Hello doll/toy lovers!! This is a bit of a different post than I usually put on here and I am thinking about putting this post on all three of my blogs. I am asking the retorical question, am I a hoarder? Of course I say retorical because yes, in fact I am a hoarder. Now I am not a level 5 can't throw away trash or having my house piled up to where I am putting my self or my family in danger (that is where most peoples minds go when they think hoarder). But I am a hoarder of things I love (or so I think it is love) I saw a quote that said "Is it hoarding if your shit is cool" which is funny but still it is hoarding. I have most of my closets full of my treasures and some outside in a storage building but all the rooms in the house are clear I never want to be that bad. I did get to a point where when my youngest son was a baby and he slept in the room with my for about a year, I did fill his room up and I felt awful about that. But when it came time I did what was right and cleaned it out to put his bed back in and his room has never had anything but his stuff in it since. That scared me a little cause I let it get that bad for a little bit, so left to my own devices if I didn't have a family would my house be a level 5??
I used to hoard a lot because of reselling, I would buy things I knew had value to resell on ebay for a little extra money and also my kids old clothes, shoes and toys would go to consignment sales to make money for my thirfting. So I held onto things because I thought "well that can make me $2" which now looking at it makes me feel silly. Does $2 really matter that much? Why hang onto that toy or pair of shoes for only that little bit of money? I started watching a youtube channel about 2 years ago, her channel is called a hoarder's heart. It was in my recommended videos list, god has such a since of humor doesn't he?? It's like youtube was like yes ma'am this lady is a hoarder let's recommend this channel to her. I watched one video and I subscribed because she spoke to me unlike any other youtuber that deals with hoarding. She understands that hoarding isn't just about getting rid of the items it is about being ready to let them go. After watching her for a while I started to let go of things I never thought would be possible for me to be ok with letting go. Don't get me wrong there are still things that I can not let go of but I am getting there. Now her hoarding is emotional she puts emotions and memories into her items that makes it hard for her to let go, I put monitary and hard to get back to mine.
What I mean by hard to get back is as you can tell my this blog I buy a lot of dolls and vintage toys thrifting which I find it hard to get rid of these items because of the fact that they are vintage hard to find items. Of course a lot of them are worth some money so the monitary issue comes into play with that as well. Also I have an issue letting go because I have let go of items in the past and regretted it. With my kids items it is easy for me because they can not wear or use them any more so it really is a no brainer. I also think well I am only going to make $5 at the most, why keep this? Let it go to someone else can use it but when it comes to my dolls/toys that goes out the window. I also think man, I have so much money in these toys I can't just let them be donated I need to sell them or something if I bring myself to let go. Which does not help because then I have to store them till I can sell them it is a vicious cycle but that is how my hoarder brain works. Like I said I have worked out some of my issues but there are plenty still there.
Now as to why I hoard I'm not sure, Ms Heart as she is called on her channel says she was bullied as a child which led to her turning to her items for comfort but I never had an issue like that, I was a quite kid how blended into the wall so no one bothered me. I think mine may have been inherited which can happen, my grandmother was a collector of plenty as well and never wanted to let go of her stuff. Like me she was not so bad you couldn't go in her house but she had a lot of stuff, and I grew up around it. I also feel like my mom is a bit of a hoarder too cause she has problems letting go of things too. So it may just be in my genetics. So if this is true I am trying to set an example for my boys especially my older son he was going down the hoarder path the bad one he didn't want to throw away trash..... As discussed on my mommy blog he has high funcutioning autism so it may have been that but I worked with him and now he declutters with ease so I am glad for that. Of course I need to keep an eye on him he could relapse when older but I won't worry about that now.
I wanted to touch on the doll/toy collecting for a moment, this isn't something that just happened recently. Even though this blog is only a little over a year old. I have been into dolls/toys my whole life, I don't know why it is just something I always remember being interested in. I would go thrifting as a teen and see cool toys but never buy them because, um, you are supposed to be growing into an adult why would you want to buy toys??? The appeal never left me, in my mid twenties I started collecting vintage dolls and toys because that was more grown up right??? My whole bedroom was decorated with vintage baby dolls and wooden fisher price toys much to the joy of my husband. Then I had my kids and the collecting stopped for a while and I got rid of the vintage toys (still have a few) and focused on getting my kids toys and things they wanted. Once my oldest got to be around 8 years old (He is 11 now) he got more into electronics and less into toys so I laid off of those for him and my youngest (who also has autism) just does not care about toys at all so then I began to focus on my toy love again. At first it was "oh I'm going to buy this to resell" Then it was "oh this is a cool doll or toy but it needs cleaned up but I can do that and sell it" then it turned into "oh I really love this doll or toy so now I can't get rid of it". The change was so small and subtle I didn't even notice it till I was totes deep in toys. I will say that it does give me joy to find these items and clean them up it is a lot of fun and maybe at some point I can get rid of some but for now I am keeping my anxiety calm and keeping it. I will keep working on my other hoarded items cause believe me there is a lot more to get rid of than the toys......
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