Hoards are composed of many things, including secrets. My family’s hoards were no exception. I haven’t posted in a long time. Mainly because I’m tired, y’all. It’s been exhausting to emotionally deal with the fallout from the shocking secrets that were hidden in the hoard. Secrets Frozen in Time It’s like a science article I once read about bacteria that were frozen in permafrost for thousands of years, only to thaw out and become deadly when a heat wave released…
I was on a cross-country business trip when I got the midnight call that my mom was dying. She was in the ER and not expected to live. A paramedic told me she probably wouldn’t be alive by the time I could make it back on the first flight. Then he proceeded to scold me, telling me how Mom probably wouldn’t be able to make it out of the house in time if there was a fire because it had…
Do you have a hard time letting go of old photos? Even ones that you don’t particularly like? How about ones that a deceased family member left behind? Do you burn with guilt every time you think about clearing them out, even though you don’t recognize a single person in the pictures? I’d like to make a friendly suggestion that you start working through that unnecessary guilt and attachment now. A Lifetime Captured on Kodak When we cleaned out the…
I’ll keep it real and admit that sometimes I feel like a phony. Like my situation wasn’t awful enough to allow me the right to speak about hoarding. My house wasn’t condemned, my brother and I weren’t removed from our parents, there weren’t hundreds of cat skeletons hidden in the mess, so who the hell am I to talk about the suffering caused by hoarding? Seriously, who am I? I’m not Marie Kondo. I’m not a professionally trained organizer. I’m…
Even after my parents died and no one was living in their home, I still called out, “Hello, I’m here!” whenever I entered the house. It wasn’t because I’d forgotten they were gone or that I was in denial or doing some wishful thinking. It was because I felt a strong sense of presence whenever I entered the house. It was the presence of The Hoard, the fifth member of the family. The one who demanded the most space, who…
When you think about cleaning up a cluttered home, you know you will have to do plenty of physical work. There’s also a lot of mental and emotional work required if you want your cleanup to be successful and long-lasting. Cleaning Is Both a Mental and a Physical Game Want to have a healthy relationship with objects? A hearty dose of self-examination is required. You must take a magnifying glass to why you acquire too many things, dispose of too…
Let’s talk about holidays with hoarders and how they differ from what you might imagine when you think of a “normal” family holiday. Let’s Get Real This was my normal: In our house, there was no gathering around the dining room table for Christmas dinner, because the table and all of the chairs were full of papers, books, and objects. The kitchen was crowded, with no room for cooking a large meal or baking tray after tray of cookies. (In…
What Do You Get the Woman Who Has Everything? Holidays can be tricky for hoarders. There’s an emphasis on giving and receiving gifts, plus there’s an abundance of cards, colorful wrapping paper, and other trappings that are easy to sentimentalize and justify keeping. Holidays are also tricky for the friends and family of people with hoarding tendencies. After all, you may want to express your affection with gifts, as is traditional, but you don’t want to make an already bad…
Become Mindful to Improve Your Hoarding Problem Today, let’s talk about what mindfulness can do to help you conquer your hoarding issues. I mentioned in my previous post how it took me decades to finally overcome a lot of my tendencies and put my hoarding ways behind me. When I became mindful, I could at last start living my Things Can Be Different way of life, which is so much more fun and healthy. The Graveyard of Good Intentions As…