The Hoarders Anonymous Thread Part Three...Still Sorting It Out ~ Together!

[Solo]

Are you are any of the following? Can you be described as a clutterbug? Are you a hoarder, in a mess, untidy, disorganised, lazy with housework that has lead to something that you now feel unable to deal with. If you are ill and not coping with the housework. If you are emotionally attached to items for whatever reason. If you cannot just ask someone in for a cuppa at a moments notice or dread the meter reader asking for access.

Are you nodding whilst reading any of these words? If you have a combination of any or all of these things or something completely different, please join us. No one here will judge you. We have something in common and we have a common goal. We share our ideas and we share our disappointments no matter how big and our celebrations no matter how small. We cheer one another along and drag the drowners from the depths of despair.

Join us; we don't bite :) Welcome to thread number 3.

Angela Burdeck was the author btw (1973 ish) of the three books Look I Can... the other book I cannot seem to trace.

the house now resembles a junk yard, every single room now piled with stuff from the wrong rooms. I can only hope the builder actually arrives tomorrow but not too early, I still need to sheet up the bookcases.

Ah thanks. I also realised today that independent work would also free up more time for me to get on with other stuff. It’s difficult though as they need so much help. We were doing simple grammar stuff the other day and it was so bloody frustrating I was actually quite relieved to escape to the dentist 😂

I have today been diagnosed with dry socket and my face is all numb and yet sore at the same time. Not expecting any progress on the house this week somehow 🤔

omg, that is agony, have had it, and had to retire to bed for two days and get someone else to look after kids (Husband) I think you should declare a day of mourning and no formal supervision necessary. definitely can be caused by doing too much and low immune system.

hope painkillers will help, lots of ibufrofen.

the builder has arrived and there are 6 sacks of rubble outside [satisfying] this particular builder hoovered everything before he went home, and piled up his kit in a most inspirational manner [I'm shamed into tidying the kitchen as a result]

I've spent today making things into neat little piles, I know this isn't in the spirit of decluttering but it calms me whilst there is an appalling drilling noise in the background. I managed to hide quite a lot of stuff in cupboards and thus identified things I needed to throw away and keep track of the veg peelings. (four trips to the food compost today and I cleared out the fridge

I know you have to actually look after the kids Cag dry socket or not, just that perhaps you don't have to worry so much today about doing anything constructive, perhaps just surviving will do.

grammar is actually quite difficult to explain, maybe English grammar is quite weird, not helped by all the common irregular verbs like went .

Yes god the irregular ones are just killing me because they take everything so literally and find things like exceptions to rules very difficult. We are learning Japanese and their grammar is in some ways much easier although early days yet.

Yup definitely a couple of days with no expectations really beyond the bare minimum that they can do without help. It’s a mad week anyway with various extras - meet up with friend who is emigrating, and their martial arts grading, and DH and I have various appointments... Just really hope after this we can get back to some semblance of normal. This place is a total tip now 😖

Hello! Just saying hi and bye, really. Not done anything much.

You all sound great :) I'll catch up again soon

Hugs solo xx

The builders have taken over a entire section of our house, so it is very messy/piled up here in every other room. Struggling already to cope with it, just the feeling of being surrounded by teetering piles with nowhere to put anything having to squeeze past obstacles is doing my head in!! I notice also that I am beginning to give up doing more obvious doable things.. it all seems pointless.

The only good thing is that I am looking at some "immovables" in a different light. And wondering whether I could arrange things differently when they return to their "places". ie do the dreaded computer games really need to clog up my living room? Could all those shoes be sorted out? And that spare mattress really has been around too long...

Builders should sort of be finished on Friday downstairs (but still have to fix shower and loo upstairs) The thought of all the dust [sigh] before I put anything back. I feel like snakes and ladders on that front, gained a new door/wall but the cleaning is back to rockbottom stage. Dh is out of action after an abdominal operation, which in a way makes things easier but then he will keep muttering when the poor fellow bumps into furniture

The builders have gone; they still haven't fitted the shower stuff (although we do have one working shower and a 2 working baths, so not so bad) but downstairs is FINISHED!

