Lightening My Load: Thoughts From A Reformed Hoarder Part Three

I've touched on this subject a couple of times before, but now that I'm fresh in a found-someone-who-needs-it happy place, I thought it was time to explore it again.

When I say I'm a reformed hoarder, that's not even a little hyperbolic. I mean I saved the hair I brushed off my cats in a Ziploc baggie because I felt like throwing it out would be throwing out my cats. I was a legitimate, psychological, anxiety response hoarder. If you had given me another decade, I could have been on a TV show.

So, what prompted my reformation? I got my own place for the first time. Which a) ratcheted down my anxiety quite a lot, and b) I don't have much hideaway storage space here. I have a normal-size bedroom closet (read: not a walk in, but not teeny tiny, either), I have a coffin-sized coat closet, and I have kitchen cupboards. Which means, my shit was in my face at all times, inescapable. I can tetris a closet like a pro, but it wasn't enough. And the stuff was giving me it's own kind of anxiety.

My outer space reflects and affects my inner space. So, I started dealing with my shit, on every level. I started - slowly and painfully at first - getting rid of things. Each bag or box felt like a victory. At first I thought I might just get it down to where I could hide it, then I thought I could deal with all the collections of things normal people would never keep in the first place, then I started to be able to get rid of useful things I even liked but didn't need or use. I never thought I would purge books, but I've chiseled away about 25% off the collection and put them in Little Free Libraries (and gave some to friends).

I went to about three years of therapy. I temporarily returned and then left again the church I had been brought up in (Catholic) in a huge catharsis. I was really, really Catholic. I wanted to become a religious. I left the first time feeling really angry at the church - I felt like there was no room for someone like me (at the time, simply because I was a "social justice Catholic," you know, like nuns feeding the poor and giving sanctuary to people kind of stuff). When I left, I tried another Christian church which was even worse on the heartless discompassioinate hate scale, and then I abandoned Christianity altogether and found Druidism. I never really quit Druidism when I went back the second time, but it was just something I had to do to understand it better and get rid of that anger. I did that - and was rejected again, ironically three times, by the church - for being poor, depressed, and queer. I learned to stop knocking on a door that was never going to open, and that it wasn't my fault. If a church says they want to help/save the poor, those without hope, and the souls of gay people (because they "hate the sin and not the sinner," they claim), and then rejects you for all those things, that ain't you (side note: if they hated the sin and not the sinner, they would want all gay people to become monks, nuns, and priests, because then you'd be taking a vow of chastity and not doing the sin they claim to be worried about, hey? BAM! Soul saved. But no: I was told I "would be too tempted living in communion" and "not a real Catholic." So that's how much they regard that vow of chastity!).

Physical, psychological, and spiritual: I had a lot of baggage. And I was ripping open those wounds and cleaning them out all at once. Probably why I'm an exhausted, deflated balloon of a person now. 😂 Yet I'm still going! Maybe by the time I untie enough sandbags that are holding me down, I'll find something new to fill and lift me up, if the hot air balloon metaphor makes enough sense.

ANYWAY, I still feel victorious when I get rid of things, but I also want to be responsible about it, environmentally as well as "other people need things" -wise. So I'm not just filling trashcans and chucking them in a dumpster; I'm listing things for free on websites, finding charities that need certain items (like, I took old towels, sheets, and pillows to the animal shelter, and I used up a bunch of my yarn stash knitting mats for kitties for them as well). My work may as well benefit someone else. I've made a few bucks selling certain items too (see: Super Nintendo and all the games I had for it netted me almost $300 on eBay. Yeah!).

mats I knitted for shelter kitties

So what caused my giveaway happy today? I found a home for a rather large and was-beginning-to-despair-I'd-have-to-toss-a-bunch-of-plastic-in-the-trash collection. DVD cases. Like, 150 of them, give or take.

I first purged a big pile of DVDs and VHS. Some went to friends (most of the DVDs did), and the rest (yes, even dozens of VHS tapes AND a VCR) went to people on NextDoor.

Then I bought myself a big DVD binder and moved the keepers into it (most of them fit, anyway) so I didn't have this huge shelving thing all chock full of movies. I listed the cases on Freecycle, Facebook, and I even looked up a couple of orgs directly I thought might use them (like, who gave out DVDs at information tables in the past), but I couldn't find anybody who needed them. Today I just gave them to someone on NextDoor. Hooray! The internet connects again.

Recently I gave the fine china teacups and saucers I had that were from my mother's wedding china to a Facebook friend who does Victorian-themed tea parties for costuming/Steampunk groups.

getting ready to pack them up

I felt good about that one, too. I know they'll be enjoyed by lots of people having fun! In my apartment they were just sitting in a cupboard. I don't even drink tea!

I've got another friend lined up who needs my aunt's old sewing machine that I inherited (I have another one, I don't need two). This friend struggles like I do to make ends meet, so again, I feel great that I get to help someone who I know needs something! It's a blessing to me, both because I get to lighten my stuff load, but also because I get to be the helpful one. Being poor, I feel like I'm often a taker not a giver, always needing and not often able to provide help. I love being able to provide help. It makes me feel good!

So those are my reformed hoarder thoughts today, deep within the bowels of The Great Purging Project. Maybe I can't build my tiny house at this time, but I can prepare this way!

That Red Fish your momma always warned you about

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