This one's for the hoarders
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When I say reading I really mean watching a heap of YouTube videos and TED talks etc. Hoarding is now "out there" in the public domain now that it has been included in the DSM V as hoarding disorder. The guru of hoarding seems to be Randy Frost. There is a good episode of our locally produced show called Insight (Australian ABC show) which features Randy Frost.
I have placed a "hold" at our library for Randy Frost's "Buried in Treasures" and have read Dorothy Breininger's "Stuff Your Face or Face Your Stuff". Dorothy is a professional organiser who is featured in "Hoarders" along with Robin Zasio. I am facing down my shopping and food storing compulsion and have been cleaning out my pantry once again. I am trying to overcome crap English diet after enduring many years of restricted calorie eating with a heavy emphasis on cheap and stodgy carbs, white bread, WW2 surplus foods like powdered scrambled eggs, industrial strength margarine, etc. Thirteen years at English boarding schools starting from the age of 5 can predispose a person towards food hoarding. I still have a little tucker box filled with chocolate!2 -
@kpk54 So your Mum used an n+1 protocol. There is a science behind this believe it or not. I once studied the design of data centres - those buildings that warehouse the computers that back up all the data from our banks, health centres and MFP. Most of the critical features such as power generators and air conditioners use either an n+1, 2n or 2n +1 protocol.
So if you were having say three guests for dinner = 4 people in total; you reasonably calculate that 2 bottles of wine would suffice for 4 people at 1/2 bottle each. So, "2n" would be 4 bottles and "2n+1" would mean that you would have 5 bottles of wine at the ready. This of course assumes that none of the guests would bring a bottle. Now, supposing that each of the three guests brought a bottle you would end up with eight bottles between four people => two bottles each.
Anyhow, you can see that we live in an age of abundance and oversupply of everything when people think like this.2 -
@coloradoartst Re: hoarding art supplies. Me too! I hoard pens, pencils etc. I can see now that it is part of my identity - being an artist and the best way for me is to "act out" my inner artist - i.e. to create something artistic rather than just collect arty stuff.2
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When my next door neighbor passed away, her executor had to put a construction dumpster in her driveway to catch all the hoarded crap from the sort/clean out of that house... and it was my neighbor's vacation house!! It took the executor 6 weeks to get everything squared away. I started closet sorting at that time.7
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Being members of MFP we all like apps, I like to collect stuff and have a problem with it myself with not wanting to throw things away but I downloaded this app called WITH the bad word in there you have to type it into your android app store as Unf*ck Your Habitat -replace the '*' with a 'u' and download it I highly recommend it as a cleaning motivational app, it even has a sayings generator called Random Unf*cking Motivation for when you lack motivation or whatever. Then they have a 20/10 Timer (clean 20 rest 10) and a Challenge by Room that you can choose which based on the amount of time you have -highly recommend it!-2
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PaleoInScotland wrote: »I love clean clear spaces and I am for ever decluttering and streamlining - what drives me to overeat though is my partner - he is a hoarder because of his many hobbies - the worst one is his wargaming - there are little soldiers in all our rooms.
Yes!!! I struggle with my husband's hoarding too, though I wouldn't say it contributes to my food problems. When we lived in America, I got him a 10x20 storage unit for his hoarding, to keep it out of the house. I was horrified when we were preparing to move to Scotland when I found it so full of junk you couldn't even safely open the door. We sold, gave away and threw away everything we owned, except for 10 small boxes of stuff and 4 gigantic suitcases of clothes and bits and bobs that came with us on the plane. It was really hard for him. He had a bag of rocks he wanted to keep! Well, he's gathered some new rocks here now, so I think he finally forgives me for throwing his rocks away. This is a man who literally packed a bag of garbage in a box during a previous move because he though that something important might have been in the bag. And by garbage, I had mean things I deemed unworthy to pack.
We have a 3 bedroom house here so that in addition to my office, he gets a junk room so that I can't see his crap. I refuse to even open the door and he's required to keep it closed, otherwise it drives me batty to see all the junk he finds. The junk is simply not allowed to leave his room.
Can your husband not contain his war games to one room or the garage? Maybe it's time your army invaded and captured his soldiers lol
I feel for ya so much!!!PaleoInScotland wrote: »I love clean clear spaces and I am for ever decluttering and streamlining - what drives me to overeat though is my partner - he is a hoarder because of his many hobbies - the worst one is his wargaming - there are little soldiers in all our rooms.
