I have one room that looks like it could be featured on hoarders.  I work to clean it up, I get overwhelmed, and with in a week or two I am in worse of a mess than before.  Thanks to DH I keep it mostly to one room.  I didn’t have any problem when I was a child because my mother made me throw half my stuff away before each Christmas.  I dreaded Christmas and loved Christmas.  I loved the Carols, cookies, gingerbread houses, but I dreaded getting rid of half of my stuff.  I actually used the Flylady’s (Flylady.net) technique of setting the timer for 15 minutes.  I was a frozen wasteland of dread by the time the buzzer went off.  What worked for Flylady, was a disaster for me.  I had so many other problems when I was in counseling that the hoarding seemed minor in comparison.  I can sit tapping away at my computer with mounds and piles of stuff all around me.  It becomes part of the background and then part of what belongs and then it is 2 feet deep and I’m struggling again.  Used to be when we moved every year it was a natural time to let go of stuff.  I hate moving.  I dread Christmas for all the same reason, my stuff.

I learned several interesting things in my attempts to shed the clutter.  I will save stuff that I am not sure what to do with until it is pass due.  It would be to my advantage to throw it away in the first place.  Do I do that? NOOOOOO!!!!!!

I thought it was part of being a multiple personality and the stuff belonged to someone else and I can’t throw away what belongs to someone else.  I integrated all my personalities, hoarding remained.

Back to the drawing board.

Five minutes at a time….after all I can do anything for 5 minutes.  Yup that works for 5 minutes than I add more stuff…..

Heavy sigh.

Accept myself where I am at.

Love myself when I am messy.

Watch commercials of hoarders and accept that I am not alone.  (I can’t watch the show, it upsets me to see someone else taking their stuff away….how weird is that?)

I am deeply flawed.  My desk is messy.  My sewing room is messy.  My life is messy.  That is OK.

I’ll work on it again tomorrow…..for 5 minutes.