Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yay, OP! Good luck and keep plugging away!

I'm a reformed hoarded/excessive clutter person, and whenever I get down about how bad my house is I have to remind myself how far I've come! Keep the end goal in mind but don't forget to congratulate yourselves on baby steps!

Please tell us how you reformed! I'm realizing I'm a semi-hoarder, and that I am disorganized, and have lost control of my house.

I do as a PP said -- slow down. I have very firm rules about what I can and cannot do. I don't like being the kind of person who says "No, we can only do one activity per week" or "No, we can't have so and so over for dinner without planning it a day in advance" -- because I want to be more of a free spirit, go with the flow person. But I have come to learn that I cannot keep up a spontaneous life, and still manage to keep things under control.

Some firm rules I have:

I do NOT go to bed until laundry has been done for the day. Done means folded and put away. I don't worry about laundry piled in hampers, but any laundry in the basement must be washed, dried, folded AND put away befor ethe day is done.

No one is done with clean up until everyone is done with cleanup. The whole family has to help with clean up.

If someone asks me "Do you want...?" or "Could you use...?" the answer is ALWAYS NO!!! (No thank you!) I don't need anything. I have too much.

We keep NO magazine past one month and NO newspaper past one week. All magazines and newspapers go out in recycling once a week. If we didn't read it in that week or month we aren't going to read it. And there will always always always be more!

Any food on pantry shelves that has been there more than a month unopened must not be very good. Yes, that organic barley quinoa sure looked interesting in teh store and it cost a lot but guess what? If it hasn't been cooked in a month, what makes you think it'll get cooked next month? THrow it out now.

Any food on the shelf at the grocery store that looks kind of neat? Don't buy it unless you have a dinner planned in mind. If you buy it you MUST serve it within the next three days. You may only buy one such food per shopping trip.

I put something out to the curb with a sign saying "Free" every single week.

I take something to the thrift store every single week. Even if it is just a small bag, don't let it hang around for the kids to pick through.

If I'm decluttering and I look at something and think "This might come in handy....someday" I put it in the donate pile. If I'm SURE it will be useful I keep it. But if I am only imagingin scenarios where it might be useful, I get rid of it.

Your firm rules sound very helpful. Will you clarify what you mean by no more than 1 activity per week? Do you mean parties, play dates, outings, bike rides, doctor's appointments? Thanks in advance.

Anonymous wrote:OP again. Yes, thank you for your recent posts. Historically my issue is that I have no rules, no limits. I don't say no (especially if it sounds fun), I want to and try to help anyone who needs it, and I'm exhausted. My DH used to say "we are finite beings with finite resources," and I could not comprehend. Granted, he does not behave as if he's finite either. DH came up with a place to store the news papers (unused fire place log holder), which is neat, except we are at one month of unread papers. I asked if we could just get the Sunday paper, but he still wants it daily, despite no time to read the paper. That's just one example.

I went to therapy today and said I think I'm about ready to wind it down (it's been years). Spoke with her about my need to set up systems, but that I don't know how. She responded that I just need to carve out time to do it, that I'm smart, etc, and that cleaning up my house will be far easier than dealing with the issues I've addressed so far in therapy. Yes, I'm bright, but I'm also driven to distraction. I can set up systems, but never address them. She asked how many hours a day I sit at my desk? Huh? I don't go near it, b/c it's so out of control. I want to change!

Just took a pp's suggestion and asked my DH if we could set the timer for 2 hours for the next several weekends to get the basement cleared out, so we can have play dates, and he's agreed. However, my DC plays upstairs in her room (and that is where all toys and books are), so I wonder if play dates should take place up there, or should toys be drug to the basement. Thoughts? The basement (although finished) is a pass through for me. No place I want to stay.

OP, I think you have Executive Function problems (kind of related to ADHD) -- difficulty prioritizing, making decisions etc.

