Having some revelations while trying to declutter today
I was trying to declutter today, currently have 3 large garbage bags of clothing I will be donating, and a couple smaller garbage bags with actual trash in them.
During this process I was feeling pretty good about how much I was able to let go of and decided to try something I haven't attempted before; getting rid of some stuffed animals.
Well, I set aside two to donate that I never really played with, I told myself they would be better off in a home where someone would use them and cherish them, but in the end I couldn't do it. I felt so guilty trying to get rid of them and ended up having a mini breakdown where I've just been crying a bit the past hour.
I've been somewhat aware I have hoarding tendencies for a while, but never thought much of it. I think today it's just really starting to click for me, hence finding this reddit page.
My dad was a hoarder and my room at his place usually matched the environment. I'd leave trash on the ground and sleep on one half of the bed because the other side was also covered in garbage. However, my mom is a clean freak so I would sometimes(very rarely) have huge cleaning spurts and make my room tidy again. This wasn't too difficult at his place because most of the mess in my room really was just food and drink containers which I hold no attachment to. At my mom's place it never got bad because my mom would make me clean it and would also decide to clean my room if she felt like I took too long (I hated this and told her many times that I would clean it myself since I hate other people cleaning for me)
I moved out of my mom's place 4 years ago, which happened to be the same day my dad passed away. Because of this I've ended up with some of his stuff in my apartment that I'm not sure I'll ever be able to get rid of, along with his car that I only really hold onto for sentimental reasons. I hate driving and the insurance isn't cheap, but I hold a lot of memories of him driving me around and now that I've had it for a while I also love the car as my own.
It was an incredibly stressful ordeal when he passed, my sister and I couldn't keep the house and had very limited time to go through items to keep. Since there was so much stuff it was literally impossible to dig through everything and ultimately 99% of what he had was thrown out and the house was sold, very distressing, but it also felt a bit relieving to know I wouldn't end up with it unable to get rid of anything. We had been helping our dad out with cleaning the place up a couple weeks before he passed and he was in good spirits because of that, I think he was finally ready to say goodbye to the mess as well.
I know my tendencies are not nearly at that level, but I'm worried about ending up in a similar situation and I see my friends who have so little around their places and it seems freeing, which is what made me try to declutter more recently.
Overall I know I've improved a LOT at keeping things tidy since moving out but there is still much to do. I'm proud with how much I have managed so far.
Tl;dr I think I've really started to realize the affect that hoarding has had on my life and.. if you have any advice on how to get rid of stuffed animals I'll take it.. lol
Thanks to anyone who stuck around through all that, I guess I just needed to try to express how I was feeling, though I'm not sure it was that cohesive