Uphill struggle now about putting everything back nicely, and the dusting up of all the builder;s dust which has got into crevices. And backlog of washing from when the washingmachine was out of bounds (a week)

feeling quite stressed at the thought of it all, and I thought I would be over the moon at them finishing. Just more work it seems ahead dh still recovering from an op so he is a bit low and cannot do much physically. we just walked round the block. He isn't someone who is interested in building work at the best of times so that doesn't help!

going to visit a very sick very incapacitated friend this afternoon which will put it in perspective, but I'm afraid that only stresses me more I'm never ever going to finish (my thoughts are screaming) although my rational self says I wiLL GET TherE.

Ah wow nettle I am glad there has been progress but it must be so difficult while all in flux. It’s stressful when the big stuff needs to get done but then you get behind on all the regular stuff. And even harder with DH out of action of course.

No progress whatsoever here. Hit something of a crisis with my mental health which culminated in me begging DH to stay home yesterday, me getting an urgent GP appt and I’m now on Paroxetine for the most crippling anxiety/paranoia/anger I’ve had in many years.

Problem is while much of it is obviously a physical/chemical issue at heart I am totally overwhelmed as well by everything that needs doing and I don’t know where to start, a lot of the stress is due to that.

Cag if only we could press Pause on family life and then resume when we feel able to cope.. It is really overwhelming the demands on a bad day. I say that advisedly because there are an often lot of bad days when you have small kids and you are ill. Is there anything that you think would help resolve the day to day stress? Paper plates, staying out of the house most of the day, staying in the house most of the day, putting the home ed on hold, whatever you feel you should be doing, just listening to story tapes Radio 3 all day and building towers of bricks?
Today I have managed to keep a lid on the ishoos by forcing myself to buy an easy ready meal for supper, and accepting that rome is not going to be built today, unusually

I am pleased I did a bit of the dusting, threw a few things away from the new room stockpile, found an duffel coat of ds2's (his football coat as it is the only one warm enough to withstand the stadium frostbite) under a big pile of crapola AND dh's coat that he was complaining I had lost...

Really the battle was to explain to other people that no, the room was not going to be tidy today or necessarily tomorrow, and yes that was fine. I am very perfectionist in my mindset and then very unperfectionist in the execution, that is what makes for unhappiness and anxiety. So, trying to reduce the perfectionist mindset (ie okay this room is allowed to be messy) is helping.

big hugs to you Solo it is horrible when everything is so overwhelming, hope your dh and hugs from little ones can help a little bit.

seeing my very sick terminally ill friend reminded me how often I have missed opportunities to see people when things were overwhelming, I feel like I have spent so much time worrying about things that I should not have worried about, in comparison to simple shared experiences with my friend, that I have now missed out on forever. She wanted to go to Keat's House with me and the Proms over the last few years, but I never managed to "fit" it in. I feel really bad but at least I saw her today, worth a lot of other stuff I should have been doing.

The new room is a lovely yellow colour (only half was yellow before, it was a bit of shambles in there always). The cats are turning their noses up at the smell of paint though.

I also found a compass whilst sorting through stuff, perhaps that is sign!!!!

Good stuff, Nettle - well done! And don't be so hard on yourself. I'm glad you went to see your friend .
I don't have a Dh or a 'D' anything. I've been on my own for 10 long years, now. Dd is not too well tonight but, she's no help at all, really. I did get a hug tonight but, that's because she doesn't feel well.

Cag don't stress about anything. It'll be fine :)

I have not done anything except the laundry (but, did not iron Dd's blouses this week) and the washing up.

Solo I am so sorry, in my befuddled state, I named you instead of Cag I meant her with the hugs, after my long list of advice. But I definitely offer you hugs too.

I've just eaten the last pain au chocolat so that I can put the wrapper in the bin, hope that counts as tidying what a tip everywhere is, even by my standards. Tomorrow I will tidy!!! going to get a good night's sleep now

ps I don't do ironing, it is very freeing. I often find clothes become crease free when I wear them in!

