Mild/Level 1 Hoarding-- looking for sb to talk abt it and stay motivated
Hi, so I was hoping to find ppl I can talk to abt it, maybe ppl who have recovered or are managing it well for some time or ppl who are also mild like me would be the best in terms of motivation/accountability?
A bit of background: so it runs in my family and I've had different levels of awareness along my life, but got very good insight in the last year (which really made me improve but can be hard at times because I see myself/my stuff/my house through 'a non-hoarder person's eyes, and makes me a bit sad/anxious).
I have c-ptsd and strong dissociation so the mild hoarding and house neglect has been very up and down, I can be very clean and then neglect, I had phases of my life where I got rid of almost everything I had and then accumulated again. It changes mostly if I had a new major trauma, if I'm burnout from ppl or not, and if I'm sick or more depressed or motivated/angry/energetic.
As I'm getting close to forty I realized I really need to manage this because even if I improve I have less energy than I used to and if it's hard now I can't imagine how hard it would be as I grow older. I had a hard enough life and I am trying to focus on this issue like in a preventive way, like a gift to myself, bc I deserve to manage this now when it's easier to manage than let it become a big life obstacle.
Before this whole year working on it, I was focusing a lot in the cleaning itself, I organized and churned and was attached to stuff for emotional/psychological reasons but couldn't face the 'why' behind the attachment in general and to each particular object. During this last year I was able to get there, it's crazy how much meaning and pain some stuff had. I was able to get rid of a lot of it, although I still have stuff that I decided to get rid of but still haven't. I also have too many of some categories (clothes, documents, a massive digital hoard). The stuff is mostly in order but there is too much.
It's hard for me to stay motivated, it's like sth I tackle, then pause for months, then go back to it. But I have been able to make rules like not buying more clothes and not getting stuff for free, so it is all progressing favourable, like even if I don't tackle the issue for weeks it doesn't get worse. I also can throw some stuff without a second thought, automatically, and it feels good. But yeah it's exhausting, and every time I feel 'Ill be done with all this by X date' that date passes and my expectations of what 'done' means keeps changing (I need to paint walls, get rid of this piece of furniture, not have extra pots for plants, etc).
I've been reading a lot, and journaling, and talking Abt it to ppl a bit but I think I need conversations with ppl who actually understand how hard it is to stay motivated even when it's mild? If sb wants like an accountability buddy I think that could help a lot.