Hi,

Here is an article about clutter in the NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/01/he...434&ei=5087%0A

I'm not a hoarder but I am a clutterer and messy at home (office is neat for some reason):

The parts in red bold sound like me.
I can't make distinctions and figure out where something goes. It all seems like it should go in the same place.
Or I make too many distinctions and imagine that everything needs its own place -- no grouping. Hard to explain I guess.

I find this lack of organization near bebilitating -- and almost as bad as not sleeping in the night time in terms of my ability to function.

And no, CBT won't help. I had enough of that crap.
Feeling lost.

M.

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

oh Mari. Don't worry. The things around you....they are just things.

Besides. You just have more important things to do than clean and sort and organise. Like taking care of yourself and being with your husband.

Multitude of hugs.

stepping in here lightly...cuz i am an organization freak. color coded closets....i admit it..i'm weird, but whe i was a single mom it saved me countless hours of getting myself and kids ready.

would it help mari if someone else decided for you where the "right" place is and then you just put stuff back?

my youngest daughter..lil'monkey...is extremly creative and artistic. but there is no way she can organize anything by herself. if i do it for her, it makes it easy for her to put stuff away without having to think about it. otherwise...hours and hours to even sort her school binder.

there isn't enough hours on weekend to clean her room with any type of organization on her own. then we have disaster the next week, because she doesn't have a clue where anything is.

i do know how overwelming this is.

and pardon me for being blunt...

But I am tired of the media telling me how to live.

If your lifestyle is comfortable for YOU, then who cares?

If it bothers you, then by all means try to change something.

Some people get upset and irritable in chaos. Others, like my husband, feel comfortable with less than perfection. He is not as extreme as his grandfather was, and I have had to learn to live with it. And now in our golden years, I see myself slipping into chaos. When he worked at the office he had a rep for messy desk. He had a sign saying ~~ If a cluttered desk is a sign of the cluttered mind, what is an empty desk a sign of? ~~~ (an empty mind?)
He has the highest clearance rate in his division, for cases. So no one bothers him about the clutter. Today I reminded him about the dining room table...I told him if he cleared up his stuff there, I would work on the studio. This has stimulated him some for this weekend.

What I have observed is that when people are involved in reading, doing stuff, and constantly learning, like we do, STUFF accumulates, and it is hard to find a place to put it after a while.

One of my New Year's resolutions is to get my studio in shape. And another
was to clean out my Bookmarks on this computer. So yesterday, I did 3 pages of bookmarks! I am so proud of myself! LOL it is not finished, but much much better.
Today I am going to work on the studio for one hour. I break large jobs into
small blocks of time..and that seems to work better. We've been in this place for about 40 yrs and have accumulated alot. And I admit, I am sentimental! duh? I certainly don't want to feel GUILTY for that!

The only way I've been able to organize my house (once it gets past the point of regular day-to-day messiness) is to group things by like kinds and go from there. Kitchen stuff in the kitchen, bathroom stuff in the bathroom, bills and mail and other office stuff together, etc. Then I go through each gathering and group it further: coffee mugs, plates, cookware, etc.; and then divide it clean/needs washing (or just wash everything just to be sure it's all clean ). Once clean, I put like things together in a cupboard or cabinet or shelf, bigger items on the bottom and smaller as they go up.

But the only thing in my own kitchen that takes up more room than I usually have is coffee mugs. With those, I went through them and decided which ones I really and truly did not like the looks of...and passed them on to my kid sister, who was at the time in college. Otherwise, I would find an organization in town that collects second-hand things in order to help those who've been burned out of their homes replenish their new residences, or places that operate to help the homeless get back into housing of their own, or who provide safe houses for battered women/families getting back on their feet. This method of giving things away attaches to it the emotional value of giving to those who have nothing, so that they have something and can get back to a more normal routine. It has worked for me.

