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chaosqueen.
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chaosqueen
This proves to be harder than anticipated already on day 1. I wanted to clean up the hall and the plan was to clear the surfaces by throwing everything into a box. I was tempted to do it last night quick as it was still September, but that felt like cheating. I cleared the top of one dresser, but most of it was just moved to the next dresser. As I can’t just move it back I am kind of stuck. It doesn’t help to have a rather tempting empty box sitting there waiting for all the stuff I don’t know where to put, but want to keep. I have 3 dressers, so the task for today is to clear the top of number 2 without the help of the box. Wish me luck! alex
Good luck Chaosqueen! And a big welcome to the site! 
i’m not spending so much time on this site recently, but i hope you get lots of support as you go along day by day, and hope you won’t get discouraged if you don’t get many responses at first, poeple come and go, and there may be a lot of people writing for a while, and then not so much for a while…..but i know for me it has always been really useful writing about my challenges and achievements etc anyway.
Thank you Alex! I noticed it isn’t the busiest of forums, but we all have a lot of stuff to sort through, so we better not spend all day online anyway….hehehe. Right? Thanks for the warm welcome! That’s true!! But you achieved a HUGE amount today
chaosqueen, i’m super-impressed! congratulations, sounds like you have the ball well and truly rolling, and are going with that flow!
and i like your idea of the pink file (interesting, i typoed that as ‘pile’ rather than ‘file’
:lol: )i supposed i have kindof the same system going: a thin, bulging bown folder (
but this eve i am in the middle of reading a really interesting pdf article (on psychology and inner child work), although i did get some important phone call/email stuff sorted out today, so will leave sorting til tomorrow….(Rachel Papworth talks about Sorting sessions and Action sesssions, as both v important, so i guess i had an Action session today)
all this should really be on the ‘What i achieved today’ thread in response to yours,i guess i’m slowly learning about correct placement and filing of stuff!
hellobeth
Yes, welcome to the site chaosqueen 
I think your suggestion is brilliant! If I wasn’t feeling so wobbly I would jump in the deep end with you.
:lol: Well done for not cheating & for getting off to a great start.
helprich
Your doing great , all addictions can be beaten, and not always first time or straight away, the main steps in overcoming anything, is first to work out you have a problem, next get out of denial and then start dealing with it, nobody says it will be easy, but as a person that has beaten a few addictions, the honest biggest step is just admitting that you have a problem and then begin dealing with it, its not a straight road its a journey and like all journeys will have good points and bad points, I think your doing amazing keep with it Dealing with it means taking action…right?..bummer :roll: Thank you for all the support! There isn’t much left in the hall, I just don’t know where to put it and that empty box is still sitting there. Maybe I should get rid of it! (unheard of!) My husband finally understood that I need him to see what I have been doing. A few days ago he said:”IT looks like you’ve started to clean up in here.” “How sad,” I said, “that you can’t really tell.” (Sad bcause I worked so hard and had so little to show for it, not his fault) This morning as he left the house he said:”The hall looks a lot better!” Now how is that for encouraging. So. I shall get rid of the box and then tackle the last dressertop. Oh and maybe the stuff that was on top of the dressers that I shiftet to a chair:oops: Maybe your husbands comments were mammoth , not everyone expresses themselves as we wish, they might even be sceptical , bit like “Oh I see you did not drink this morning” not expecting the same situation in the afternoon. My mum has started to tidy, it will not be how I would like it, but it seems that something is happening, us men are not very well trained , I could go in and say its not tidy enough, I of course must not, I must congratulate then say sadly we need do more
It all takes time, nobody expect you to change, deep down they expect you to fail, but then you don’t, then you carry on and do you know sometimes you pass by those that doubted you,
each day you get a little stronger, some days you may not get far at all, but each and every attempt is a most positive step in the right direction
Take all words of support however small as great leaps in where your heading, your doing just great if you ask me
Oh, my husband hoards words….ggg…he is not a big talker. I have to pry them out of him, so just his commenting at allwithout my asking for his comment is great. Sadly enough the hall clean up has more or less come to a complete stand still. IF you were there you might have it taken care of in less then 10 min. I am always amazed how efficient other people are when cleaning up. I big item blocking a lot of the room is going out today. I am sure that will help.
You know what setting here typing this I was all over sudden filled with guilt for letting YOU down. Right. As if it mattered to you if I got that hall clean or not. But I got up in mid sentence and worked in there for 10 min and I made some real progress. So just by posting you are cleaning up my house. WOW!
