I can empathize somewhat... but cannot offer advice. Alas, I too recognize the parts in red within myself.

My current pdoc is supposedly CBT but we have done precious little in that manner. I am going to buy a CBT book that Scott recommended - remember Scott55? He found it excellent but said you have to follow through with some silly-sounding activities for it to work. I am still skeptical because i feel my issues are deeper emotionally, where CBT can't touch them. But a book is cheaper than a bunch of sessions... and i might learn something useful. I also believe CBT (like most of psychology) is still modeled mostly on the male mind, which tends to be less emotionally oriented, amongst many other things, than the female mind, no matter to what extent this be by nature or nurture.

I have a deep issue with abandonment which i believe is at the root of much of my own problem.

Take the "mug grandma gave me" example. If i have to give something treasured away... i can't "toss it" or give it to just anyone as that would be... abandonment. i have to find it a nurturing and reliable home, as though it were a living pet. Another example, many a time i have bought the sorriest looking plant out of a bunch of "good ones" because it had been... abandoned... i believe i strongly project my own feelings onto it, and try to heal it, wishing to heal myself. But CBT says once you recognize the issue you can change the behaviour... yeah? I say NO. The feelings runs so deep they block my decisional process when i am cornered into getting rid of something. Occasionally i even pick up things from the ground! Often i have grieved over lost earrings, and hoped desperately that at least someone might have rescued them from abandonment in some undignified, unappreciative and even destructive fate such as a sewage canal or landfill. I must sound like a total nutcase now.

unlike you, i do believe i am a bit of a hoarder. But the hoarded things are paperwork and very organized, and i can occasionally rid myself of expired ones. But i still keep a lot of useless stuff. Like old tax instruction booklets... for possible comparisons? And as mementos go, my first ever issued credit card is a bit of a stretch. Every now and then I get a wild hare... and get rid of some of these sorts of things. Then with some i feel bad. And I have learned from childhood to keep keepsakes. (I mean they are called that because one keeps them just for the sake of doing so, right??? )

I had many toys taken away from me due to transatlantic moves back and forth where we couldn't take everything. Mom says she always had my consent. But that's like your boss saying, we can't take both of these pick one. and you say i can't because this bla bla and that bla bloo. then they pick one and start convincing. And you know one is going to go regardless, so there is hardly what i would call "consent." I was forced to "abandon" things. And i think this compounded my original problem with abandonment, and is a big part of my not wanting to get rid of things now. I even have a problem with clothing. I have ratty clothing from when i was 14 that i can't part with. Some are too tatty for charity, they would have to go in the trash, but they have emotional meaning to me. There are also wearable ones that - at my "normal" weight - actually still FIT.

The funny thing is I am a good organizer but the decisions of what where and why are what get me. so i end up with piles... because this deliberation process is so intense, time-consuming, anxiety-provoking, and ultimately overwhelming => blocking. Like you some mess doesn't bother me, but as it increases it invades my physical space, and my mind.

I wonder (oh boy we are mixing threads bigtime ha ha ha ha) if you too are a good organizer, and perhaps at work you are able to apply that skill since you have less attachments to things? Less distinctions to make? I was disorganized at work but in an organized way. Desk was usually pretty clear because i needed the surface. When it came to process-flow and organizing data, i set standards for others. As far as organizing physical items, there were mostly piles of things, but with like items together: paper with paper, CD's with CD's, magazines with magazines and that was that. My "item type/shape" piles were organized enough to be functional and comfortable such that i could locate things, period.

Did you know that in Japanese, there are several ways of counting, not just ordinal and cardinal. The ways of counting are based on the shape of objects. so i am not totally nuts with that i guess.

When i left work, granted i was MANIC that day, i trashed everything indiscriminately, except official things of which i was the "guardian" and those got dumped, indiscriminately, on my boss' desk. It took me about 15 minutes to clear out including the deletion or transfer of personal info from my work PC to my own laptop. But manic or not, I was emotionally divested from everything there.

Of my own, all i had was a mug, some herbal infusions and a hotpot. i also had an african double happiness loop that was a gift... until the cleaners broke it . I may even still have the pieces. If i did toss them, i know it must have taken herculean willpower - because of the gift and the giver.

i think i was going somewhere but i've lost myself. i've edited and shortened and moved things and am now confused. so I'll leave off what is becoming a messy thesis here... and wish you some reprieve from this persecutory mess of messiness. have a good day/night.

~ waves ~ in an ocean of stuff stuffed haphazardly in cabinets, the sole criterion being that the cabinets remain shut sans duct tape. i have no shelves of my own... but lets not talk surfaces