#hey i'm having trouble navigating this hallway can i move some stuff | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

gailynovelry · 8 months ago

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I think about how so many resources for dealing with a hoarder house situation online come from a perspective of hatred and frustration for the person(s) perpetuating the hoarder situation in the household, and I think to myself. Would perhaps people have better results by treating the hoarder with a modicum of respect and applying harm reduction strategies to the situation? Like with addiction?

The household we live in teeters in a weird spot where multiple rooms (living room, porch, back room, guest room, upstairs bathroom) are slowly being overtaken with storage boxes.

It's not a filled-to-the-brim hoarding situation yet, but if I'm not actively organizing and cautiously removing items, it came become a really frustrating environment to live in. Blocked closets, hallways you have to squeeze through, stuff like that.

Bu I've been trying to find resources for helping someone out of a hoarding mindset, and so much "advice" approaches the person having the mindset with distaste.

"The problem with hoarders is that they don't think it's a problem!"

That's usually because they see the hoarding as a solution to some other problem, like resource insecurity, or compensating for memory loss via keepsakes. Maybe we should take those fears seriously and help them dismantle it all on their own terms?

#hoarding #decluttering #cleaning #look the fact that i can move stuff and judiciously get rid of stuff now makes this situation WAY better than it used to be #and part of that was yes asserting some boundaries #but another part of it was . . . not being a dick to the person who is filling the house with stuff #approaching them gently with our own concerns like #hey i'm having trouble navigating this hallway can i move some stuff #hey i noticed this thing was broken to the point of unrepairability can i junk it #you want to keep a piece from the broken thing? sure! at least that's less stuff to deal with than before #like we still have the issue of more stuff coming into the household from spending trips but baby steps; we can work on that next #part of the thing is that people don't confront the situation until it gets fully unlivable for them #so it's like. snap. from the hoarder's perspective you have gone from zero to a hundred #and from your perspective you have been drowning in stuff for so long and your thrashing instincts are kicking in #but you have to take it piece by piece; not all at once

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