:) That's okay and thank you, for the hugs.

I don't do much ironing nowadays but, I think I'd like to keep Dd tidy for school.

Night Nettle sleep well.

yesterday I spent the day tidying and sorting cleaning and lifting and sweeping. I ache all over today but it was wonderful to get stuck in properly. I had a massive row with dh at the start mind you, because I told him I wasn't going to be interrupted by petty things like cooking or tidying existing rooms and he said he had never asked me to do those things anyway....I think when you are worrying about mess you are naturally on the defensive all the time, I certainly am. He is a bit bewildered by my frustrations with the house/sorting stuff out. He thinks it is simply just tidying that could be done easily if I set my mind to it.

But the new building work is great. I feel so much better. There is a lot of work ahead though. I do feel light at the end of the tunnel though.

just have to : plant a massive delivery of bulbs, deal with front garden, sweep the patio which is covered in rubbish,d eal with sour milk (scones, soda bread) tidy dd's room which is dreadful dreadful and she asked for help decluttering it, find source of cat pee smell, hoover everywhere, deal with shower stuff/builder again...and well...the rest of my life's accumulated backlog too. You will all know the feeling.

So I am going to start a little bite of the elephant today (poor elephant)

which is to get all the surplus bathroom tiles out of the back of the cupboard under the stairs, and have a look at which I can use when shower is mended. Are the matching ones still there, or why did I keep the wretched things in the first place!!

the cat has peed on a pile of clutter in the utitilty room so I can now throw it all away without feeling the slightest bit guilty even the paper recycling. And a football flag ds presumably wanted me to wash 5 months ago, it was at the bottom of the pile.

I've spent a long time scrubbing, the builder came back to fix a squeaking floorboard and restain a bit of floor. I've done some laundry, and planted some bulbs. The pile of rubbish outside the backdoor is growing again I like that feeling. It means something has GONE!

Excellent nettle!

No progress at all here. With anything.

cag another day you have got through without hiding in the corner, that IS progress, and three children getting one day older in one piece more or less (ds1 was hospitalised with a broken thigh at your eldest's age -ironically it was a rather serene time now I look back )

Hope today you can go outside, look at the drear autumn landscape and give yourself credit for surviving.

As I speak, all activity has ground to a halt, although there is masses I could be getting on with, as the builder is fitting THE SHOWER SCREEN THAT HAS BEEN OUT OF ACTION FOR SEVERAL MONTHS, yay!! now why did that take me so long? I know why, because the whole bathroom is covered in dust and cr*p but still, it is going to be done and then I can rejoice and so can the quarrelling siblings...

cag also, having dcs with some sns can be hard every single day in minor ways (and major ways too) - is there any virtual support you can get on the SN boards? The Goose and Carrot pub is a very helpful place in chat. I feel I have only just left that stage in my life, ds2 is doing so well now I can hardly remember how stressful it was before, but it certainly was, and the family dynamic was affected AND my health.

The sour milk is still outside waiting to be used, and so is the rest of the bulbs. And the rubbish. I am beginning to feel more and more angry with dh poor fellow at interrupting my "headspace" with pointless requests for normal life activities, simple things like where are my socks and why is there no bread I think I need a corner of the house where no-one can interfere or interrupt me..hopefully the new downstairs room will fit the bill.

Yay nettle! Fantastic. It’s best not to dwell on how long something took, only that it’s DONE!

True, I have survived, sanity vaguely intact. Though I am painfully aware that the more days I do very little (side effects of new meds, dizzy etc) the worse it’ll be on the other side.

Today we (well, the Caglets) are trying out a new ice rink that has opened in the park by our house. Getting season tickets, would need to go 15 times before 20th January to make money back on it. I’m hoping this will give us a bit of structure and time out of the house (even in horrible weather, since it’s undercover and only a few minutes walk) while I get my head round the academic stuff.