Hi Lynn :)

I recommend that you read a book titled
"Buried In Treasures".
It can help you with sorting out your emotions about your possessions and possibly make some positive changes.

Best wishes

I just started the process of asking for professional help with my hoarding. I feel like I can't trust anyone to touch my things. That they may get rid of things that are important to me along with the junk. I love my husband but my emotional issues, health, and hoarding are harming our relationship. I have so much anxiety and fear that a few weeks ago when I went in for surgery I had hoped I would not come out of it. I know this is not a normal feeling and God must have other plans for me. I just don't know what the plan is and I am afraid of everything. We don't have people over anymore and I am fearful of leaving the house alone. My world is getting smaller. I used to be a social butterfly and it makes me so sad and anxious that I don't know how this got started and how to stop it.

Hello Kent

There is nothing in this world that we can buy that will ever erase our bad memories.
The best thing to do is to replace the bad memories with good experiences.
Simple things like nature walks, a friendly dog, doing a good deed for someone, watching a beautiful sunset or sunrise, etc.

I forgot to mention that another reason I keep buying stuff is I keep trying to force myself to forget memories of the entire year of when I was a senior in high school. It was pretty traumatic for me and I have been looking for ways to forget it all aside from drugs and alcohol. I don't like talking about it and when I do it never makes me feel any better so I keep buying stuff to make myself forget.

Hi Kent :)
First thing you need to do is break the shopping habit.
Commit to not buying anything for one month to begin, except food and toilet paper as the need arises.
This is hard but the benefits will be worth it.
There is a concept we have about "shopping at home".
As you sort through your boxes you will find things you forgot you had and now you can enjoy using.
You need to make your home comfortable for YOU and nobody else.
A place for YOU to relax and feel safe, secure and happy.
As you clean, declutter and tidy up keep telling yourself "I deserve to have a clean uncluttered home".
The level of cleanliness will be acceptable to you because there will be nobody standing over you saying "it's not good enough, do it over".
A really good book is "Buried In Treasures".
It will help you make decisions as to what to keep and what to let go of.
I understand that this is hard but please believe me that as you work through doing small tasks you develop skills that help make it easier as you go along.

I have lots of boxes piled up in my apartment but I DO have an interest to throw them out. I just tend to put it off. My main problem is that I keep buying stuff. I think it's partly due to my extreme loneliness and this fear I have of having my apartment being "too clean." It may sound odd to put it that way but for years I kept doing nothing but clean and it was never "good enough" and I sort of snapped once I cut off the person who would make me clean all the time and punish me if I missed a spot by making me do the job all over again even if it took me hours to do. My loneliness is an even bigger factor in my shopping problem as shopping makes me forget how alone I am. I'm actually terrified to make friends for the most part because I usually get abandoned and most of them never have even been inside my home. I also tend to go in a severe depression state whenever I get abandoned that I get to the state of mind that nothing I ever do will change the fact that people abandon me and there is no point in making my home presentable if no one ever stops by. One person motivated me to clean but when he abandoned me literally a week after my mom died and still refuses to acknowledge my existence, I snapped again and stopped cleaning for a year and a half. I lost my last apartment because I became too depressed to clean and the office didn't even understand that I have been diagnosed with clinical depression and that I was suffering from a severe depression episode. I am finally coming out of that hole after two years and now see in my new apartment that I need help. It is cluttered with stuff and I DO want to clean up but cleaning gives me anxiety. I don't know what to do. Even cleaning in small increments gives me anxiety.