And to the rest of my house, I parse it down in the same manner: group things of like kinds together until each is with its own, like cable bills with cable bills, water bills with water bills, Xmas and other holiday cards received with the same, junk mail with junk mail, printer paper with the printer, recycled printer paper with same, printed stuff with same, pencils & pens, etc. Then I go through each new grouping, and like with bills I'll take them out of their envelopes, organize them by date, punch holes in the edge, and put them in a 3 inch, 3-ring binder under a header page labeled for that particular category--like have a header page for each: water, cable, electricity, gas, phone, checking account, savings account, car insurance, renter's insurance (or whatever categories you've got). In my binders, I can put two years' worth in a 3 inch binder. Or I might put each year in a binder of its own. But I find the bigger binder to be easier to find in my 'office' corner. Junk mail gets tossed and/or shredded and tossed. (Printed stuff gets gone through as one of the last things in the house to mess with, since it's the bit I like the least to deal with.) Pens and pencils are gone through, and the ones that don't work get tossed, unless it's one of those fancy pens...those I have a harder time figuring what to do with.

Clothes are a more difficult matter for me, as are shoes. *sigh* But it is do-able to go through them. I managed to go through my clothes and shoes in the past year or two and get rid of over half by asking myself: how long has it been since I wore this? how often did I ever wear this? what did I think of this when it was given to me? am I tired of wearing this? has this worn-out beyond wearability? And for things of the last sort, I either cut the good parts of fabric out for future quilt squares (I will someday have enough to make a quilt), or I give them a funeral. Sounds silly, I know, but it works. I'll either lay the item gently in the bathroom trash can (the least icky in the house), or in a trash bag slated for the purpose which is then tied closed well and put gently with the other household refuse can outside. Or if I lived where able, I'd build a fire and treat the items like retired flag and give them a burning ceremony. It's the emotional attachment to the ceremony that makes it work. And for clothes and such which are still useful, I wash them up and donate them to the local shelters, or to Salvation Army. Some donation places send clothing overseas to third-world countries for the people there to make use of.

As for things I've collected over the years which is creating clutter and isn't being in active use...I give it to the shelters which provide housing to people and families getting back on their feet from the ground up, for they are the ones who are starting out again with absolutely nothing. To help people in such situations provides the emotional ability to part with the things I like but am simply not using, or that I have such an emotional cling to. But of course, I never part with antique heirlooms, nor with extra-special items that I want to hand down in the family.

My mom, on the other hand, is much tougher to convince on all of this. *sigh* I think she is to the point of not seeing past the clutter, and sees each object by its connotations. I used to be like this, too, so I know what it is like...my childhood stuff in my old bedroom is still somewhat in this state. But with her, it is the entire house. And what gets me is that she didn't used to be like that. But I guess over time, especially after us kids, it got harder for her to part with things. It is going to take some work, but I think I can get her to resolve her need to cling. If I can just get her to sit down and spend some time at it!! 'Course, we both work, and are tired when we come home from the day, but there's weekends.... And of course it is Winter, so it's difficult to want to do any major object clean-out just through instinct. But this Spring...or as soon as the weather starts talking of Spring...I think I'll make a concerted effort to get the act in gear. Last Summer I managed to make quite a dent in my brother's old bedroom and got rid of much which had sat in there for 30 years and more...stuff which had gotten put in there when that room was just a storage room for stuff from a previous move from a much larger house. What a time travel trip that is! And it is still ongoing. *sigh* But I'll get back to it this Spring. I want to finish that job!

In the meantime, I'm working with my sister's clutter she left here after college and after she moved up to NYC. And I'm trying to get the kitchen in order...but that's a HUGE job since my mom has let it get to a point of you-wouldn't-believe-it and the fact that stuff just gets dropped wherever it happens to get dropped. I'm currently fighting the dining room table (which is in the kitchen) so I can get back to sewing projects I MUST finish (they're on a deadline, of sorts). The table is in a battle with paper clutter, books, and Thanksgiving/Xmas/daily dish and pot & pan clutter. *sigh* I'm getting overwhelmed a bit, literally. And the fact that I now live amid her clutter doesn't make it better. Oy!! And she is stuck between the does/doesn't want to deal with any of it, so who is left to deal? You guessed it.

I do know what you're dealing with, Waves. I'm guilty of this to some degree, too. My mom is completely. Her mom was the toss-it-out freak, so my mom's reaction was a bit of rebellion once she got out of her mom's household. Only now it reaches a troublesome level--especially after having lived with my dad's hoarded mess (remember me telling about it long ago?), and after having three kids and making up her mind to keep all of our stuff and letting us deal with it. Well, dealing with it was nearly impossible with our dad dragging it back into the house once we'd tossed it. So that just made it 100 times more difficult now, though a large portion of us kids' stuff got dealt with once he got ousted from the household.

