labelleizzy (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
labelleizzy) wrote2013-01-18 01:53 pm
labelleizzy) wrote2013-01-18 01:53 pm
Entry tags:
"How To Eat An Elephant" (part 1)
*grin*
I've been studying this for *years*, no lying. I knew I grew up in a house of clutterholics, I knew it was uncomfortable and didn't feel healthy, but for most of my growing up years I had no idea how to get out of the collecting, and, let's be honest, packrat habits.
Here's the first principle, in my opinion the most important principle involved in getting over "hoarding" behaviors. YMMV, of course.
1) Hoarding is never about the *stuff*, not really. It's about your feelings.
In my family, we held on to a lot of stuff we didn't need. I've come to realize there was a real fear of lack involved. Grandma and Grandpa on mom's side both lived through the Depression, and came out with a "save everything, it might be needed someday" attitude.
*narrowed eyes*
This led to junk drawers of all kinds throughout the house, filled with random screws, rubber bands, office supplies (broken and whole), kid's toys, eyeglasses someone had outgrown, small lengths of thread or yarn, twistie ties, and, well, I'm sure you are mostly award of this trend and how it's manifested in spaces you are familiar with. Linen closets with lots of ratty old towels, taking up the space for the good towels. Clothes in the closet that haven't fit for *years* or are a style you'll never wear again but were "too good to give away". Broken tools in the workbench drawers because "someday we'll get that fixed".
Useless JUNK.
I came out of that house and clung to all my STUFF. I conflated my STUFF with my memories, with my feelings, with how people would think of me, with how I saw /myself/. And it was paralyzing.
Too much STUFF! Almost all with mental and emotional associations of scarcity, lack, worry, fear, and not-feeling-good-enough.
And I KNEW that I had too much stuff, and I knew it was helping me hold onto all these unproductive feelings and ideas, but the overwhelm and paralysis meant that it was a lot easier to shuffle stuff around in order to find the useful stuff, than it was to GET RID OF the stuff that was useless.
I'm not sure of exactly my tipping point.
I know I had one, or several; points of OMG WTH have I been doing with my life?!?!
One:
When living with my exspouse, I determined to go through one of the many boxes-o-junk we'd stashed in the "storage room" off the landing to the stairs in the condo we were living in. It was full of mostly papers, mostly five to ten years old, many envelopes unopened.
I was ashamed.
I went in anyway, with a bag for recycling and a letter opener.
And in that box were bills addressed to my college address. Five+ years old, never opened. *toss* *wince*
And in that box were papers that had no meaning to my current life. *toss* "Why have I been KEEPING these?"
...
And in that box was an envelope from the university, and a date-stamp for around when I graduated.
(no, it wasn't anything cool, it was embarrassing.)
I open the envelope, and it's the information on where when and how to return my graduation cap and gown.
So. Much. Headdesk. Something like 7 years later.
I think that I was sometimes too scared to open the bills when I was in college, because I didn't have money to pay them, and in my house you just didn't talk about money. or bills. or owing people money. or ask your parents for money you knew they didn't have, to help you out.
So I guess I learned to stick my head in the sand about things that scared me that way.
And it took a rare bit of courage, initially, to dig in to all that STUFF and to face all of those old, fermented feelings, let them out, let them crumble to dust or evaporate into the air.
Yes, sometimes I did get hit with the big feelings, letters from loved ones, job evaluations (good or bad), or reminders of things I had promised to do and hadn't actually done. Disappointments, old pains, frustration with myself and with others.
But mostly, for me, (eventually) the satisfaction of clearing out the dreck and the useless overcame the Other Feelings that were triggered BY the dreck and the useless.
And sometimes you'd find treasures in the dragon's hoard. That helped make it worth it.
Your STUFF is not the same as your self-worth, nor is it the same as your feelings, or your reputation.
I do tend to admire people who live tidy lives, for many reasons but not least of which is that it seems a lot easier to do the things you want to do without having to paw through a bunch of Old Shit to find the things you need.
I work towards that, myself.
And that? That happens A Little Bit At A Time, which will be my next musing on the subject.
I've been studying this for *years*, no lying. I knew I grew up in a house of clutterholics, I knew it was uncomfortable and didn't feel healthy, but for most of my growing up years I had no idea how to get out of the collecting, and, let's be honest, packrat habits.
Here's the first principle, in my opinion the most important principle involved in getting over "hoarding" behaviors. YMMV, of course.
1) Hoarding is never about the *stuff*, not really. It's about your feelings.
In my family, we held on to a lot of stuff we didn't need. I've come to realize there was a real fear of lack involved. Grandma and Grandpa on mom's side both lived through the Depression, and came out with a "save everything, it might be needed someday" attitude.
