HI Hoard No More :)

Happy you came here and wrote to us.
We all need to reach out to others who are having the same struggles.
Having this daily online contact has been helping us to not feel so all alone.

Setting our daily plans down in print helps to keep us accountable to each other.

Hope you find some motivation here with us. :)

Usually when I feel overwhelmed, I try to step back and give myself small achievable daily goals. And, I watch prior episodes of hoarders... to gain insight and put some fire "you know where".

Another one of my favorites motivators is to hold the item I am having a hard time parting with in one hand and imagine my daughter in the other.

Sometimes I give myself challenges in addition to goals (GOAL: unpack five boxes a day. Challenge: donate no less than one item from each box.)

I recently moved and while packing I purged quite a bit... so it is a huge challenge to force myself to go the extra mile and tell myself that even though I let go of all that I thought I could just a few weeks ago while packing for the move, that I need to still find something in each box to let go.

But, I "sunk into a funk" today. I accidentally closed the automatic door window on two of my daughter's fingers... she'll be ok but her reaction to being hurt (she ran in her room and wouldn't let me see or ice her fingers) put me in such a strange and helpless state. I don't know anyone in this area and have been socially isolated for several years now... my family all lives far away...

So, when I get "sunk in a funk" it is very difficult to break out of it. I feel like the wind went out of my sails so to speak. I have MS, a disease that can randomly rear its head at any time, so have been feeling very fragile lately.

Over the last seven years that I have had to live far from family, nobody other than my father has made an attempt to visit me... dad passed a little over a year ago, so my only visitor is gone too.

Yes, this sounds like a lot of whining, but it is more about me trying to understand why I lose my motivation to unpack and keep purging as I unpack. I try to count my blessings and think of ways to get more involved so I am not so isolated... but for some reason... the more I feel isolated, the more I isolate: I avoid phone conversations with friends and family (mainly because we only have cell service and so hard to hear and communicate well). If moving closer to family was an option, I would do that... but it isn't.. not for two more years when my daughter graduates high school.

Well, off to do my five boxes for the day...

kj, are you me? Those are my real initials and I feel almost like you!!!

I'm mostly just a clutterer and collector, but if I don't watch myself I could let it get pretty bad. I have a lot of boxes of "stuff," and you can walk through my house without looking for a path.

I want to get rid of the boxes and just don't know where to start. Every time I go through a box I end up with some stuff in the trash and more stuff in a box.

I don't keep pure trash, but it may look like trash to others. I NEED MOTIVATION!!!!!!!!

Please join us tonight in the "ONLINE SUPPORT GROUP".

See the red box to the right here?
Just click on it.

It starts at 5:00pm Pacific time.

Hope to see you there! :D

I'm just lost, I used to watch those hoarding shows and feel superior to those people, saying OMG I'm not that bad. Well, I'm becoming that bad. I'm in therapy, on OCD and anti depressants. I'm just so exhausted. I won't let anyone in and my blinds are always closed. I want to get this done, but I just can't and I get angry with myself for not doing it.