As the daughter of a true hoarder, and being prone to OCD tendencies myself, I urge caution in the urge to pick items up. I struggle with this myself at times...especially with pretty sparklies that might have a craft use. Much will power gets used sometimes, 'cause I DON'T want to turn into my dad. Please, please resist the urge. I know it's hard, but do it anyway. For me and for you. I came to much grief at work in the craft area due to my save-it-for-later tendencies. My supervisor is the total opposite of me. Made for much clashing. Needless to say, I decided to get out of theatre craft work because of that (and other reasons). But hoarding can be successfully fought...one just has to keep oneself from going too far. Clutter is the bain of my existence, and I just need to keep picking away at it and keep going at that until the de-cluttering is done. I will conquer clutter...don't know when, but I will.(I don't care if anyone wants to quote that.)

Hugs to all.

--RW

--Curious--I, too, am of the artistic mind, and am prone to being too interested in other things to bother with the state of my room/house. And for years in school, my things would fall into much disarray (don't even talk about the state of the interior of my desk and backpack!) What would work for me (I had to learn mostly for myself), and probably for your daughter, too, would be to involve her in the organization of room and school stuff. To get her to work with you in straightening her things up, to involve her in putting things together where they need to go and to make organization things for her notebook and backpack. It'll take some time for her to get into the new habits, but she will eventually get into them. I still have trouble getting my clean clothes folded and into their drawer sometimes, but they do make it there when I'm in a better cleaning mood/mode. Even better if she is younger in age than I was when I began my change of habit.

--MrsD--Yes, I'm dealing with the same. And though my workspace might look like a mess to others, it has its organization. Everything has its place and gets returned to its place, even if it doesn't necessarily make sense to other people. It grates my nerves when someone else tells me how they would organize my space and then go to doing it for me. That's one reason my mom's house is going slowly. I need her input on where things ought to live before I can put things in their proper places. Trouble is, she's been in this house 35+ years and there's no longer space for all that she's accumulated. I gotta try to get her to part with items so that things fit in the space available. We do that, and de-cluttering the house will go easier and faster. And I can get to the point where I can do the CLEANING of the house that so desperately needs to happen. I do not remember the last time all the windows were washed, or when the floors were all swept, or the window ledges dusted, etc. And my memory is very long, even if the short term is a crapshoot. It hasn't been done in the past 25 years at least...THAT much I know. I little bit here, a little bit there, but nothing which would return it to what I remember when I was a little kid. *sigh* If only I can get the clutter done...then I can move on to Step 2. Step 3 is to get her to keep it up once cleaned...don't know if I'll succeed on that or not. But maybe there's hope for it since she'll be retiring soon and will be once again here all the time. Maybe, maybe, maybe....

Glad to see you back Mrs. Doubtfire!!

While we were out the other day my husband said that he could feel the depression starting to creep back in...he's a collector/hoarder...hates to get rid of anything...everything has a use, even if its been sitting there for ten years...its "use" is to collect dust.

Sorry, if it hasn't been used in a year or two, it doesn't need to be taking up space, collecting dust, and getting in my way. I have been known to be a good organizer but that title has slipped through my fingers. I guess it depends on what I am trying to organize.

In recent weeks I have started disposing of odds and ends...more junk than anything....old magazines, my old stuffed animals have gone to a friend's 3 children, I've weeded clothes out of the closet that I know for a fact haven't been worn in 15 years that I know of and maybe longer....and for sure clothes that were way to small....

My question is, is my cleaning stuff out and trying to find the countertops, floors, etc...possibly contributing to his depression starting to return? He's been off his meds for several years, this doctor didn't feel he needed them.

Ravenswings,
I am exhausted reading what all you have been dealing with and it sounds like you are doing a great job of reframing your thinking in all of this.
Way to go and keep up the great work that you are doing.
I am still in my jammies and need to do something to the mess of my house from all of the holiday/travel mess/clutter that is making me overwhelmed!
Even getting dressed seems like too much of an effort right now.
bizi
Mari, baby steps....make a list if that helps....what is the most important thing that you want to achomplish for today?
YOu will get thru this....I know that you can...
(((((((HUGS))))))))))
bizi

Mari & Bizi & Waves--It's all about baby steps! I cannot agree more. Mine have been made, and I just kept walking once I got started. I've broken into a sprint a few times, but never get to really running, and don't really want to. Walking at a goodly pace is fine for me, even though I do stop to smell the roses sometimes and even stop to curl up and sleep under them from time to time. I do get back up when ready and continue walking. Sorry I got longwinded. I do that sometimes. Read back through it and got exhausted myself! Maybe later I'll break it up into different posts or something.

