Hoarders Anonymous. Thread #8. We Are Keeping On Keeping On. Fighting The Cluttered Fight.

[Solo]

We are a group of likeminded householders who are leading somewhat challenging lives; be that living with too much 'stuff' that we find difficult to deal with, houses that are falling apart (mine is), health issues within the family unit, wider family, or ourselves (me too) that means sorting out our households is challenging to say the least. So...

You are all welcome to join us for support, adding your ideas to help others out, storage ideas, and even tips on actually getting those items out of the house which sounds so simple when you say it, but this part can be so very difficult; we are often attached emotionally to our 'things', afraid of letting things go just in case we need them.

Encouragement and support abound here in our band of clutterbugs. We never ever criticise anyone! We even try not to criticise ourselves as it's not helpful to anyone, but this can be very difficult to achieve.

If you are feeling overwhelmed by clutter, mess, disorganization and generally don't know where to start. If you can't be bothered, but really do want to be bothered. If you think you are a bit lazy, or if you just need to see your highs and lows and everything in between on the screen here, join us, and we will help you. We'll virtually high-five your achievements - small or large, and virtually hug you when the need arises. If you want a hug, just ask because we are here for you, here for one another because we get it. The art of washing up is sometimes our great achievement of the day, but it's still an achievement

Some helpful links. They aren't for everyone, but have a look if you fancy:

• Help For Hoarders by Jasmine Harman (the author/producer of the BBC1 documentaries My Hoarder Mum and Me and Britain's Biggest Hoarders)
• The FlyLady Cleaning Method by Marla Cilley
• The Organised Mum Method by Gemma Bray
• The KonMari Method by Marie Kondo
• A Slob Comes Clean by Dana K. White
• The Getting Things Done Method by David Allen

And a LINK-#7

I'm not sure if The Flylady link is working, but if not, you know what to search for.

Welcome to thread #8 of Hoarders Anonymous. Thread #8. We Are Keeping On Keeping On. Fighting The Cluttered Fight (and winning, one small step at a time).

I feel I ought to sign up here as well, if I may. House is a disaster zone in so many areas right now. Not helped by some renovations going on which means a couple of rooms are unusable and so their stuff has been shifted into other rooms. On top of that my health isn't great, back problems and low energy, so tidying and clearing things out is a big deal! The only thing I am reasonably good at is keeping clothes under control by recycling some when I buy anything new (doesn't happen very often, but still!).

BlueSummerBaby It really is. You are right that it could all be so much worse.
The truth is I can't actually remember if the extractor got cleaned out last year or not.
Keeping one's mojo continuously when long haul de-cluttering isn't easy and the heat probably wont be helping.

Thehillsarealive Excellent resource for tools etc, well done! Hopefully can be added to the links for the next thread. We have hacker spaces here that welcome them too, but am aware that's very London centric.

Hello and welcome to the lots of new people here: LegoTherapy, Latenightreader, CrazyMeee, caringcarer Jaffapaffa, EdithBond, CreamLampshade, CrunchyCarrot.
I think I got everyone, but if not please shout.

I’ve just picked out a couple of things that particularly shouted out from a couple of posts, but have read everyone’s.

Latenightreader don’t hate yourself for it. It generally helps keep you stuck. You’re right to recognise your DD needs space. Well done, focusing forward towards sorting that will do much more to motivate you than punishing yourself.

CreamLampshade the moving the things around in the name of tidying, is ‘churning’ and the searching for bargains feeds the dopamine rush of acquiring, and keeps us in those cycles, I’m afraid.

Sameclutternewname Ds has ASD and some things one might normally be able to expect are just not feasible here, but especially following a major row. The world here is very far from normal, or at times desirable tbh.

Between last night and tonight: rough repaint of bathroom corner and new extractor up and working, and platform went on time. Had to go straight to paid work, (still in the grab anything that comes up situation) and got back at midnight and only just finished tidying everything up from earlier, so that's today's achievement towards the house.
Next three days are going to be a combination of paid work alongside trying to get domestic things done, but everything's a big ask in this state and taking twice as long, so just trying to cover what I can and the rest will have to wait tbh.

