Hi! My name is Julien.
I've been dealing with buying too much stuff off and on for several years.
It started after going through a short time where I almost lost my apartment and was unemployed, but I got it together. Then I started buying old things--porcelain, paintings, books. At first I thought it was just a way to decorate, but I became aware that I was over-doing it and soon had a cluttered apartment. I thinned down my possessions to a manageable level, mostly giving stuff away and throwing out some other things.
I went for a few years without doing this to myself. Then after a family squabble several months ago, where I broke off contact with my mother and sister, I started buying again. Talking to them again is not an option. I was almost out of debt at that point, too. Now I have several thousand dollars in credit card debt and an apartment full of old things again. I caught myself before I went over the edge with the credit cards, and now I don't know what to do with all this junk.
I was planning on selling it on eBay, since that's where most of it came from, but I don't want the hassle of packaging and shipping. I would take it to Goodwill, but the few times I've made donations of good stuff I was treated like they were doing me a favor by taking it, so I don't want to go back to them. Should I feel guilty about just throwing the stuff into the dumpster? I look at some of the stuff I have and think, "This has survived for 100 or even 150 years. Now I just want to throw it away."
Am I just trying to find an excuse to keep these things?
Maybe I've already decided to throw it out and need someone to say it's okay to trash this stuff. I've no one to give it to, the people I know don't want it. I've got a hammer standing by and I want to give these things a good whack.
What made me want to buy old things? Why not new stuff? Is it that the old things survived? Maybe I feel a camaraderie with these inanimate objects--that I too survived?
I don't know what to expect from this post. Maybe I just needed to put to words what I've been thinking about. Anyhow, thank you for your time.