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chaosqueen.
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chaosqueen
Stoptober is over. Was it a success? I am afraid not. But then on the other hand I guess it was. It was an eye opener to see just how often I am willing to stuff things into boxes and make them disapear. It was painful to see how long it actually takes me to clean up those things properly. It was quite the revelation to find out how much stuff I have lying around that doesn’t really have a place where it belongs. Best part of it? I started throwing away a lot of things that I have held on for years without reason. Just so I could move on with cleaning up. It had to go somewhere. I didn’t know where. I kept evaluating it and with most objects it seemed that with the increase of time spent on it, the desire to keep it decreased until the desire dropped low enough to let it go. Thus said, just because Stoptober is over doesn’t mean I will go back to my old habits. I will continue to fight the “box approach” and find a way to deal with all the clutter!
I lose. The abominable pile next to my bed has successfully blended itself into my room. It is small enough to get into bed without climbing, I can still reach the window without a problem.How big is it? I think it is about a cubic meter,but spread out a little. I shrunk considerably again. What is left, is the hard stuff. And it’s been sitting there long enough now, for me to not be bugged by it. This morning I was seriously considering moving it to another room just to get a new awareness for it. I am feeling a lot better than on the weekend, but I can tell I am not completely healthy yet. After 20 min of average household stuff I broke into a sweat. My throat is still sore. Maybe I shall just curl up in bed and sleep for an hour. But maybe I will call my friend and clean up while talking to her. That usually helps as I get distracted from the boring tasks. I hope you are in better spirits than me. If you need to read about some succesful decluttering go to jannequins thread here
http://www.helpforhoarders.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=420 ” class=”bbcode_url”> http://www.helpforhoarders.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=420 helprich
Hope you get better very soon, can I ask have you ever dared ask for outside help ? could somebody help you see your way through this. There is a way out of very addiction trust me I have beaten alcohol, smoking, gaming addiction, gambling a little, I have a very compulsive behaviour, I understand that now and when I get to obsessed with something, I find a distratraction, or I reach out and ask for help , during my journey I have seen so many things, I have seen people come from the street and go to university I have seen changes in people that are little more than miracles
I have also seen sad things in my own group of 12 drinkers – 3 of us are sober – 5 are dead – and 4 are still drinking we all need sit back and say do I really want to carry on like this, I suggest that anyone that has found there way to this site does not, the big thing is there is help, people do understand you just need reach out and you will find
A home should be funional, a person should be functional, clog the mind , body or house and it is no longer functional , and oh how I love being functional
Get well, keep sharing and clear the clogs
I am feeling a lot better, thank you. Not quite myself. but hey, pretty close. I was already making a mental blogpost about how great I was for cleaing up an enitre room without chrurning before lunch when life got in the way….again…The room didn’t get finished, I would say it’s at 98,5 % Fortunately I got sidetracked in my attemps to clean it. In order to avoid churning and because I came across “hard stuff” I ran away and cleaned up a bathroom and the hall. To be honest helprich, I am not even sure who to ask for help. Or what I should ask help with. Being functonal sounds great. At the moment I seem to only be functional at times…Today I think I did pretty well. I might not have gotten everything taken care of that I wanted to, but if I am honest I didn’t think I could ever make it that far.
Saturday – Declutterday Right? Ah well. Maybe more of a do all the things that didn’t get done all week because the kids were sick. Excuses? Well. Partially. My husband and I spent a total of 10 hours at the doctors office and the hospital. No worries. Nothing bad. Just a rather vicious looking rash. The amount of time is less what slows me down, it just takes so much emotional energy. Sucks it right out of me. I am tackling the day 10 min at a time. Better than nothing. Right? I am happy to report that no clutter has made it into the house all week and stuff has LEFT the building. A nap sounds good, but I am afraid if I lie down now I won’t get up before it is dark. Does anyone have good strategies to fight the “I can’t do this mood”?
