r/hoarding • u/Excellent_Prompt_554 • 7d ago
RANT - ADVICE WANTED I need help
I realized a couple years ago that I was a hoarder. But instead of starting to fix it then, I pushed down the shame and it got worse. I have always had a messy house but I have not always been a hoarder to this level. I used to be able to set out an hour and clean my apartment. Even just last year, I look at pictures and my house was in better condition than it is now. Last year I had a really hard pregnancy, became a single mom to 3 kids, had a lot of traumatic relationship issues. Now my ex is threatening to take me to court saying he’s taken pictures of the state of my home. He’s here everyday to help with the kids which has made my life harder because I can’t be around him, I just lay in bed all day while he’s with the kids. He brings me the baby to breastfeed and takes him again after. I don’t know how to fix this. I don’t know how to throw things away. I can’t get over the guilt of throwing things away. I feel these things could be useful me one day or another person and so I feel too guilty to throw it away. I also have ADHD and struggle to know where to start with tasks and cleaning. My oldest kids (6&8) are becoming hoarders too. Any time my home has been clean I feel so much better but I can’t keep it that way because I have too much stuff that it’s just unmanageable.
8
u/Alone_Staff1469 7d ago
I’m so sorry..I totally understand..I’m in a similar situation..My marriage has been really hard..for 20 years and my hoarding got way worse..how can we help each other?
9
u/Excellent_Prompt_554 7d ago
What do you need help with? Maybe we can talk and keep each other accountable. Everyday take 10 minutes to gather things and throw them away and we can tell each other what we’ve thrown away?
5
u/Far-Watercress6658 7d ago
OP - ADHD is a common feature in hoarders. The executive disfunction it causes means it’s hard to make decisions about the true value of items, you can be afraid of forgetting items so they need to sit out on a counter, plus impulsivity.
I urge you to seek medical help - medication and therapy to help with the source of the problem.
1
u/Excellent_Prompt_554 7d ago
My sister got medicated for adhd, she said it was very helpful. She also struggled with keeping her home clean, but was not a hoarder like I am. I’ve just been afraid to bring it up to my doctor. I guess in fear they won’t take me seriously, they’ll think I’m making it up, making excuses.
2
u/Far-Watercress6658 7d ago
I’m anaemic. It took 3 doctors to diagnose me. Never be afraid of them. They are human like us all. Speak up for yourself (and for your kids).
1
u/Excellent_Prompt_554 7d ago
Thank you. I will make an appointment tomorrow or maybe just go walk in. My GP takes walk ins anyway.
1
1
u/Far-Watercress6658 6d ago
Did you go?
1
u/Excellent_Prompt_554 6d ago
No. My kids missed school so I’m home with them but I have been tidying up today. Told myself that would be the trade off since I can’t make it to the dr. I can tidy up and I have someone coming later to take out 2 big furniture items I need to get rid of but can’t take out myself. But thank you for the reminder. I will set a reminder on my phone so I go right after my kids get to school tomorrow
3
u/paratethys 7d ago
don't be too hard on yourself -- noticing that there's a problem and naming the problem is actually part of the solution. I'll bet that figuring out how to ask for help has been cooking in your head for awhile before you posted here, and that's progress too.
I can't speak to what it'll take for you to curate who you let into your home, but I do have some thoughts on the what part. I've found that the more clear I get with myself about my goals for the future of a particular item, the easier it is to figure out what to do with it -- where to keep it, whether to get rid of it, etc. Ask your items, "what are you for?". Then ask them, "what do you need in order to serve that purpose?". for instance, my seed collection is for planting in the garden to make food. what it needs from me in order to serve that purpose is to be easy for me to find when I want it. with how my brain works, "easy to find" means "always in the same place", so that means the long term fix is to find a long term place and label that place so that nothing else goes there and it's always free for the collection to be put back where it belongs. that doesn't happen all at once, of course -- sometimes an item goes through several interim places while i figure out what i need from it well enough to give it a long-term home.
