Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello all,
I am interested to know whether any of you have had problems with clutter, and/or dealing with it. Although I do conform in some ways to the Aspie stereotype of everything ordered, organised into its collections and categorised, I came to realise that there is just too much of it.
Many mornings, I have looked at the clutter and unfinished tasks from my bed and felt so overwhelmed that I haven't even wanted to get up. I just want to stick my head under the covers and pretend it's not there. I have accumulated too much stuff over the years, much of it connected with unfinished projects or uncompleted tasks. I have reached the point where I feel oppressed by all this STUFF and it is causing me real stress and anxiety.
I can't keep the house clean or tidy, because there's too much stuff in the way. I took 2 days off work and started a major declutter (managed to do clothes, kitchen and bathroom) but now I feel like I have stalled and that the declutter itself is going to end up on the unfinished projects list.
I look at the state of the place and it makes me feel like a useless human being. I mean, not living in a tip is pretty basic self care, right? And it seems that I can't manage it. Not finishing things is a problem too - I get overwhelmed and give up, then that makes me feel useless too. Does anyone else feel like this?
It's not helped by my OH, who is lovely and very compatible on most levels, but grew up in a really messy house so claims he simply doesn't notice. I tried to explain that either he needs to help me to get some of the junk out of here, or he needs to do his share of the cleaning (he doesn't lift a finger normally). I don't think he took any notice. This seems to be par for the course. I feel like no-one every acknowledges anything is wrong until I break. I feel like they must know (I even tell them pretty directly on occasion), but if they acknowledge it, they might have to do something to help, and so they just stick their fingers in their ears and pretend to be oblivious. I am trying hard not to be hurt/upset by this because in most respects, my OH is great, but what I really feel is: you know this causes me stress and anxiety, and that I can't cope with doing it all, but to help with that you would have to make an effort, and you don't want to do that. In other words, "I don't give a stuff if it makes you miserable, as long as I don't have to lift a finger to do anything about it". He doesn't care enough to help, which upsets me.
I do a full time job with a long commute, so most days I am out at 7am and not home until 7.30pm, so time is a factor as well.
So after that ramble, I would love to know whether anyone else has managed to find a way to organise themselves, to follow through on things and generally to keep their house in order. Or are you all as overwhelmed as I am?
Clutter clutter clutter. Stuff. Possessions. We dont need 99% of it. It has caused me great anxiety of late. I think this stems from when i moved housr last year and had to come face to face with all my worldly posessions.
Cue anxiety and thoughts....what did humans need 1000 years ago? 50 years ago? Certainly not all the stuff we have today.We go to work just so we can buy stuff that we dont need or throw away. Capitalism. Consumerism. Plastic packaging. Landfill. The more stuff we have the more stuff we need to keep it going (eg i wear make up. So I need a make up bag, cotton wool, make up remover, brushes).
Im trying to spend my wages on tjings i enjoy. Experiences give you more memories. Happy feelings from shiny new stuff soon wears off. When im older im not gonna remwmber the stuff i bought but remember the stuff i did.
Theres some intetesting tedx talks on it.
Even now after sifting through i still feel i have too much stuff. 16 glasses? Theres only 2 of us in the house.
Instesd of advice i just whittered on. Sorry. Tell your OH to get off his backside and sort out his stuff. Use humour so its not nagging. Set him a challenge. "Cpuld you have a ort out tjrough your shoes by the end if nect week?"Explain why you need him to do it
not at all - I think you made some very valid points there. When I spread out all of the clothes/shoes/accessories that I owned on the kitchen floor, I was horrified. Horrified and quite ashamed. How did I ever think I needed all of this stuff? How much money have I wasted on things that I kind of thought I liked at the time? I probably got rid of 2/3 of it, and to be honest, I suspect that wasn't enough.
My beloved was actually persuaded to do his wardrobe, after a prolonged and fruitless search for a particular t-shirt. I managed to convince him that it was precisely because he was keeping 50 t-shirts that have never fitted him, don't fit him now and never will fit him (unless he sees himself being morbidly obese in his future) that he couldn't find the one he wanted. 4-5 bin bags left that wardrobe, and I was really proud of him for that, because I know he finds getting rid of things really hard.