Why are you asking your husband? IMO you should just inform him of how things are going to be! Tell him that all the newspapers are going out the door every single week without fail. Does your town have curbside recycling? Also, tell him that you will cancel daily delivery for one month. If he really wants to read the paper every day, inform him that the paper gets delivered electronically to his computer every morning! If he still balks, arrange to have the newspaper delivered daily to his place of employment.

Seriously. Tell him "Sweetie, we are drowning in clutter, and every single things we can remove from this house will improve my mental health, my ability to function, our family life, and our sex life."

Do not ask your husband if you can set the timer for 2 hours, INFORM him and the whole family that this is the new plan, and that you REQUIRE family assistance with the decluttering process; but if they aren't on line with that, that unilateral decisions will be made. Experiment with how many hours you spend together -- IMO 2 hours is a good goal for you, the adult without hoarding tendencies -- but might be more than tour husband or child(ten) can handle. Baby steps -- start with 30 minutes as a goal at first to get more support woudl be my bet -- but who knows? Give it a try and see.

Start in basement or in bedroom? Your call -- you really can't go wrong with decluttering! Any decluttering is good decluttering. It's like asking, "which should I start first ... dieting, or exercising?" It's all good. Just do something!

OP, no offense but it seems you have trouble making decisions. You are in the best position to decide whether to have the playdate upstairs or downstairs, and where thngs go and which systems work for you. You don't need input for others on these details. Trust yourself to make good decisions for you and your family.

OP again. Yes, thank you for your recent posts. Historically my issue is that I have no rules, no limits. I don't say no (especially if it sounds fun), I want to and try to help anyone who needs it, and I'm exhausted. My DH used to say "we are finite beings with finite resources," and I could not comprehend. Granted, he does not behave as if he's finite either. DH came up with a place to store the news papers (unused fire place log holder), which is neat, except we are at one month of unread papers. I asked if we could just get the Sunday paper, but he still wants it daily, despite no time to read the paper. That's just one example.

I went to therapy today and said I think I'm about ready to wind it down (it's been years). Spoke with her about my need to set up systems, but that I don't know how. She responded that I just need to carve out time to do it, that I'm smart, etc, and that cleaning up my house will be far easier than dealing with the issues I've addressed so far in therapy. Yes, I'm bright, but I'm also driven to distraction. I can set up systems, but never address them. She asked how many hours a day I sit at my desk? Huh? I don't go near it, b/c it's so out of control. I want to change!

Just took a pp's suggestion and asked my DH if we could set the timer for 2 hours for the next several weekends to get the basement cleared out, so we can have play dates, and he's agreed. However, my DC plays upstairs in her room (and that is where all toys and books are), so I wonder if play dates should take place up there, or should toys be drug to the basement. Thoughts? The basement (although finished) is a pass through for me. No place I want to stay.

PP, those are great rules! We have lots of things that of course we can use, but way more than we actually do use. Your posting helps to put this in perspective. Makes it much easier to stay clean if you don't have that much to clean up in the first place!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yay, OP! Good luck and keep plugging away!

I'm a reformed hoarded/excessive clutter person, and whenever I get down about how bad my house is I have to remind myself how far I've come! Keep the end goal in mind but don't forget to congratulate yourselves on baby steps!

Please tell us how you reformed! I'm realizing I'm a semi-hoarder, and that I am disorganized, and have lost control of my house.

I do as a PP said -- slow down. I have very firm rules about what I can and cannot do. I don't like being the kind of person who says "No, we can only do one activity per week" or "No, we can't have so and so over for dinner without planning it a day in advance" -- because I want to be more of a free spirit, go with the flow person. But I have come to learn that I cannot keep up a spontaneous life, and still manage to keep things under control.

Some firm rules I have:

I do NOT go to bed until laundry has been done for the day. Done means folded and put away. I don't worry about laundry piled in hampers, but any laundry in the basement must be washed, dried, folded AND put away befor ethe day is done.

No one is done with clean up until everyone is done with cleanup. The whole family has to help with clean up.

If someone asks me "Do you want...?" or "Could you use...?" the answer is ALWAYS NO!!! (No thank you!) I don't need anything. I have too much.