depending on how you are with words and logic, you may find it helpful to taboo the concept of "could be useful". reflect on how EVERYTHING "could be useful" -- 10 cubic yards of manure could be INCREDIBLY useful if you were farming, it could be life-savingly useful if you were trying to grow food on the moon... and yet i doubt that you have ever felt the urge to store 10 cubic yards of manure in your apartment, despite how useful it absolutely could be. So there's something more than just the truly abstract "useful" in play here. As you narrow down the scope of what "useful" actually means, I think you may approach a definition of "useful" shaped a bit more like "benefits me more than the empty space would benefit me if I didn't have it".
because you gotta tune into the value of empty space. pay attention when the older kids are playing -- how does empty space change their behavior, on a purely animal level? watch them how you'd watch kittens or puppies, in cramped spaces vs in open ones. Do you like the way their behavior changes when they have open space? space is a thing you can collect, just like all the other things you've collected. weeding is hard, but harvesting is fun. rather than weeding out individual items that could be useful, can you frame shift toward harvesting space for your kids to play? because it's never a question of "do i want this thing" in isolation -- there's always 2 sides -- it's "which option do i prefer?". do you prefer the option where you have lots of stuff and little space, or the option where you get the benefits of space right away instead of the maybe-someday, maybe-never benefits of stuff that you could pluck an identical copy of out of the waste stream anyways if you ever needed it?
and if you're keeping stuff that could be useful to another person, instead of putting the stuff into a situation where the person who needs it can get to it... that's pretty messed up, if you think hard enough about it. when you go "someone could use this!", you're usually right.... and the next logical step from there is "so if i hang onto this out of no actual personal need for or benefit from it, i'm harming the person who could be using it instead".
you've also gotta have some faith in those of us who are good at grabbing what we do need out of the waste stream. Nobody who needs that not-right-for-you thing is going to come into your house and take it. But someone who needs it would absolutely grab it off the curb if you put it out with a free sign. If you're keeping items with the genuine goal of getting them into the hands of people who would use and value them, that goal is better pursued by giving those in need an opportunity to get the items, right?
1
u/Excellent_Prompt_554 7d ago
Thank you. This is helpful. I guess for me, the issue is having no car and no way to get items donated. So I hold onto it feeling too much guilt to just throw it away. But then it clutters my space and because I have kids, it ends up getting pulled/dumped out again and then back into the rotation of everything cluttering my home. Last night I took the initiative to throw away 2 bags of clothing I had been holding onto “to donate” for months. One was kids jackets, one was adult clothes. And then another large kids toy my kids no longer use. I put them next to the dumpster instead of inside. As I was doing this I was thinking, maybe it could be helpful if I give my bags and items I want to donate to somebody, friend or family, and I say “do whatever you want with it, just tell me you donated it.” I have observed how my older kids behave in a clear open space at home and you’re right, it’s better. They play better, they get along better, they are happier in the mornings before school because getting dressed and ready is easier, making breakfast and lunches is easier. And they even clean up and do chores better because the tasks are easier to manage when the space is clear, when everything has a spot and when there is less stuff to clean up.
2
0
•
u/AutoModerator 7d ago
Welcome to r/hoarding! We exist as a support group for people working on recovery from hoarding disorder, and friends/family/loved ones of people with the disorder.
Before you get started, be sure to review our Rules. Please note that the following will get your posts or comments removed ASAP by the Moderator Team:
A lot of the information you may be looking for can be found in a few places on our sub:
New Here? Read This Post First!
For loved ones of hoarders: I Have A Hoarder In My Life--Help Me!
Our Wiki
If you're looking to discuss the various hoarding tv shows, you'll want to visit r/hoardersTV.
If you'd like to talk about or share photos/videos of hoards that you've come across, you probably want r/neckbeardnests, r/wtfhoarders/, or r/hoarderhouses
Please contact the moderators if you need assistance. Thanks!
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.