I realise there’s something incredibly honest about trees in winter, how they’re experts at letting things go. ~
In His extreme wisdom, God planned nature to sprout, grow, let go, and start over. Some of us humans have a hard time with that, and a small percentage find it almost impossible. Why is that?
Breaking up is hard to do; so is letting go.
We have all made imperfect purchases. “The shoes are not as comfortable as they seemed in the store.” Or, “I no longer have the pants that go with that top.” Do we (collectively) hang onto material possessions because we hate to admit failure in our selection decisions? This would mean we wasted money, but if we aren’t using the object, isn’t the money still wasted? Yet a different subset of us might think we’ll use that single flip-flop sometime in the distant future. Who knows? Based on several Google searches, there is no one reason why we keep what we clearly don’t need.
One of the first articles I found was published by an organization called Simplify My Home (SMH). No, they are not medical professionals, but if these people pick up clients’ “extras” all the time, they probably know why the [ultimately] unwanted articles overstayed their welcome. According to SMH, the biggest single cause is sentiment. That was Daddy’s pipe. My sweetheart was wearing this shirt when we met. My daughter loved that sippy cup. Just so you know, I am in no way being judgmental. I’m still hanging on to an old cloth diaper that my granddaughter used as a comfort blanket when she was a toddler. She’s 21 now. She won’t need it again. But, even though I am extremely sentimental, I abhor clutter. I only keep what I can manage to store easily.
However, a small percentage of the population has difficulty letting go even when the kept articles are as seemingly insignificant as the last two years of newspapers. What about that?
For some, letting go requires professional support
The Cleveland Clinic tells us that hoarding is a mental health disorder. For people who have this condition, the need to be surrounded by possessions is so intense that parting from them creates serious distress. I am not referring here to people who have wall-to-wall knick-knacks to the exclusion of other excessive collections. I’m talking about people who live in houses with only a narrow path between stacks of boxes and newspapers and heaven knows what else. Anyway, this condition can potentially be helped with behavioral therapy or medication, depending on the cause.
Cleveland Clinic suggests that there are more than half a dozen possible origins. These range from having a relative who is a hoarder to experiencing a traumatic event to suffering brain damage in an accident. However, there’s another school of thought. The Medicine Net site offers a different perspective. Perhaps hoarders (some of them, anyway) have brains that developed abnormally. Or perhaps their brains got rewired–no, that isn’t what a doctor would call it–after an infection or surgery. Either way, hoarding isn’t a choice.
More about symptoms from the Cleveland Clinic
- Anxiety generated by the thought of parting with possessions
- Reluctance to allow others to touch their belongings
- Inability to assign specific storage places for things
- Retreating from prior close relationships
- Insistence on living in environments most would consider uninhabitable
- Cognitive function issues that manifest as:
- Lack of organization
- Perfectionism (Odd, yes, but this ties into fear of making a mistake with possessions.)
- Extreme delays in decision-making, which tracks the prior manifestation.
- Distractibility
94% of us don't have a solid excuse.
Only 2-6% of the U.S. population has a hoarding diagnosis. The rest of us can, and occasionally do, make choices that can negatively impact our health, though. WebMD says that clutter can increase stress levels and can also make it more difficult to focus, to name a few downsides. As mentioned in my blog posts more than once (here’s an example), we all are dealt different cards, and perhaps we are predisposed to to hang on to things. Some of us may simply delay handling clutter until the inconvenience reaches an intolerable level. But the three pounds in our skulls that give us tendencies also give us the ability to reason and make choices. We just have to think about it. And take out the trash.
I admit to being fascinated by hoarding. I’ve watched shows on tv and always feel bad for people in those situations!
I’ve seen some of those shows, too. Makes me claustrophobic, but it’s like looking at a wreck. Can’t watch; can’t look away.
I had a home health patient that kept papers, magazines, and even had gas rationing cards from WW II in her wallet. I realized that while trying to find her Medicare card. I was not there to fix that issue, but managed to make her feel comfortable
about throwing away very
old Medicare EOBs.
I had lunch Saturday with three high school classmates (Debbie B, Debbie C , and Barbara B). We all hung on to clothes that should have been discarded. Think 80’s shoulder pads, etc. We finally let go when we realized we would not get in that size again or ran out of closet space (me). I have not been a “keeper” since!
Funny you should mention old clothes. I have a dress from the 80s I need to donate. Perhaps someone could use it as a Halloween costume. 🙄
Clothes are a start, but not for me. I do not know one woman who has not have a shortage of space in their closet and yet have nothing to wear. For me, it is books …though I may have read it twice, it is not going anywhere. I have text books from college in thermodynamics and fluid mechanics etc. They need to go and will when I pass and my son is throwing everything I own in the dumpster before my body has grown cold.
In a perfect world we would only keep things we use …and as a result be able to find the things we need when we need them.
The height of hoarding craziness is the increasing number of “short term” storage facilities. I have some things I do not need but I will never pay someone to store things I do not use.
Good topic with endless rabbit holes to go down on the subject.
I, too, have excess books, and no one will want those, either. For now, though, I like having them around, and I still have room for them.