Well, today's unexpected discovery was a whole Wedgewood dinner service. I had no idea that it was in my spare room - I do recognise it though as having belonged to my grandparents.

I think I stashed it away a few years ago, meaning to sell it, but instead it got buried.

It's now going to go to a charity shop first thing Monday morning - if I sell it, it will in fact just stay where it is for another 5 years.

Morning Jaffapaffa, nice to find someone else up trying to get things done. Well done on decision making.

Sorting out the the bathroom light cord after bleaching the soot out of it, so the bleach doesn't now rot it, is this mornings time consuming job. Has come up surprisingly well, but I lost a nearly an hour to trying to wrestle a spray bottle out of the loo, having managed to drop it in head first and the finger trigger getting stuck under the S bend! One of the few times when being OTT about having a clean loo has paid of.

Just had a look at Help for Hoarders, useful resource! I’d say I haven’t got a bad issue - my rooms are rated 1 or 2, occasionally 3. My storage however is stuffed with as much stuff as possible, including the loft, which I dread doing anything about. I also have too many books or need extra shelving as I have a lot of books. And I do have black bags in the loft of clothes I probably need to sell. And I also don’t have enough proper storage for my clothes so have them piled up at the bottom of a wardrobe. So a lot of it is hidden but I don’t think that bad? Again the kitchen cupboards are full to the brim and even behind the sofa are bags of things I need to sell. I do need to mahbe stop going to the charity shops every week but they are so addictive!

I’ll probably be buying it lol

Thank you @Elleherd, that makes sense! I need to find the information about dopamine - is that on one of the sites? I do have adhd so it makes sense.

sorry to hear about your u-bend mishap, how annoying! And I take it the soot means there has been a fire. How stressful :(

Told myself I wasn’t allowed to walk out the door yesterday without something for the charity shop. Managed to get 5 books and A dvd in a bag and drop off at charity shop en route to somewhere else. Also managed to get some money from a local jewellers for some old family jewellery which I will never wear, eg rings too small . I searched ‘gold price trend uk’ to see what it’s doing. Obviously it could be more next week or less but it felt right to let go now for me as we’re funding a move hopefully . They also told me which were gold-plated which was useful.

Well I was inspired by this thread and actually cleaned out a drawer that was full of papers, stationery, etc. Was able to throw a lot of it in the bin! Also did some shredding and had to empty the shredder twice. It's a start I guess! The dust made me start sneezing though so have packed it in for now! 😂

Lampshade I grew up in a house like that. Fine at a glance, until you open a cupboard. Organized hoarding isn't represented on the clutter scales. They only show chaotic hoarding. Even at its worst my home only ever looked like a Level One, until I'd tidied up then it didn't even look like that. Yet I had a Level Four (in a 1-5 scale) hoard, with rooms that couldn't be used for their intended purpose, doorways that couldn't open due to the stuff stacked neatly in front or behind them, things that couldn't be extracted from cupboards and replaced again without issue. If you were to empty just one of your storage spaces and pile the contents in the centre of a room, I bet you'd be shocked at just how much was crammed in there.

Yea that is probs me @BlueSummerBaby !! Ok that’s useful. Will look up hoarding advice!

Lampshade I'm an organised tidy hoarder with a cleaning compulsion. In practical terms that means my hoarding isn't particularly visible and others see it as more of a storage problem than anything else. But a lot of that is to do with others perceptions of what hoarding looks like.

Appearances are very deceptive. I can pass the ratings scale, (not counting an overgrown garden) but that's because I know how to hide and minimize the hundreds of thousands plus of items I have, including in storage, and people see tidy as acceptable. But everything has to go back into wherever it cam out of in in exactly the same way as it came out or it won't fit, because I've Tetrus'd the last inch of space out of everywhere.
I'm actually trying to beat a full on deep hoarding problem that affects my life in so many areas, that used to serve us well as a family but has continued long past when it was useful.
While I'm getting to grips with the cleaning compulsion, I have lost so much of my life to actual excessive cleaning that I won't be getting back.
I used to have a serious acquisition problem, which is now under better control as I no longer seek out or buy, but it's not actually gone as I find as soon as 'useful' and 'free' turn up in the same place.