I took the day off and made a plan of attack for the week. It not only sounds reasonable, but also do able. You must all be busy decluttering as no one is posting. :lol: Your doing well , sadly my day has not been so good and not sure what to do with Mum just now There is help and not a decluter service , I would say someone to talk it through with , they say there are medications that help , I took a medication when giving up drink , it helped take the desire away , this is now a recognised disorder so there most certainly is help I am unable to help nan alone , I have left her again , it’s too painful fighting to take things from her , I suggest 3 of us try 1 more time , then if that does not work hand it over to social services
I have seen groups where hoarders discus there problems together just like us drinkers did
It’s there one just needs. Reach out and find it , then before you knows where you are you will be helping others get out of it to
Keep up the good work
I guess one of the things you mentioned I already found. Someone to talk it through with. The forum is quite helpful for me. The last 3 weeks I let go of things that I have hold on for years, and I realized that they are of no worth to me. Totally hoarder and forum unrelated topic. If you hear of WWIII breaking out, it started in my village over an parking issue. Half of the natives are up in arms about some “wannabe from down south” requesting people to not park in front of her house as it is not a parking lot even if it looks like one. She can’t get out of her driveway and all they have to say is “I’ll just be here for 10 min” or”if you would drive a smaller car you would be fine” They also called police because when reversing I guess quite a few backed up their cars into building materials “in the middle of the parking lot” and the negligent guy who put it there should pay for the damage. As it turns out the wannabe from down south is right. There are 2 spots to park paralell to the opening and not the 8-10 people make by parking at a 90 degree angle. The parking lot isn’t a parking lot but actually is an acces lane for emergncy vehicles, that would definitley be blocked if they had to get there. Even better, the negligent guy has every right to keep his bricks “in the middle of the lot” as it is his private property that every body consideres parking space.
I am caught in the middle of it as the wanna be from down south is a new friend of mine, and some of the people voicing threats and accusations are friends of mine, too. I am not sure if the later know I am friends with wanna be. But who cares. I just don’t understand why you have to try to start a civil war over parking. When 2 of my neighbours did that and I ended up being blocked because they were so busy blocking each other at first I cursed and then decided to be a mature grown up and just pull out to the left instead of going right as I was used to, as our backstreet winds around and by going left altough you increase your travel distance by at least 50 yards
:o (shocking, I know) you end up at the same street no matter which way you go.Now this is were it starts to relate to hoarding. Situations like this and being confronted with them drains my energy.
The abominable pile next to my bed has oficially blended in with the surroundings. I don’t notice it anymoe. I haven’t removed anything from it in the last 2 weeks. That is proof enough that there is nothing in there that I need and also proof for me that I won’t be working on it. I set an ultimatum. It either evaporates by tomorrow lunch time or I will drag it to the basement. There is room enough there…at least I hope so. I am just done staring at it. It makes me feel incompetent and incapable of ever taking care of this problem. If I feel like a hero I might look through it before I take it down in the hopes of reducing it by 50 %. Or at least toget a new awerness for it. I wish I was more of a desicion maker.
Believe it or not, the abominable pile has not evaporated. My hopes are shattered. I even took a nap in the morning on the couch to give it some privacy. I didn’t even remotely feel heroic. And I didn’t take it down to the basement. What I did do was shrink it in size. Nobody would notice, not even I, but I KNOW I did. I still have a sore throat. And I am tired enough to want to sleep for 20 hours every day. Do tell me that I will feel better tomorrow. Maybe instead of whining about how tired I am I should go to bed…. :roll: Oh, I am so glad the abominalbe pileis in the bedroom still. Out of the blue. Like every year in November the water meter man showed up. As the water meter is in the basement….you get the idea. of course he got me on a bad day. Fortunately the abominable pile still is in the bedroom or I owuld have had twice as much stuff to push away to make room for him. :oops: I wish they gave me 3 days notice. That would be quite the motivator to clean up.I was a hero this morning already, running 4 dreaded errands. It is Thursday and the weekend is close enough to make me want to gather my strenght in th eafternoon and clear up some more. I can do it, right?
hellobeth
Hello queenie 
I missed your message about the shrinkage of the abominable pile – thought it had blended in.
:lol: Out of sight is not always out of mind
Yes, knowing when someone is going to call can be a good motivator but I even procrastinate then & end up cramming whatever I can do into the last possible minute which improves things but I know what hasn’t been done.
:oops: Well done for getting the errands done. The closer I get to the weekend the more I think I may as well give up & start again on monday.
:oops: I think of Monday as the start of a new week & weekends as the time you don’t have to work. But hey those days are long goneHope you did rustle up your mojo but if not there’s hope for tomorrow because it will be one day nearer the weekend.
:lol: Beth, the abominable pile has a “pulsing” nature. It grows and shrinks. When it grows, that’s when it catches my attention. Writing about it keeps it fresh on my mind, too, otherwise it just blends in with the furniture. I am 100 % with you. Weekend is a time to relax. Unfortunately I had to put myself on a 6 day work week schedule. Usually something will go wrong during the week. Like being to tired from running errands, one of the kids gets sick, the weather is too nice, too grey or some other less valid reason is there and I end up losing one day of work each week anyway.
Fridays I get a boost of energy for various reasons. Knowing I will get 2 days of not running back and forth to drop of/pick up kids, my husband is home and I want to be able to enjoy the weekend which is harder when the place is a dump already Saturday morning.