We keep NO magazine past one month and NO newspaper past one week. All magazines and newspapers go out in recycling once a week. If we didn't read it in that week or month we aren't going to read it. And there will always always always be more!

Any food on pantry shelves that has been there more than a month unopened must not be very good. Yes, that organic barley quinoa sure looked interesting in teh store and it cost a lot but guess what? If it hasn't been cooked in a month, what makes you think it'll get cooked next month? THrow it out now.

Any food on the shelf at the grocery store that looks kind of neat? Don't buy it unless you have a dinner planned in mind. If you buy it you MUST serve it within the next three days. You may only buy one such food per shopping trip.

I put something out to the curb with a sign saying "Free" every single week.

I take something to the thrift store every single week. Even if it is just a small bag, don't let it hang around for the kids to pick through.

If I'm decluttering and I look at something and think "This might come in handy....someday" I put it in the donate pile. If I'm SURE it will be useful I keep it. But if I am only imagingin scenarios where it might be useful, I get rid of it.

OP, I think you need to slow down. I'm very much like you. I push myself to the limit and then some. I have two children with medical issues. I always multi-task. I can't stand to sit still for a single moment with nothing to do.

But as I've gotten older, I've had to slow down. It's been very hard for me, but I've let go of things. I allow myself extra time for everything, and I try to limit myself to one thing a day outside of my normal routine. One doctor visit, one kid activity, one adult activity, one shopping trip, etc. Otherwise, I stick to a routine. It's dull, yes, but it's the only thing keeping me upright. If I tried to do everything I used to do and everything I want to do, I would have a mental and physical breakdown.

By slowing down, I manage to finish things, and keep things in order. When I speed up, my cluttering, messy instincts take over, and my house and life become an unbearable mess. I lose things, I miss appointments, I forget all sorts of things. I think part of this is perimenopause, part is aging.

Maybe it's my diet too. I went on a semi-paleo diet, and I lost weight and felt really good. It was so, so hard to stick to it, and I was starving all the time! I'm completely off of gluten and dairy, and I don't ache much any more, but I can't quit the sugar and carbs (rice, in particular). I still have brain fog and am disorganized, but I love cooking and food, and letting go of that would feel like letting go of my soul!

And stop buying things!! I limit myself to the supermarket, and I only buy what I need, no processed foods at all. If you are not a cook, this can be a problem, but it's not too late to learn to cook. I learned in my late 20s, and now I'm a pretty good cook. Before then, I used to burn everything I cooked, including spaghetti!

I love to shop, by the way. It's therapy for me, but I've let go of that and I shop in my house. Start pulling boxes down from your attic, and you'll be amazed at what you find. I found some beautiful prints I inherited from a great aunt that I'm getting framed and hanging in my front hall. They are lovely, and they've been sitting in my attic for years!

Slow down if you can. Let go of something, one thing, one day at a time. You'll get organized, you'll see. Be patient, and don't lose sight of your goal. Just be realistic and keep going, difficult as it is. Good luck to you, OP!

Anonymous wrote:Yay, OP! Good luck and keep plugging away!

I'm a reformed hoarded/excessive clutter person, and whenever I get down about how bad my house is I have to remind myself how far I've come! Keep the end goal in mind but don't forget to congratulate yourselves on baby steps!

Please tell us how you reformed! I'm realizing I'm a semi-hoarder, and that I am disorganized, and have lost control of my house.

Paradoxically, I am extremely good at organizing things. I could set up a business organizing other people's houses.

But I CANNOT organize my own. I can't do it!! I pick up one thing, start taking it down to the basement, see the socks on the stairs, remember I forgot to do my laundry last night, run upstairs, pick up the laundry basket, notice the bill lying on the bed that I forgot to pay, take out my checkbook, see my phone, realize I haven't checked my calendar/messages, and pretty soon a few hours have gone by, and that one item (a screwdriver) I started to take down to the basement, is sitting on my bed!

