Thursday, December 26, 2013

Hoarding Tendencies

My mother is a hoarder and I inherited tendencies toward being a pack rat from her.  She says it is because she always lived in poverty and is afraid to get rid of anything because she may need it again.  She even keeps broken and worn out things.  My father did the same thing when he was alive.

My mom has so many clothes she doesn't even know what she has or where it is.  She has her clothes in all the closets in the house, in addition there are giant plastic tubs of clothes behind the other furniture and a large storage building in the back yard with closet poles installed and filled with clothes.

Trying to help her organize is frustrating because she wants to keep everything.  Sometimes I bargain with her.  I will buy new things for her if she will promise to let me junk some of the old things.

I have to work hard to avoid collecting stuff we really aren't using.  Ironically there seems to be some truth to her madness, because whenever I clean out closets and get rid of things, we usually end up needing some of it within two weeks.  However in the grand scheme of things it really is liberating when we manage to unburden ourselves of loads of baggage that has been carried around for years and is just taking up space.  

I have heard that clearing the closets of clutter will aid in unburdening the mind.  I think it may be true because it always feels good and helps lift the veil of depression.

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