*narrowed eyes*
This led to junk drawers of all kinds throughout the house, filled with random screws, rubber bands, office supplies (broken and whole), kid's toys, eyeglasses someone had outgrown, small lengths of thread or yarn, twistie ties, and, well, I'm sure you are mostly award of this trend and how it's manifested in spaces you are familiar with. Linen closets with lots of ratty old towels, taking up the space for the good towels. Clothes in the closet that haven't fit for *years* or are a style you'll never wear again but were "too good to give away". Broken tools in the workbench drawers because "someday we'll get that fixed".
Useless JUNK.
I came out of that house and clung to all my STUFF. I conflated my STUFF with my memories, with my feelings, with how people would think of me, with how I saw /myself/. And it was paralyzing.
Too much STUFF! Almost all with mental and emotional associations of scarcity, lack, worry, fear, and not-feeling-good-enough.
And I KNEW that I had too much stuff, and I knew it was helping me hold onto all these unproductive feelings and ideas, but the overwhelm and paralysis meant that it was a lot easier to shuffle stuff around in order to find the useful stuff, than it was to GET RID OF the stuff that was useless.
I'm not sure of exactly my tipping point.
I know I had one, or several; points of OMG WTH have I been doing with my life?!?!
One:
When living with my exspouse, I determined to go through one of the many boxes-o-junk we'd stashed in the "storage room" off the landing to the stairs in the condo we were living in. It was full of mostly papers, mostly five to ten years old, many envelopes unopened.
I was ashamed.
I went in anyway, with a bag for recycling and a letter opener.
And in that box were bills addressed to my college address. Five+ years old, never opened. *toss* *wince*
And in that box were papers that had no meaning to my current life. *toss* "Why have I been KEEPING these?"
...
And in that box was an envelope from the university, and a date-stamp for around when I graduated.
(no, it wasn't anything cool, it was embarrassing.)
I open the envelope, and it's the information on where when and how to return my graduation cap and gown.
So. Much. Headdesk. Something like 7 years later.
I think that I was sometimes too scared to open the bills when I was in college, because I didn't have money to pay them, and in my house you just didn't talk about money. or bills. or owing people money. or ask your parents for money you knew they didn't have, to help you out.
So I guess I learned to stick my head in the sand about things that scared me that way.
And it took a rare bit of courage, initially, to dig in to all that STUFF and to face all of those old, fermented feelings, let them out, let them crumble to dust or evaporate into the air.
Yes, sometimes I did get hit with the big feelings, letters from loved ones, job evaluations (good or bad), or reminders of things I had promised to do and hadn't actually done. Disappointments, old pains, frustration with myself and with others.
But mostly, for me, (eventually) the satisfaction of clearing out the dreck and the useless overcame the Other Feelings that were triggered BY the dreck and the useless.
And sometimes you'd find treasures in the dragon's hoard. That helped make it worth it.
Your STUFF is not the same as your self-worth, nor is it the same as your feelings, or your reputation.
I do tend to admire people who live tidy lives, for many reasons but not least of which is that it seems a lot easier to do the things you want to do without having to paw through a bunch of Old Shit to find the things you need.
I work towards that, myself.
And that? That happens A Little Bit At A Time, which will be my next musing on the subject.
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Your name is a new one to me. May I ask by what route you found this post?
Curious cat is curious.
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More to come!
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*raises hand*
Your STUFF is not the same as your self-worth
I like to think: I can enjoy the world, I do not need to own it.
That said, there are some parts I want to own and display blatantly. Five old razors are not part of that world. A spare trackball in case mine dies, sure, wise backup. A KISS necklace made out of Hello Kittys? Yeah, that's mine. But much as 90% of the people out there are not interesting to me beyond a casual encounter, 90% of my junk boxes are not interesting or useful to anyone.
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Very well put. You should have seen how my mom cried when we convinced her to throw out her huge collection of VHS movies. Even though she hadn't watched one in years, and we gave her an AppleTV with Netflix that would let her see way more movies than she had, the tears poured.
It wasn't about the movies. It was about the feeling of loss around never being able to give those movies to a new set of grandkids, etc, etc. A week or two later, she laughed at her crying. But the separation anxiety at the time was very real.
Likewise, while she was living at the KOA for 7 years, she ended up paying something like $17,000 worth of storage fees to store a 3-bedroom house worth of furniture and crap that wasn't worth anywhere near that. The finances made no sense (we we tried to remind her several times), but it was worth it to her to not lose her stuff - which at the time would have felt like an admission that she'd never live in a real house again.
Emotions, that are wacky.
And I know we've talked about this before, but I figure the quote is applicable to the topic:
Now excuse me while I tackle my NY resolution of getting rid of 50% of the shit in my garage...
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