Open a drawer or closet in my house, and all is tidy! The inside of everything is neat and organized. But the outside is a godawful, cluttered mess. Piles of papers sit on every surface. My house is dirty! I got rid of my housekeeper for financial reasons, and now I can't organize the cleaning myself. The kitchen is always clean, but messy, the bathrooms are not so clean, and the rest of the house is dusty, and it's all messy and cluttered. Plus there are many to-do projects, like repainting the powder room (half-done), sanding the front door (half-done), moving the plants in my garden (half-done) that I can't seem to finish. I start one project and am always interrupted by something.

Sorry, OP, I'm not offering any help, just empathy. I wish I had one of those perfect, everything in its place houses. I want to live like that. This mess is so, so stressful. I have a SN child, and I know the mess is difficult for her. Plus another child has asthma!! I know it's bad for my DD to live in a dusty house, yet I can't get it cleaned up!!

I'm thinking I have a diagnosable mental illness? I'm in perimenopause, so that could be part of it?

OK, OP, here's my one piece of advice: just tackle ONE project. I have managed to finish a few things around my house when I do this. My kitchen is almost completely organized, except for one bookcase where I keep all the old cookbooks I can't give away!! I realized that the kitchen had to be clean, so I focused, one cabinet at a time, and I got every one of them organized. It took me a few weeks do get this done, but it's stayed pretty clean and organized, and DH has kept it that way (he's not a hoarder, but he's messy). So when my house is making me ill, I go in the kitchen, do a little straightening, and I see what the rest of my house could look like! I'm working on the dining room now, and I'm getting there, slowly!

You have my deepest sympathies, OP. I used to live in a pretty clean, neat house, but I had a housekeeper once a week (pre-crash), and we could pay people to fix things, paint, etc. I've gotten much worse as I've gotten older. I'm going to be on one of those TV shows in a few years if I don't find a way to reform myself!!!

OP, I'm the one who wrote the post at 6:18 and I have symptoms like yours. I don't have and never have sought a diagnosis, but I do recognize when I'm getting overwhelmed and I try to whittle down my obligations to what truly matters and can handle. Again, easier said than done. My guess is that it's a combination of things - attention and executive function issues, coupled with anxiety that "not getting it done" brings on. The fear/shame that you will let people down and they will think less of you; that you will think less of yourself. It can be debilitating. The thing that works for me is just getting over the anxiety and start doing some of this stuff I'm spinning my wheels worrying about. The end product might not be a masterpiece, but it is far, far better then paralyzing yourself into doing nothing (or not much). Professional intervention might be a good idea, but at the end of the day we have to figure out for ourselves what to prioritize and how to get things done. One step at a time...

OP again. .Slept on the bike ride in Salisbury, and am not going to do it. I will ride closer to home, and do other necessary things nearby. I guess writing it down was theraputic. Sorry to ramble on. I guess my main question in that post, for those of you who know ADD is whether it sounds like I have it?

OP, it may be ADHD, executive function issues or whatever (you can go to a professional for the proper diagnosis, if any). But the key here is you are overwhelmed, you are aware that you are overwhelmed, so what are you going to do about it? Pick your top three priorities and ensure you do well the activities that support those priorities (like putting all medical info/referrals in one folder, in your bag before your appointment). I know this is easier said than done. You can also delegate tasks. Your DH sounds supportive; perhaps he can take on getting the vacuum and dishwasher fixed.

How badly do you want to do this bike ride? Sounds like a nice opportunity, but also sounds like it's creating its own additional to-do list that's putting you over the top.

I can't address all that, but as far as sorting clothes -

the best advice I've ever gotten was to start by choosing outfits that work for likely occasions. Make sure you have a great suit, something to wear to a wedding, a funeral, a nice date night outfit. Then, knowing you are covered for these eventualities, you can be ruthless with what's left. It can be really hard to get rid of things you "might" need that you haven't worn and don't really like - but if you know you don't really need them, they have to justify themselves by being good quality and flattering.