Yes!!! I struggle with my husband's hoarding too, though I wouldn't say it contributes to my food problems. When we lived in America, I got him a 10x20 storage unit for his hoarding, to keep it out of the house. I was horrified when we were preparing to move to Scotland when I found it so full of junk you couldn't even safely open the door. We sold, gave away and threw away everything we owned, except for 10 small boxes of stuff and 4 gigantic suitcases of clothes and bits and bobs that came with us on the plane. It was really hard for him. He had a bag of rocks he wanted to keep! Well, he's gathered some new rocks here now, so I think he finally forgives me for throwing his rocks away. This is a man who literally packed a bag of garbage in a box during a previous move because he though that something important might have been in the bag. And by garbage, I had mean things I deemed unworthy to pack.
We have a 3 bedroom house here so that in addition to my office, he gets a junk room so that I can't see his crap. I refuse to even open the door and he's required to keep it closed, otherwise it drives me batty to see all the junk he finds. The junk is simply not allowed to leave his room.
Can your husband not contain his war games to one room or the garage? Maybe it's time your army invaded and captured his soldiers lol I feel for ya so much!!!
He has the third bedroom and the loft. I try to follow one of the rules of decluttering "only declutter your own stuff" but I have thrown away some of his stuff. He has never noticed.
I get rid of books read; just keep 3 cooking books, - I limit myself to less than 10 pairs of shoes and 3 handbags. If the house was robbed, I have nothing much to lose. No one could work out anything about me by my stuff only my size and shoe size. Cannot wait to be my ideal weight of 140 lbs to get rid of more stuff - still a long way to go though!0 -
I am feeling a rare urge to purge some extra stuff today. Think I'll do one of The Fly Lady's quick "27 fling boogie" sessions. Don't think I got the name right, but it will feel like real progress after I get rid of 27 items in one fell swoop!! Yowza!4
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I suppose you could say I hoard footwear (over 80 pairs of shoes, not counting sport specific footwear, boots, or flipflops). I guess the difference would be that I use them all, except for a few pairs of 'dinner shoes' (too freakin' high to walk in
, while I wait on a call from the hospital for ankle surgery) which get used much less often. My husband though tends too keep crap, because "you never know when you'll need it". Things like small nuts, bolts, etc in baggies stashed here & there (he does know where they are though), and several boxes of slides from his family history that he keeps saying he will organize and digitize one day, and old jeans & t shirts that he cuts into rags and stuffs in bags. 0 -
I hoard guitars. They stay in my home office. The rest of the house I want completely clutter free.1
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I loved Kondo's book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. Great read. I used her ideas on my pantry and freezer. Awesome. It was easier to prepare food without digging past the junk. I didn't lose weight from it, but it was mentally satisfying.
Teehee. In her list of comments from clients at the beginning is, "I finally succeeded in losing ten pounds."1 -
Wow! @Abm4n "Thirteen years at English boarding schools starting from the age of 5 can predispose a person towards food hoarding. I still have a little tucker box filled with chocolate! " I bet that really changes your view of food!
My career was in IT (with a English degree - a bit of story). Of course there is an algorithm for mum's buying a storing habits. N + 1 And here I thought it was just keeping up with 3 hungry boys in the house! And perhaps because both my parents were starting their adult lives during the depression. Never throwing out what might be useful, storage of food "just in case", their freezer was just as stocked for the 2 of them as it was for the 6 of us. Not hoarding but certainly prepared for shortages. I have struggled to shrink what is in my cupboards since I don't have 3 hungry boys.2 -
I'm a hoarder. At the superficial level there's definitely a factor of control-freakyness. On a deeper level there's also the continuing battle of distracting myself by avoiding unpleasant feelings. My theory is that all disordered behavior is a cushion to avoid feelings. I notice that I binge, shop and do gaming when there's something that I allow to nag on me or there's unresolved issues. It's a comfort thing, but it doesn't solve anything for the long run.
Oh, I hoard food too. There's always a rationalizing in case I'm "running out". But my bf who's a neatfreak has helped me a lot understanding what I need to do to keep things outside jungle zone. It's still a struggle though and I understand there's emotional ties here that I haven't quite figured out yet.3 -
I am so good at decluttering stuff, getting rid of unused stuff, etc. why is it so hard to declutter my excess weight?0
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I loved Kondo's book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. Great read. I used her ideas on my pantry and freezer. Awesome. It was easier to prepare food without digging past the junk. I didn't lose weight from it, but it was mentally satisfying.