Fast forward to the DVD. I calmly suggested that he might see which ones he might ever watch again. If the answer was no to that, even though he enjoyed the film the first time around, it's OK to pass it on (to a charity shop perhaps), so someone else can enjoy it. It served its purpose when it entertained you for an hour and a half way back when :-) However, only about 2 of the 200 were judged to have served their purpose - despite the fact that he hasn't rewatched any but about 20 in the 4 years we've been in our house!
So I did set a challenge, to sort through the DVDs and CDs by the end of the next week. Exactly as you suggested. I made a point of not putting them away, so they wouldn't be out of sight out of mind. In fact I left them sprawled across the living room floor (even though it drives me nuts to see them). That was a month ago and they are still there. And I even pleaded with him, then told him that he can see I can't cope with all of the housework, so I need him to either a) help me remove the clutter so the cleaning is do-able or b) start doing 50% of the cleaning. I even spent 30 mins cleaning up after a 13hr work/travel day last week. He sat in the kitchen looking at Facebook on his phone while I did it. I just don't think it's ever going to sink in.
I could just stop cleaning, but I think the end result would be that he wouldn't notice, and I would go mad. And we might catch something.
Maybe I just need to put his stuff away, and accept that if I want clutter free, it means that I cannot own anything apart from my clothes, because once his stuff is away, there will be no room for anything else. I am going to be firm though about not letting another thing into the house unless something gets chucked to make space for it!
I like your idea of spending the money on experiences instead. You are so right about the burden of stuff. Just looking after all of the possessions takes up so much time!
Thank you for your advice and thought-provoking comments :-)
I suggested that too .... network storage for all DVDs and for his 100 or so games too .... but he still won't let go of the boxes. He has run out of storage for any more downloaded games, so this seemed like a good moment to suggest the idea.
We can't dump the clutter in the garage, because we are a seriously petrol-headed household and the garage is actually full of our toys, and the tools to work on them. There's already junk out there that has crept in over the years and gets in the way of it being a functional garage. That is next on my declutter list, once the house is done.
After that the summer house (AKA dumping ground).... don't even get me started on the rubbish that is in there. We can't use it as a summer house, put it that way!
We copied everything onto RAID servers so all the actual discs are safely boxed up in the garage. No DVD or CD player in the house - all wireless via micro pc to the stereo & tv. No clutter needed.
Hi LMS, good idea and I did try that, as he already had some of his CDs in one of these folders, so I assumed he had no objections .... however, when I asked him, he said he wanted to keep the boxes because he "likes the artwork". In fact he's now fretting about where the boxes for the ones in the folder have gone. AAARGGHHH. I told him "probably thrown out years ago" (that is what I am hoping anyway, because if his parents find them in the loft one day, they will give them to him and they will get added to the overflowing cupboards full of junk).
We ended up with him sorting through all of them, and deciding he wants to keep everything. Sum total of my possessions that I can now store in our (large) living room? One sewing box, 3 CDs, 10 DVDs. Sigh.
We put all our DVD and blu rays we wanted to keep into a bug CD holder and recycled the boxes. Perhaps your OH would allow this? This is the sort of one we have but I think it is a c.200 disc one. https://www.amazon.co.uk/AmazonBasics-Binder-Capacity-Nylon-Black/dp/B00DIHVMEA/ref=sr_1_3_acs_pb_intl_sl_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1539167574&sr=8-3-acs&keywords=CD+case
i wish you luck
I did ask last night whether he would consider getting rid of the DVDs if they were all on a hard drive (or getting rid of the boxes and putting the discs in one of those big folders) and he said yeah, but he didn't sound happy about it. Pretty sulky actually. So I don't know whether that idea will get off the ground.
On the plus side, it's supposed to be rainy on saturday, so he says he will sort through the CDs! Yay!!