Decluttering once you have tipped over into being a hoarder

[2boysnamedR]

I have always been untidy. Dad was a child in wartime so he washed and kept bread bags etc. waste not want not and all that.

I have four kids. Two with special needs. I have taken a career break from a corporate job to easy my toddler into a sen nursery.

I am moving the kids rooms around so my eldest has his own room for starting secondary.

It's killing me. People saying "just throw it out". If I hear the " if it's not beautiful, sentimental or useful, throw it out" I'm going to scream. Everything is sentimental.

Worried I'm going end up on hoarding buried alive one day.

I don't keep empty food containers or poo on the floor - but they started somewhere? I watch them and want to round and shake some sense into these people yet I still have baby clothes from my 11 year old. Some days I don't care, some days I despair at myself.

Merribo - I may travel for the right offer!

2boys - Well done, small starts are best, if try and go in too hard, it can backfire and be harder to carry on. So congratulate yourself on the start you've made

Well done OP!

It's been great to read everyone's experiences on this thread.

I know my reasons for hoarding. I had a pretty rubbish childhood for various and I was lonely and depressed. Stuff became my sanctuary, I got attached to things because I couldn't trust attachment to people.

It was reasonably under control (cluttered, but the clutter was small enough to be hidden) until we moved away when my eldest turned 1, I was lonely during the day and ended up buying stuff to keep myself happy... and more stuff... and more.

It was when I got ill a few years ago that I finally started to see how much harder the clutter was making my life. But in some ways it's too late because I'm now too ill to manage much tidying.

It also affects my DCs - I know they are stressed by it and I don't invite as many friends round as I should. Also, we are now homeschooling - which generally is going pretty well, but I know it would be much better if we were organised. For example, this morning DD (now 8) said "Mum, can we do some experiments today?" well, no we can't really, because there's no space and I have no clue where anything is.

We have more free time in the summer holidays (due to term-time-only activities etc) so hoping to use this to get more organised as a family. Yesterday I got the DCs to completely gut their room, we are starting from scratch (only books, cuddlies and clothes in there now) and will gradually put their stuff back in.

Of course it means the rest of the house is now even worse...

I have, and continue to have, a problem with this. It's difficult, because effectively it's never-ending.

Things I found helpful:

1. Take photos of things before you dispose of them.
2. Don't think of it as a single job. Get up now, and do five minute bursts of activity.

Ditto the photos thing. I especially do that with their craft projects that have gathered dust and I want to dump them but at least there is a record of them.

A lot of your situation resonates with me 2boys as my youngest DS has sen too. I am a massive hoarder, but this has started over the last five or so years. I wasn't always this way.

I reached the stage you're at a few months ago. The amount of stuff was seriously getting me down. I donated 13 of those enormous supermarket shopping bags that you can buy for about £2 each, to the charity shop. It was all made up of my clothes. I still have a long way to go, and that's only in relation to my clothes, bags, shoes etc. But I have made a start.

The only other thing I have tackled is that enormous amount of things that DS1 has produced in school. Since he started school he has come home with completeed worksheets, drawings, craft, you know the type of thing, every single day. I hadn't thrown a single thing that he had brought home out. Extreme, eh? I bought some of these storage envelopes and I have limited myself to one per school year. I just put the best bits in the files and label it "Year1 DS1" etc. And I chucked the rest of his work.

I agree with the photo/digital images of things - really does allow you to get rid of things without guilt.
I used to keep drawings and worksheets - then I started getting rid of printed worksheets (unless they have something amusing written on them). Same with eg handwriting practice books or maths books. The only things I keep are things that are personal to them - so good/special pictures or stories they wrote or their diaries/learning logs. (DD2's 'diary' for when she was 4-5 is hilarious. No matter what we had done at weekend she always wrote one sentence - what we had eaten and if we had been out and about all day it was often a 'junk food' thing eg we went to a museum in the morning then went to the beach and had a picnic and made sandcastles and then sat in the harbour watching fishing boats whilst having a late dinner of fish and chips - translated to 'we had fish and chips'. Every week something similar! -it reads like a who's who of junk food )
Apart from work books I now scan things like special pictures or take photos of larger than A4 things before binning them. I know I have a box somewhere in the attic of DD1s things before I got ruthless that at some point I need to go through.