Mondays are a little harder for me as I get to “clean up the weekend” as I like to call it. That usually takes all of Monday, so I find them rather tiresome. In theory I spend my daily 2 hours of work on decluttering on Satrudays, but that has provennot to work to well, so I thinking of just doing 20 min every day. I am making good progress this morning. Unfortunately I have a terrible motivator.
Are you sitting? I will get a truckload of books today.
:oops: I know, terrible.
:roll: She never called back and I thought it was forgotten. A part of me was rather relieved. Unfortunately she called 2 days ago. She did offer me a way out but I was too stupid to accept it.
:roll: Mean while I figured the least I can do is make a good impression and have a clean downstairs. I think it also partially is a punishment for being stupid enough to take in somebodies trash when I am finally ready to let go of mine. My husband doesn’t know yet as I haven’t had the nerve to tell him. I know him well enough, that I know he won’t say anything about it. But that doesn’t make my accepting yet another burden any smarter. Well. I just hope that she brings sellable books an thatthe books are in semi decent boxes that I can use for shipping!
:lol: Oh queenie :shock: 300 books?
:shock: But I relate to the scenario:oops: Therein lies a typical hoarder characteristic:roll: It just (?naturally?) happens; we think we can or should fix every event that is presented to us:roll: Any ideas when you first started behaving like that or is it how you’ve always been? Understanding ourselves is the key to change. You probably know the saying that knowledge is the key to power. For better or worse, it’s true.Is this person expecting you to make money for her? If not, you could try to do something really radical…like take them straightaway to the nearest charity shop without them even crossing the threshold.
:o That may sound obvious to anyone who doesn’t hoard but it’s a big deal to us (Husband wouldn’t need to know:roll: ) & whisked it back to the charity shop first thing monday morning.:lol: It felt like a great achievement even though I lost the money I had paid for it on the saturday. I imagine it was something like an alcoholic leaving a bottle of grog out there & managing not to open it but to give it away. Waste of money? Don’t think so – some learning is priceless.I get the weekend thing for you now but am puzzled that you thought of decluttering for two hours on a saturday morning.
:o (though thankfully I hear that rabbits are learning not to do that) or worrying that my time is running out & I haven’t accomplished anything:oops: or churning the stuff into a different shape that may or may not be bigger or smaller than it was when I started.I do remember you saying recently that you weren’t ?advanced enough to do Rachel’s masterclass. That was the place I started queenie – it’s for dummies not masters.
:lol: Give it a try. Just listening inspired me. Then I listened again making notes. And then I recovered a green government notepad that belonged to my dad (he died 42years ago!) which I had come across in one of my churnings & put it to good use. It became my decluttering book.I devoted a page to each room or space (WHAT SPACE!) e.g. hall, stairs etc. Then I clambered best I could into each room & decided what I wanted the room for & what belonged in there. Oh dear, I’m shattered. Gonna have to go to bed, sorry.
Unfortunately Beth, I have always been like this. So there was no trigger (that I know of). I am not sure about childhood years but I know I had hoarders boxes under my bed by the time I was 12. SO I can’t really remeber a time whenI behaved normal and there is nogoing back to that person. The upside is that I learned early on that there was something different about me. The looks of other kids who saw my room. When I thought I had it cleaned up told a lot. AndI was sensitive to that already back then. But hey. Back to our books. Fortunately all proceedings go to me. By now I see it as a challenge. NExt time when I overhear a conversation like thisI will just say, hey , do you know that you can sell them online? Well. The challenge now is to sort through them, sell them and be rid of them by Monday. I am almost through with the first round of sorting. I realised to late,that my neighbour who loves to read might want some. Wait a second. If I let her look at them their is no reason why I should presort them for her. Right? Well. SO there is no second round of sorting.
I did keep a few for myself but I think that’s okay, because I love to read. Plus, since I decided that a books purpose is to be read Ihave learned to let go of them without a problem.
Good job Beth letting go of the stuff before it even went into the house.
ABout Rachels masterclass. I didn’t mean that I wasn’t “advanced” enough. It is more of a mental problem. I am not ready to make the commitment. I startet it but after the first few wordds I turned it of. Rachel was full of energy and excetment. the lady means BUISNESS! I know she wants me toget rid of things.
As of decluttering for 2 hours each Saturday. Well. So far it hasen’t worked
:lol: I usually end up cleaning up around the house IF I do something. That Is why I want ot make it a daily thing. Usually I am so helplessly behind with daily household chores that it feels downright stupid to declutter as I tend to make more of a mess when I attempt it. But at the moment I caught up. So. Saturday it is. Does taking care of that pile of books count as decluttering?
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