CSword--Yes, it could be. The pang of getting rid of stuff is distressing, and distress can lead to a downswing. I've seen it in my dad, I've seen it in me. HOWEVER...living in a hoarded mess like the path your husband is heading in is not a good place for either of you to be in. Head him off while it's manageable, be it meds, counseling, or whatever. And if he's slipping into a downslide, work to head that off, too. He may need to go back onto his meds. People like me who deal with the one side may do fine after a while to go without, but we eventually slipslide for whatever reason and need to return to meds to keep from sliding too far. For both your sakes, get him to get back on track. Hoarding of that caliber is a hard nut to crack, but it's about changing a mindset that's important. Baby-step to walking.

And a friend of mine succeeded in decluttering her house by following something called FlyLady. It's an online help source that provides a framework and support for decluttering. I've looked through it, and took a few pointers, but only what felt like would work for me, and I use it where I want to apply it, 'cause I've never been one to blindly do what someone else tells me--I'm too independent for that. I just take the advice and apply it how it fits me best. Hmm...it does have some good tips, though.

--RW

Been through the flylady bit...I am limited to 15 - 30 minutes on cleaning at a time, and then sit for the same amount of time, I have severe sciatica and no way to combat it except rest and a couple Excedrine. This has been a problem since 1978.

He has been on Zoloft, Serzone, Paxil, and a couple others, he did best on them when he was smoking, he had a "vice". He quit smoking over a year ago and it didn't seem to bother him. What bothers him is the RSD, diabetes, COPD, and some other health concerns....

Then I start cleaning, I can't do the clutter thing any longer. He's an avid reader, and we have ONLY 14 bookcases in our mobile home....2 1/2 in the bedroom, 5 in the spare room abd seven in the living room. (the 1/2 bookcase is the headboard of our bed...just one shelf. One of the bookcases is VHS tapes that go back 25 years...they have to go. One bookcase is craft and beading supplies that we share...nothing out of place there....why can't the rest of the place be that neat??

For several years we have had a "path" through the living room....I used to enjoy laying on the floor to watch tv but we have no floor, just a path! Granted, since Monday the path is getting wider, North and West walls of the living room are actually pretty orderly now...working on the bookcase between his chair and the hall entrance...one shelf to go but its break time.
I've learned that when my back says its breaktime, its NOW, not in 10 minutes.

We both have the handicap scooters, his because of extreme shortness of breath, a bad back, and a knee replacement that is 11 years old and they don't want to replace it again because he's now diabetic....when we go shopping, he doesn't hesitate to use it, I don't blame him. There are two stores we go to that aren't real large and a scooter is difficult to use in there so he does walk, taking his time...I think some exercise is good for him.
I have a scooter that I use less than 50% of the time, I can still do wal-mart on good days and hit most every aisle, I bought the one I use and its been a Godsend for the days I do need it. His is through his health insurance (I have none).

I recently put four huge armloads of books through our local freecycle site and got rid of every one of them. But it only gave me a couple shelves. He understands why we need to downsize, its getting him to give the stuff up.
HE went through the magazines and threw out the catalogs that were 15 years old, and cut address off the rest and donated them to his doctor's office. I went through his closet and dresser and downsized that, he had bought clothes 20 years ago that were only worn a few times when he was like 130 pounds, now he's 210 and still trying to wear the same stuff. At least everything in there fits now and he has a few pair of jeans that I kept that if he drops 25 pounds, he can wear.

Mom is NOT a collector, she has everything labeled as to who gets what in the house and garage....she's 78 and in good health....will probably outlive me! Her house is orderly and uncluttered...and everything is in good repair.
Anything happens to her, we can go through the house in a couple hours and there will be a small load of stuff to donate to the shelter...clothes, shoes, and what few items no one is interested in. Us kids didn't have a lot growing up, but we had enough, and there were six of us. Hubby lost his Dad when he was 2 years old and he and his sister didn't have a lot, so anything they got, they kept and that gets unmanageable after awhile.