Does your home reflect your state of mind?

[ecomama]

Hi guys

I'm pretty sure my house is reflecting my state of mind. It's getting worse and worse and worse. I just feel exhausted over trying to manage it all. I wish I could press pause on all that stuff, start my PTSD therapy and then re-open sectors with tasks I think I can manage. What a great thing that would be.

Does anyone else feel like their house is / has gone downhill?
Are you managing better?
If so what helped?

My parents separated but I know they were both hoarders. My step mother kept a 'neat ship' lol so she put ALL my dad's stuff under the house to degrade with weather. He passed away years ago. I have a small bag she sent me of his memorabilia, she kept the awesome stuff lol!
My mother is obviously a hoarder (No Contact with mother for decades) and she can't live in her house now.

I know I have hoarding tendencies, it's truly a fight with these tendencies every minute if I'm up for the fight.
I finally sorted through my g-grandmothers things this year, she passed a long time ago. That was sweet, joyful and difficult and I cried quite a bit. I threw lots in the trash! I disseminated some, filed some, we use some.
But I have ex husbands things, not all ofcourse, just what that creature left. I found AWESOME power tools but have a weird association with them. Due to the DV, reporting, Courts, it's a triggering experience finding anything of his let alone deciding to GO THROUGH his stuff. Plus I need to talk to the kids about what they may want and I don't want to trigger them, so I put that off big time.
Plus he destroyed and stole and threw out a lot of my precious thing, so venturing into those spaces leads to high emotions.
And my garden but that is more manageable since I employed a cheerful, gnome like man to help me at times. Big step for me but he is good. It's like a sad archaeological dig site and far better with someone toiling with me. I find toys and things from happier times but the garden was neglected as I fought in Courts for years. It's a 'STATE' ughhh.

Thankyou for letting me vent. If you can help, that would be awesome.
Ecomama

[White_Rose]

Hello Ecomama

Our homes do tend to reflect our states of mind. For me the answer was to employ someone to clean my home every fortnight. I could manage spills etc but going through the whole house was just too hard. I noticed as the house started to look more as though someone cared about it that I was better able to sort junk. I think the whole job was just too big for me but when the more obvious work was done I could cope better. I am in the process of having another sort out/clear out/junk removal. I now live alone so the house does not get as untidy as before and I am able to periodically get to sorting.

I think we are not necessarily hoarders because we keep 'stuff'. I have all the gifts my children and grandchildren have given me and I do enjoy going through them. Many are on display. The children like to see them as it shows I like what they have given me and want others to see it.

Then there are the inherited objects. I am pretty certain these will not be thrown out when I go as at least one daughter values them. These include my great uncle's war medals and coronation memorabilia that was given to all school children in 1953. These will continue to be passed down the family.

Sorting out these things and displaying them if possible is great. If giving them house room is a problem perhaps you can find an institution that keeps these things. e.g. RSL for war memorabilia or the local museum.

My garden is not doing well. I cannot do as much as before and my gardener was not able to do much so left. I am planning how to reorganise the garden to make it easy for me to keep it tidy without employing someone. My son is going to do the heavy work to get it in shape then it will be up to me. I am looking forward to having a 'respectable' garden to show off.

Sounds like you managed to sort out your grandmother's goods quite successfully. I think it does depend on us being in a good state of mind. If you are stressing etc about anything then settling down to sort stuff is probably not productive. I know I have started only to throw everything back in the box and leave it.

Be kind to yourself. The items have a value to you that no one else can see. One system I heard of was to have three boxes. Keep including giving to others, throw away, not certain. Once you have found a home for the 'keep' stuff and tossed the throw away pile in the bin I think you will find it much easier to make decisions about the contents of the remaining box.

Happy sorting.

Mary

[ecomama]

Thanks for your feedback, part of your story and suggestions. It's really helpful Mary.

I love the suggestion of a cleaner, my oppositional mind reacts immediately. There are lots of things I have to 'get past' on that one. I've investigated costs before and it was far too much. There's one person who may do that for money, ofcourse, but she's home schooling 4 children due to covid. Basically because of the DV and my security breached to the hilt, I'm not trusting of anyone really.

I'll bring it up in PTSD therapy. There are certain difficulties I have to get past to a) try to get my life back together in some form and b) see a way to do this. I want concrete results lol. I try, but it takes 5000x the effort to even start now.

I have lots of children still at home too, so my days are likened to a ball in a pinball machine.

After I started this thread I phoned a helpline to get numbers for Hoarder psychs / programs. They couldn't find any but gave me a number to call who might know. Sick of phoning tbh. I had already called my GP for a MHCP appt, so that's later today, plus another appt in person plus the kids... the school phoned and 1 of my children is not going so well, so more paperwork for me to complete which is triggering.

Still, luckily before the school phoned, I grabbed a rake and raked for 2 hours. Finding bricks, timber, rubbish... all the crap exH dumped there to make my life harder and destroy my garden. I put it in more sections and dumped the rubbish. There's stuff everywhere ugh. I thought I could ask the gardener to help me bundle the 5 stories (yeah actually) of tree loppings, lantana etc for a Council pick up. There's more to do with a time constraint on it. I need to take leave because of these deadlines plus help the kids (it was supposed to be to start PTSD therapy & hopefully still can be).

I thought I might use this thread to post work I've done, not stuff on my to do list, as another member said on a different thread. I can't write it all but just the extra things.
I took out the 2 huge garbage bins in my kitchen too.

Thanks Mary
EM