength to just empty them straight into the bin but I just can't! I'm sure you can all relate to that.

Got rid of 2 bin bags plus a HUGE pile of books/recycling I read that and thought, that's not 'not really done anything - that's great!' then read the next bit Still, you Managed it - very important!

I ache a lot today too, I need to get out and stretch a bit - but I really, really can't be bothered :( I have a list as long as both arms of things that need doing... all I am doing is adding to it!

As you know I'm not 'a hoarder' but there's no way, absolutely no way I could just tip them straight into the bin, I'd have to go through them. As long as you are being quite ruthless and not just moving the stuff around then sorting isn't a problem. It's only when people 'sort' and end up with nothing to get rid of that it's just a displacement activity. You and DH are doing extremely well!

Thanks :) it's good to know that you as a non hoarder would struggle with that too! I sometimes struggle to know what is normal and what isn't.

I agree about just moving stuff around. We've wasted so much time doing that in the past! This time we are really being more ruthless and I'm really proud. The fact that DH got rid of so many books is incredible! Whereas I've had this attitude shift coming a long time - it was when I first got ill with ME a couple of years ago that I finally started seeing how much the clutter makes my life harder. As in, having to look through stuff for something when I could barely stand up - it was literally making me more ill! That was when I finally started confronting my hoarding, and the period of overbuying I'd had (PND related). But of course due to the illness I couldn't physically manage to declutter quickly. I've been on the minimalism threads - it's not about literally having next to nothing but more about not needing to hang onto stuff, and only having what actually makes you happy rather than what you think you should have. I've read a few books that have really helped me change my outlook (Simplicity Parenting, Minimalist Parenting and recently the Marie Kondo one) so although I'm nowhere near decluttered in the house, it's like my mind is less cluttered already, so it's easier to let go! In fact sometimes on days when I can't physically declutter, I actually do 'Brain Decluttering' - think of some stuff I can get rid of and make a note to make a beeline for it next time I'm well enough.

SS weren't much help BTW - they wanted to but there's just not much available. I got a HomeStart person for a while but they could only visit every few weeks due to other commitments anyway. They couldn't get us any help under the children's services remit because they could see the DCs were loved and looked after. :)