Hoarders, check in if you're here.

[Raven]

I saw an interesting (surprise, surprise!) show on MSNBC today about hoarders and OCD. I have two very good friends who seem to fit the profile and I , at times, think I could go that way if I wasn't careful. This seems to effect middle age-older folks so I wonder if it has something to do with aging. One of my longest, best friends is a shopping addict (mostly fru fru from the Xmas Tree Shop) and she accumulates and then gives it all away. So I guess she is a gatherer and not a hoarder.

Any thoughts on this?

[Nikia]

1. Life long hoarder

I don't really seek to accumulate your amounts of things by shopping and such though. It is very hard for me to throw anything away that isn't obvious garbage that rotting food though. I think that it comes from moving often as a child (even though in many cases it was just down the street, my parents divorcing at an early age, and them dating several people who I met before they found their second spouses.
My mother of course made us get rid of stuff and sell it at a garage sale. This majorly upset me, of course. Now no one makes me get rid of stuff usually although my husband has a couple of times and it has been upsetting. A couple times I have willingly given things for clothes drives and stuff in a moment of inspiration that they need it more than me. I can't part with some of it though even though I haven't worn it for years. I definitely cannot throw old shirts with holes in them away.
Maybe, I should tell my current therapist about this problem.

[undeterred]

2. Do people really sell much at garage sales?

There are some folks in my neighborhood who have a bunch of "stuff" outside... its been about a month now. I bought a couple things the first weekend. They still have a lot of stuff there and it seems like they are just doing this all the time until its gone. Seems like kind of a waste of time as most of it is just junk.

[Raven]

4. Yard sales seem to be big up here in NH. I have never been to

one because I don't think I need any more stuff! Friends of mine that do go, go with finding something very specific in mind. The friend of mine I spoke about brings her stuff to a charity store...some of the clothes still have the tags on them...they love to see her coming. I think she has more of a gathering problem than a hoarding problem.

[Nikia]

8. At the time we did

We lived in what one would call an economically depressed area but not so bad that people would steal stuff openly. When we moved to a bit nicer area, it was still relatively close to poor areas.
The area we live now has a lot of low wage workers and migrant workers in the summer. From what I hear, though, to sell much though you have to sell it for very low prices. Spending all day sitting around watching people take my stuff for pennies would not be something that I could handle at all.

[malta blue]

5. hmmmm...are we related?

I feel the same way about my stuff. In fact, you could have written all of this about me.
I just moved into a new house and was obliged to get rid of many years of accumulation. I still have not gotten over it, not sure that I will.

[Raven]

7. When Will Pitt and I move out of the Newton home that we had

lived in for 25 years we had to clear out the attic. I rented a commercial dumpster which was in the driveway. In the attic were boxes of his baby clothes, my old law books and stuff I had not looked at or missed for years. I just handed these things to him and he pitched. I never looked back!

[Nikia]

9. I don't think we are

But you never know.
I empathize with you about having to get rid of a lot of stuff.

[supernova]

3. I have bouts of it

More like Nikkia, I jst can't through anything away .... fast enough.

Stuff like junk mail that I should throw out immediately, but I don't. I have gotten rid of a lot.. already sent a whole household's worth of stuff to the auction house. And i need to do it again. I'm avoiding the stuffed attic.. It just doesn't excite me. :P

It's a constant battle that I have to stay on top of.

[Raven]

6. I personally think that much of this is a bad habit and many people

are just too busy working and taking care of family to worry about the junk mail! I think you change a habit by making another, better habit to replace it and you do it in small bites. Make a habit to pitch the junk mail every wednesday or every saturday...for example. Most behavior is learned and then becomes routinized...break a bad habit by forming a good one to replace it. For me, I am a very routinized person. Some of it is good, like making my bed every morning first thing. Some habits can be bad. My theory is that if you can form a bad habit then you can form a good one to replace it.

[supernova]

10. Raven, I know you mean well

but that sounds really insultingly tactless. It's not like I don't know any of that. For other reasons that I won't get into, I sometimes have more energy than other times. When I feel great I do a lot, when I don't, I don't.

[no name no slogan]

12. A lot of hoarders have separation anxiety issues

I count myself among them. A lot of times hoarders are people that were abandoned or neglected as children, and they find security in objects instead of relationships with other people.

We collect things because we have control over our relationship to them-- WE chose when to end the relationship, not the other person. Sometimes it is the only security a hoarder has.

I still have stuff from when I was a kid-- it has moved with me through college, through several apartments, into a house I shared with a spouse, and now again to my own place post-divorce. I can't logically explain why I can't get rid of it, but I can't.

[Inchworm]

11. I'm a pack-rat

Much like Nikia above...

If it isn't ovbious trash like rotting food, I may keep it.

I actually go through a mental process.. hmm.. I could use this to hold 10d nails.. a set of these dressing jars would be nice.. etc.

:hi:

[Arugula Latte]

13. My grandma had those tendencies, as do my in-laws.

All lived through the Depression, and that may have been the origin of saving a lot of junk.

As I get older, I tend to get into minimalism more and more. I hate clutter, and it's very hard to have a clutter free house if you have kids. I try my best to get rid of stuff that we don't need/use, but it's an ongoing struggle. Once it's gone, I don't miss it at all.