So when people talk about rating things using the clutter scale etc, I'd say the real issue isn't what things looks like, it's how much is it affecting your life and the lives of those around you, and environment you live in. This includes finances, and time spent maintaining, moving, rotating, acquiring, thinking, dreaming, worrying about etc.

In theory we acquire and keep 'stuff' to enhance our lives. In reality many of us are spending those lives, housing, servicing and maintaining the 'stuff' instead.

Yesterday was work accomplished but I hurt too much and not looking forward to today.
Late launderette happened, and picking up a lot of rubbish and broken glass in aunts garden. The 'yout' are back, causing major problems.
But have managed to do both a full paid shift and get weekend domestic stuff done so quite pleased with that.

Hi all. Back home now from two weeks away on a ship. Cabin was quite messy from day one! Struggled to keep tidy.

Done some clothes washing and gardening yesterday. Not sure where to start today as everywhere is an absolute mess.

Ok yea this is me. I also have a terrible habit of ordering plants and forgetting to plant them so they die - wasted money down the drain :( And my neighbour has started to joke about the amount of parcels I get. How do I stop?! Is there any good guidance out there? And are there any podcasts anyone would recommend about this?

Interesting it seems to be common with people with compulsions. It feels a bit like one of my ocd compulsions in that there is an ‘itch’ that no amount of buying can scratch. And also it is a dopamine rush acquiring stuff.

I guess I have to ask myself what am I distracting myself from? And why do I feel I need so much stuff?

and you are right - I feel I spend a lot of mental energy trying to manage my items and it takes away from mental energy that could have gone on more productive things!

Haven't been around for two years or so and I have an inherited house and a flat full of crap.

Problems:
Mum died nearly two years ago and I stopped functioning at a maintainable level.

Teen stopped going to school on time so spent hours every week on getting them in

A levels and GCSEs

Single parent family of three with five disabilities and several conditions thrown in.

COVID took a hit on my health. (Either deconditioning in lockdown or results of two infections)

Autistic burnout which is ongoing recovery.

Just back from holiday and shattered. I've got fatigue from all the looking after everyone.

I need to start before the start of next term which is going to be hell with college runs for autistic teen who can't do public transport.

I can't settle to anything today so pottering around doing a little bit here and there.

I'm keeping a tally graph of things put in the bin or charity bag or recycling. (Yes it's that bad a fatigue today) I'll post a photo at the end of the day rather than bore you with updates

We are in the "Every little bit helps" mode of stopping it getting worse so fast! And maybe turning the tide a little!

Can relate to that, I definitely think that every little helps, and then sometimes I get a burst of energy and do all my clothes or something.

currently doing a lightish sort through the shed but it’s baking out there so on a break!. Some things for the tip and somethings to pass on, everything that leaves the house is an achievement!

Kids being late teens early twenties definitely helps, I feel we are past the peak of accumulating. Things that are making it harder are having one limb in plaster, a deceased relative’s flat to clear , and DC finishing uni and coming back with all the stuff. definitely finding this thread helping for the solidarity, inspiration and practical and psychological tips. Wishing everyone strength in the battle to value space and people over too many things!

Dogs home?

Lampshade find the other Hoarders Anonymous threads on here (use the search function) there's a lot of knowledge contained in them. These threads really helped me understand myself and start to shift my mindset.

My recommendations on YouTube:
Hoarders Heart is excellent.
Minimal Mom talks a lot of sense.
Erica Lucas is very relatable with her struggles.
Becky Moss I find soothing in a kind of educational way, like once I'm there this is what I'll need to do to keep on top of it all. She has a perfect life house and I can see if I'd lived like this I wouldn't be in the mess I'm in now. It's inspiring to me.
I'm enjoying Simplify Your Life, again for inspiration for the end result I'm aiming for. These are the carrots.
Midwest Magic Cleaning provides a dire warning of what'll happen if you don't get a grip, that's the pokey pointed stick.

Don't spend all your time in YouTube/MN though, you have to actually go do something! Or it'll never change.

Hi all. Living eoom a little tidyer. I was going to try do some of the bedroom but ended doing a lot of clearing in the garden.