:shock: The box is still untouched. I can’t throw it away becasue it has a few pictures in it already.that I refuse to take out as it would be a step back to have them lying around again. But seeing just how little is left (unless we talk about the inside of the dresser drawers) makes me beleive I can finish today.With out the magic box!Day 4 of the “no box approach” The hall is getting worse again as I have dumped things there that don’t have a home. But that ishow the hall get’S messed up in the first place everything that comes into the house that doesn’T have a place to go lingers in the hall….sometimes for months. The box is still there, begging me to fill it :evil: LEt me take a 30 min break and I will find a solution..I promise!It is done. The hall is clear. No box was used. I should have gotten rid of that box sooner. I put it in the basement with some relatives (yup boxes) and started cleaning up the rest. There a still a 4 or 5 items lying around, but the shoes are sorted, the room is vacuumed and I even mopped the floor. No, I haven’t sorted through the dresser drawers yet but any random stranger who enters the house and starts rummaging through my drawers is in big trouble. I was very proud of myself for completing the no box challenge. And then it hit me.It’s only the 5th day of October. I had the challenge in mind for cleaning up the hall, but I have other areas to clean up still. October will prove to be a very long month I am afraid. At the moment I am not sure if I can pull it off but I know I have your support here. I think I’ll just force a smile on my face and keep going…
Wow you done well, I found when I gave up drinking that by going on a drink web site, similar to this but elated to alcohol, gave me inspiration and hope, it gave me ides and it gave me enthusiasm I think the one biggest thing that anyone can do that has an addiction, habit or whatever you want o cal, is to Talk and Share, once we do that we begin to open up and we begin to move forward, the biggest hurdle is hiding our secret, shucks there are a few million hoarders in our country and 14 million or more with a drink problem, so once you start to talk about you suddenly find your not alone, the important thing you also discover just how many others are trying to get help then you really know your not alone
What is it with the box, is it that once it goes in that it might not come back out ? just wondering how that box holds up the good work
And you have done such good work week done
Putting stuff in a box means I have no place for it to go (and most likely no need to keep it). It also means that I put off making a decision about that item. The boxes usually don’T get sorted through but stuff up into the attic or lately into the basement. The sit there. And they suffocate me. Once the stuff is in a box it is very likely to stay there for weeks months or even years. “I’ll take care of it later” is my favorite lie. I have lost quite a few things this way. Chucked them into a box for an emergency clean up, stuffed it into the attic….and gone. I found a missing library book in one of those boxes are year later. I am still wondering about my second phone. It is very likely to be up there too. I guess the best way to sum it up. Once it is in a box it is officially swallowed up by the hoard and from that day on will be churned from one box to the next as I prentend to “sort through my stuff”.
I stopped hiding my secret about 4 years ago. When I thought it was still all related to being a terrible housekeeper. I’Ve had painful moments, but I also found that there are people who love me just the same. And that helps quite a bit!
Hey chaosqueen That’s just how it is for me too
:roll: The pile of boxes keep growing:!: then they are semi-sorted (churned:oops: ) & the number of boxes decrease…but that’s because three can be fitted into one:roll: I dont have a basement & I make a point of not putting anything flammable in the attic so my hoard is always in my face
:roll: Well done for coming out, I did too once I realised I wasn’t a lazy, rubbish housekeeper
I have a house full of other people so I can’t just have the stuff in my face. Plus it depresses me. I am not a shopping hoarder which means most of my stuff quite likely is trash. (I do have a smoke detector and fire extinguisher in the attic, though) MY husband once said, it is totally fine for me to go through his closet and throw everything out that I didn’t like but I told him he had to throw it away himself because I needed my “throwing away energy” for my own stuff. This was years before I realised I was a hoarder, but even back then I noticed how getting rid of stuff sucked the life out of me. None of the elated invigoration that my friends promised.
Well, people still don’t know I am a hoarder. So far I only told one friend and she said:”No, you are not!” but she has a blind I for things I have trouble with. She tells me all the time how awesome I am and how much she would like to be more like me. She has also never seen my attic and isn’t a big fan of manic housekeeping either. I stopped hiding my lack of housekeeping skills 4 years ago. Everybody else still thinks I am just a lousy housekeeper. Ithink I’ll just leave it at that for the moment
:oops: I hope you will have a great trip and come back from your vacation full of energy. Just stay clear of those souvenir shops
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