Help with hoarding

I need to find a better way to cope with my anxiety so I can clean.

I am still struggling with my hoarding.

Good luck.

I, too, am bad at cleaning. And I end up with a lot of stuff that I don't need, so I guess I'm a hoarder too. Here's what works for me.

For cleaning - Small steps. Do something that only takes a minute - unclutter one table or a half a table. Unload half a dishwasher.
Hire someone if you can afford it. Just enough to take the edge off of the mess. And yes, I de-clutter before my person comes to clean. otherwise the cleaner will never finish. And if there's too much to de-c;utter, I just tell him/her to leave the cluttered room alone, and just clean what's not a difficult chore.
Invite someone over. I have to clean if I have guests.
I'm okay with a little bit of a mess. The trick for me is to never let it get really bad.

Re hoarding - here's what works for me - sort of. Some of my stuff is just trash - for that, i get a garbage bag and keep putting things into it until I get tired of the whole thing. Then I throw the bag out, and what is done is done, what is not done is not done, but it's better than nothing. Same thing for items that I'll never use but could donate. Get a bag and load it up with donations until you're tired of the job. Then take it down to Good Will, and you're done. The trick with hoarding is that you never know what will come in handy later on. So at least get rid of some of the stuff you know you'll never use and don't spend a lot of time wondering. The idea is to get something positive done so you'll feel good. Anyway, that's what works for me - sort of.

I have a family history of hoarding which is very hard. I been taking small breaks when I am cleaning. I have gotten rid of a lot of stuff.

I been donating what I can to goodwills.

You're right. Donating is the best decluttering.

This way I feel like I am helping other who are in need.

I finally clean out my shed across town and realized that I had more stuff than I had realize. I found some stuff I hadn't seen in years.

Anyone ever feel like they may have wounds that are causing them to hoard?

i was raised
use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.
i cant part with anything except obvious waste trash garbage.
for heavens sake i keep envelopes mail comes in for scrap paper im that bad.
i can not pass up good stuff other people have out on garbage day. i grab stuff out of the dumpster at work if its still usable...
i have clothes and shoes from high school and that was 40 + yrs ago.
i have everything no one else wanted out of the contents of both parents and both grandparents homes. i have games and toys the kids played with and the youngest just turned 45.
i have practically every card and personal letter ive ever received... note books from jobs umpteen jobs ago..
i know i need to not only get rid of stuff but i also need to stop collecting more.
easier said than done. i will see stuff out for garbage and force myself to keep driving past it then a mile or so down the road it bugs me to the point i have to turn around and go back and pick it up.
now .. on the up side is i have lots of neat stuff to use as gifts..my people almost expect to get a "vintage" used gift from me... i have had everything any one has ever been in need of ... im the 1st one everyone calls before they go & buy something they need... i myself never have to buy much of anything il ever need to have other than day to day essentials...
i get most all my clothes handed down from someone who knows me brings me what they think is close to my size of their outgrown items...
i garbage picked enough gift bags from my coworkers garbage next year will be the 1st time in 2 yrs il need to buy any again...
so many of my things im unable to part with because of my sentimental family attachment to them. i dont need or use 2 sets of my grandmas wedding china but i can not bring myself to part with a single saucer of 1 of them...
i have researched many things and know if i found the right market i could make a nice profit to sell some of what i have but there again i take issue doing that because somehow it feels like because i didnt pay for things initially its not my right to sell them to my profit. i watch antique roadshow a lot so yes i do realize its a ok to dumpster dive and make a mint off the treasures you find. i myself im still just not comfortable to do it.
also heres another roadblock i have ... on the rare occasions i have gotten rid of some goofy thing ive never touched in years and now im tired of tripping over it ... it has never failed that within less than 1 month il have a reason to need it and cant because its gone now.. yes honest injun that has happened so many times its probably 9 10ths of why im so gunshy to get rid of anything else.
ohhh boooks... i make it a habit never to lend out my books... the 2 times i have ive never got them back so i went on line found a used book site that had them & i have replaced them both. why .. i cant explain other than something i had went missing and i needed it to put it back in the place where it belonged. because i knew it was missing it left a void that disrupted the entire "space" around it. not that i could look and see it was missing but more like everthing else was a bunch of out of context random tid bits of odds & ends without it there .
the oc in me needs to now and then touch the things that mean the most to me to reaffirm that connection i have is still there.
im rambling i know but im sure you can all understand the "frame of mind" perspective its coming from.

Gone back to hoarding again.

I keep saying tomorrow is the day (i will clean up). It will be sometime this year the city inspects again, probably in the fall.

I say the same thing myself.

I got rid of my broken DVD player two days ago. It was very difficult for me to let go. I want to keep it..:

I feel you on that broken DVD player. A month ago I tried to throw out some oatmeal I bought six (or eight) years ago. It's still on the shelf. I probably have two pounds of other oatmeal that is only four or five years old (which I also rarely eat). Every time I think about tossing it, I think, well, I could find a recipe...


While I was writing this, I found the willpower to throw them out.

It was hard to throw out that DVD player and the box from the new laptop I had for three months

I have a box from a computer I bought a few years ago. It is a nice box but if I haven't used it yet, I probably never will.

I threw out some more old flours yesterday!

I tossed the computer box yesterday. It was from 2018, boy, does time fly!

It not a bad idea to do.

I just threw out three shopping bags and threw away some clothes that were to ripped up. I got rid of shoe rack that was just to broken down and couldn’t be safe. That I gave to a neighbor who could scrap metal and get money off of.

I been cleaning here and there in my closet. I still have a lot of stuff. I finally threw out a scrunching that I had for awhile that was tore apart.

That awesome.

That is awesome. How do you feel?