[supernova]

15. Yes, the Depression

really did a whammy on that generation. And they passed it down to their children. :P There are very few of us today who have a concept of that kind of depravation.

When my grandparents had to leave their big old Victorian house in the 70s because they were too elderly and sick to be on their own, We found stuff in there you wouldn't believe.

Packages of BRAND NEW UNOPENED underwear ... bought sometime in the 50s.
Rolls of computer paper, keypunch stock, and office paper that, well you never know.
Shoes, shoes, and more shoes,
Jars of nails, etc.

You never know what people will hang on to.

[havocmom]

14. Might be poor memory too.

Havocdad used to tease a much older pal about losing things. His pal would be unable to find something around the house or workshop, give up and replace it. Would end up with LOTS of the same thing.

Well... flash forward 20 years and Havocdad is having the same behavior - forget, replace, end up with lots of dupes.

Thinking that was the case re a yard sale we passed the other day. Signs said: "Hugh Yard Sale"

Ol Huge must be getting hounded my Mrs. Sale to clear out his dupe items.

[femmocrat]

16. I'm not really a hoarder or a pack rat, but I sure have the "stuff"!

I am always throwing stuff out and organizing, but I just can't get ahead of it. We want to sell this house in a couple of years and scale down, but I have no idea how to get a handle on all this accumulation. I get depressed just thinking about it.

[BrotherBuzz]

17. Hoarding is in my genes

I inherited my Grandfather's collection and have been dutifully adding to it for decades. I've got just about anything you can think of is I am beginning to realize I've created a gridlock in my yard, basement, attic, sheds, and sleeping porch. It's all good stuff and I refuse to part with any of it, plus my son has been conditioned to add to it; he collects lead wheel weights, nuts and bolts from the intersections, and scrap iron from the railroad tracks. I'm especially proud when he hauls home a section of rusty chain. We suffer from OCD, but live by the creed: use it up, wear it out, make do, or do without.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

18. I'm in packrat hell.

Cleaning out a house for the past four 1/2 years, since mom died.

She owned it, before that her parents owned it. Never threw anything away for 2 generations.

According to the latest research, hoarding is different from OCD because the people cannot decide whether to throw something away.

Spent months throwing away pure crap. About 200 big trash bags full. Also got stuff hauled off to the auction house in a large gooseneck trailer. Way too much stuff for me to ever use, even the usable stuff. This is in a 1500 square foot house.

Still have to move my stuff out of my house and sell some of it. And TONS of books.

I am still bitter at my mom for leaving this horrible burden for me and my SO to do. We could not reason with her at all, she would pitch hissy fits and even dissociate when we tried to throw stuff out.

Once we hauled 10 large trash bags of pure crap to the curb. She hauled it all back under the carport. She had had carotid surgery just a couple of weeks prior and was in her mid seventies. Just can't reason with em -- gotta wait till they die, is the only answer I have.

We tried an intervention with a psychiatrist and all it did was make her hate everybody in her immediate family, as her junk was more important than her family.

I have those hoarding tendencies too and often I feel like I don't have enough energy to sort through it. And then I realize I grew up in an abnormal house hold -- I don't know what it's like to have a functional household, with a spare bedroom, and not have junk all over the place, and a bedroom that's a "junk room". I couldn't have birthday parties or any friends sleep over. There was no place to entertain and no AC other than a few totally inadequate window units, so it was pure hell.

Helpful site: www.childrenofhoarders.com

Please read Don Aslett's books on clutter. They really started the awareness of the problem. I'm a published but anon. author in 'Clutter Free:Finally & forever".

[wildhorses]

19. my mother's boyfriend is ocd and he hoards like a mofo

and it rubs off on her:eyes:

it is effed up.

[grasswire]

20. I love hoarders

As a dealer in antique and vintage paper items, I think hoarders are gooooood! An untouched estate gives me goosebumps!

So think twice before you throw things away, children. Your mom's trash might be someone else's treasure.

Here's what I have trouble getting rid of: particular pieces of clothing that remind me of a specially sweet memory when I wore it. That vivid blue sweater that I wore on a romantic date in Georgetown a decade ago. The cocktail dress I wore one significant evening. The black suede skirt I wore to interview a bigwig. I have a big suitcase of these "special" clothes.

[badgerpup]

21. Thank you guys...I feel much better reading these...

I'm not acquisitive, don't need the latest gizmo or electronic nifty...
don't have a microwave, a TV, and my computer runs Windows 98...
but I've got TOO MUCH STUFF!!

Part of it, I know- was growing up with little money and then minimum wage jobs...
you don't waste stuff. (raise your hand, everyone who has mended your underwear :blush:)
And there's lots of stuff I'm sure I'll find a use for...sometime...

I sew, and finding fabric on sale triggers the LOOT AND PILLAGE reflex...have quite a respectable fabric hoard now. :silly:
plus I recycle aluminum cans, tin cans and cardboard.
Compost too, but at least that goes out into the yard...

Anybody else have a sort of guilty feeling when you throw stuff out that you've had a long time? Like you're abandoning it...it's served you well, and THIS is how you repay it?

Just taking a break from trying to clear some STUFF out tonight...where the hell did it all come from?