Teehee. In her list of comments from clients at the beginning is, "I finally succeeded in losing ten pounds."
That's right! I forgot about that. LOL0 -
My Aunt is a hoarder. The kind where there are 'paths' thru the piles of unopened bags of stuff and more stuff. So sad. I've tried to help her clean it out and she panics that she needs this, going to fix that, can't part with that and just gets upset. I tried to help her with a keep, sell, donate and toss pile. She squirreled through the toss pile after we agreed something was broken and stashed things in her car, so I wouldn't see her 'saving' things. I just quit trying. When she passes, it's going to be a dumpster project for sure. She is just a tiny thing, never been more than 99 pounds. She takes extra food from restaurants, but doesn't eat it. She boxes up any extra popcorn to give to the birds. There is an illogical emotional component to it, but I don't think there is necessarily a link to over eating. For her it is more about having food or things available and around, not the consumption of things. Most of the things she has are unopened and never used, never eaten, just stored.0
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I just realized (after posting above) perhaps one of the reasons I don't have as much food in the house anymore is because of my habit of walking to the grocery store for exercise. I have the luxury of having 4 supermarkets stores within my 3-5 mile round-trip-walk-range. On occasion (if I need something I can't carry) I will drive to and park at one store, put on my back pack, walk to another store (that is otherwise out of my range) return to the car, drop off my loaded backpack and go into the store where I parked to get the heavy or parishable stuff. Drive home. This "drive n park" places 7 supermarkets (and a few more ethnic stores) within my walking range.
I have plenty of time in my day. I've walked to the grocery store for a broccoli crown. A banana for my husband's lunch. A garlic bulb. A piece of fresh ginger. On those days I don't bother with the backpack. 8 -
@kpk54 I think that's how we evolved living in the wild. We COULD get a whole bunch of food if we were prepared to make the physical effort to go get it. It helped us to sort out our priorities. Now, with food on every street corner it's too easy to overindulge. I admire your habit of walking to the shop to buy things as you need them. When I shop I am now trying to limit my purchases to what I need. I will usually fill the bottom of my hand held basket with two bottles of mineral water "ballast" so it feels heavier and I am less inclined to fill it up with random stuff.3
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Opposite here. My girlfriend is thin and cannot throw anything away. My Zen attitude embraces the impermanence of materials and I throw out what others would consider priceless sentimental jewels.
My dad, who might weigh as much as his shadow, is also a hoarder. My mom, who is bigger like me, will throw almost anything away...she will keep those sentimental relics.0 -
Right before I started losing weight, I gave up. I went through every piece of clothing I had meticulously saved since HS, favorites from pre-pregnancy, and all of it. If it didn't have particularly special significance or there was no way I could realistically fit into it inside a year, out it went. I sold/donated a carload full of clothing...probably multiple, actually.
That was January 2012. In February 2012, my company started a "Biggest Loser" contest with a money prize. I figured what the heck. I didn't win, but it started me back here, where I'd been before but not really used much...which lead me to uncovering a number of undiagnosed health conditions I now treat, about a 70 pound weight loss (and some regain), the low carb path, and a number of other things.
I've frequently said that without that decluttering, I wouldn't have been in the frame of mind or had the space I needed to get healthy.
As for the hoarding, I never had much growing up, so once I could, I always accumulated as many things as I could, to the point of spending more than I had, and running out of room to store things. I moved from a 4 bedroom house into 1.33 rooms at one point... My downsizing has resulted in panic, as I was clinging to things I would have sworn blind I needed. I'm needing to do another major declutter/minimalize now, but I am struggling to make time, as I swear I feel like I'm never home, and my apartment is tiny in many places my previous place was not, so I'm struggling even further, as I'd already pared down more than once in that area... My guy is in utter denial about hoarding, but he holds on to many things "in case he needs them" and tends to clutter up every solid surface in the place. But we're both working on it...4 -
One thing I do hoard is food, everything else can go. My books are on my kindle. I regularly clean out my clothes. But food OMG I need two of everything in the cupboard and a full freezer. It takes me 5mins to walk to the supermarket. I get why I stock pile my water and glutenfree stuff, but 10 onions? 5 packs of taco powder mix? Soups I won't eat? 4 plates of 85% and 90% dark chocolate? I have eaten one single square the last week.
I think I need help!1