Makes it so much easier to dump the dreck.

OP again. So, someone gave me a registration to ride in the seagull century this weekend (62 or 100 miles) in Salisbury MD. I'd do the 62 mile ride (50 miles last week was my longest distance to date). I know others who are also doing this ride (they are single or have children who are adults). My DH said go for it...that sometimes you have to do things you want to do, instead of what you should do. So, Monday I focused on finding hotel rooms there for an hour (7000 people do this ride annually---so hotel rooms are rare, although I found 3). I work Friday's, so my son and DH would drive down with me that night and would do something (there's supposed to be a good zoo there and it's near OC 20 minutes away) while I ride. After the ride Sunday, I also had an hour long conversation with the clinical manager related to my dc's illness at 8 p.m. Monday a.m., I had a thyroid sonogram scheduled (brother has thyroid cancer and I have nodules) and told myself to remember to take the required referral with me. Yet, I left it at home, and felt my way to the hospital from memory (Washington Hospital Center). I was not sure I headed the right way, so I called on the way there to confirm directions. I don't have GPS. It took me longer than I thought it would (often does). Got there 15 minutes late, signed in. Went to the registration desk when called. Told the woman I left the referral in the car, but when I got there I realised I left it at home. So, I called the doctors office to ask them to fax it over, which they did. The receptionist needed my ID and insurance card, which remembered I'd seen fall to the floor when I was driving. So, I left the desk again and went back to my car to get it. The doctors office faxed it over while I went to get my ID. This was extremely frustrating to me while it happened (like how can I tell myself to remember to take the referral, but forget it at home?). This was the 2nd referral...I lost the first one. Then, I sat and waited 30 minutes, not knowing when I'd be called back for the sonogram. Fortunately it was only a 30 minute wait. Because of my early distraction and this delay I only had time to eat my lunch before picking up dc. I was tired after picking him up, so I didn't get anything done on Monday afternoon. If I go to this ride Saturday, I will have to leave after work Friday, with my dc and dh (they don't want me to drive alone in the dark). The ride starts at 7 a.m., but I'd have to get up and eat breakfast and get there by 6ish. I'm still saddle sore from the 50 mile Sunday ride. Somethings wrong with my cleat (I clip into the pedals) so I'd have to get that fixed before leaving. We'd also have to cancel my dc's Saturday swim class.......I'm still saddle sore from last weekends ride. I could go on. And, my house is still a cluttered mess. Cleaning clutter is not motivating to me. My vacuum cleaner is broken, I need to order a new one. My dishwasher does not get the dishes clean. My to-do list keeps growing......Does this sound like ADHD to you? Yes? If not, what is going on here? Tomorrow morning, I have an oil change at 9 a.m., 10 a.m. have Physical therapy; 12 noon, I'm supposed to meet the person who offered me their ride registration (they have to work), then have to get bick adjusted, and dc has soccer after school, etc........Feedback please!

Anonymous wrote:OP, I was the person who recommended Clutterbusters. I would suggest you go through your basement play area only (not other workroom areas of the basement, just the play area) and try to throw out or declutter whatever you can in two two hour sessions. Then hire someone to come help you finish decluttering and organizing the following week. Knowing someone is coming may help you get the energy you need to plow through. Your goal will be having a place where kids can safely play!

A houseclearner isn't what you need right now -- sounds like you need help with the clutter.

Okay. Thanks for that feedback.

Anonymous wrote:If the idea of playdates at your house is overwhelming (agree with PPs that some friends very likely wouldn't care/notice the orderliness of your house one way or the other), could you offer to take the kids to the park, library, etc. until you feel more comfortable? Also agree with PPs that your house (and life) don't need to be in perfect order before you invite people in. "Good enough" really is good enough. If people are calling you and DS for playdates, it's because they like you.

OP again. Thank you. "Good enough" is a novel thought. I do feel kinda uncomfortable some, and am concerned about what others think, as if I have something to prove.....in addition to getting distracted and side tracked.