Anyone else have ignorant neighbours who let their greenery come over the fence? I have three delightful neighbours who do this. As if I don't struggle enough! I keep pushig a lot back over. One day they may get the hint!

Bedrooms and kitchen are really shocking at the moment.

I'm caught up with the thread. I can't answer many individual posts. I get very poor signal here and am kind of stuck I'm a very uncomfortable position! Still away on holiday and have done almost nothing as I just feel exhausted. Seems like a complete waste of money and time, but I suppose I need it.

Welcome to everyone new. You all sound like you will not only benefit from the camaraderie and encouragement on here, but you also have much to offer us oldies that have been here from the off. It's been mentioned how to find our last 7 Hoarders Anonymous threads, but at the start of each thread there is a link to the previous one. At the end of each, there is a link to the next. Hope that helps too.

@BlackeyedSusan. Oh my goodness. Throwing you my arms for a massive hug. I'm so sorry about your Mum. Life is so difficult without losing a loved one.
I can't believe it's been 2 years. I'm sorry, I should've thrown you a message to check on you. If I'm honest, I've had something that sounds very much like your experience with your Dd. Mine stopped going in on time too, so I was taking her in but it just got later and later. In the end, I felt like I was jeopardising my job so I was making sure I woke her up, tried to get her up but if she wasn't by the time I left, I spent my whole drive to work and then on repeat from my desk phoning her number. Sometimes she'd wake up at midday and sleepily tell me and "do I have to go in" but I made her go in even if it was 20 minutes before the last bell. This went in for 2 years or more. She was finally dx'd in June with Autism and adhd. School should have noticed and helped but they didn't. She failed every single GCSE, but she did did them. I'm proud of her for that. She's been at college for a year. She started off well, but it did slide towards the end of the academic year, but nowhere near as bad as school.

Somebody said about the lure of buying in charity shops. Also getting freebies. This was me and my life too. It took me a bit of effort, but I did get to the point where I could go into the CS, look around, pick something up and wonder around with it, but put it back before leaving. I felt great being able to do that. It's got yo be 3 or more years that I retrained myself. Free cycle and trash nothing were awful too, but I've also retrained myself to close the posts and leave those things for someone else. It feels good to not feel the need to get things for the sake of it.
I did pick up 2 books the other day in a local supermarket for a donation. I'm going to leave the one I brought with me and finished there before I leave too. I also have many books to donate when I get home.

Keep on keeping on!

Sorry, some spelling mistakes in my last and I drive myself crazy when I see my own mistakes. I can't seem to see the edit button for some reason...
Is the edit button on a time limit? I'm just adding this in now without issue, so maybe it is.

@BlackeyedSusan sorry to hear about your mum, you have been through a lot of emotional stuff, I know so well that feeling of loss that makes it feel everything is an effort and empty, it saps us, for some reason I carry a sense of loss around, my father died two years ago as well, but I had the feeling before, lost a couple of friends a while ago as well.

@Elleherd sorry to hear about the family argument and all the problem with the smoke damage, stressful situations to deal with.

@CreamLampshade OCD is a major part of my hoarding issue, contamination OCD, I don't like touching everything that has got messy and if things could not be made perfect I often gave up, it's debilitating.

@caringcarer thank you, I've been signed off for other a month with stress and anxiety, it's definitely overwhelming, keep thinking how did this happen, in reality working full time and dealing with hoarding and mental health takes a toll, it's the worst of times, keep thinking I will ask my brother to help financially but think it may lead on to unexpected stuff and interference so I'm a bit lost, I have got the bank stuff in place but not anywhere near ready for the surveyor, not sure whether to tell the brokers I'm a hoarder, might post on the financial section to see if anyone who works in that area can advise, but not many get hoarding and OCD, i can't just click my fingers and get it sorted due to the emotional anxiety mental health side

I've cleared out bags and bags, papers clothes, books and all sorts, stayed up all night last night so today feel absolutely flat and end of the world due to tiredness, still tons to do.

Send up some good thoughts and prayers for me please, imagine me surrounded by cleared spaces and success, I need the emotional support right now.

Sending positive thoughts to everyone who needs them.