apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Wow. Possessed is very intense. Thank you so much for linking to this. I've just spent entirely too much time at work watching Martin's other videos. He's a tremendously talented filmmaker.

I've known many hoarders, including family and best friends. this is also very hereditary - i inherited my mother's impulse shopping issues because as a kid that was our entire saturday - shopping at macys together, what else was there to do? i've gotten some control over it, because i have an equi-compulsion to organize and purge! i also have an insanely anal system of returning items i've purchased impulsively. and i hate clutter and disorganization, so i'm quasi-balanced.

but i've helped a friend clear out 50 giant bags of 'trash' (stuff, papers, memories, garbage, food) from a tiny apartment, only to realize there's another 150 bags worth to go (not to mention piles upon piles of cat waste on top and under everything, everywhere). and the emotions involved in sorting, deciding (in a sense) who gets to live and who gets to die (lots of issues surface during the sorting and purging).

sentimentality is a dangerous thing - but who does not have memories associated with objects?? how does one know when they're associating (un)important memories with inappropriate objects - like the toilet paper rolls in that one home. where exactly is the line between my appropriate mementos from my grandparents, and EVERY SINGLE ITEM THEY EVER OWNED?

when my father died recently, we didn't think twice about getting rid of his STUFF, but we were vigilant in sorting through it to find his memory objects, his personal history - photos, letters, silly mementos. but the peripheral stuff didn't contain the same importance. a lot of hoarders just don't differentiate between those two things - they don't see a SCALE OF IMPORTANCE to determine what is kept, which object imbued with memory and emotion gets to stay and represent that person/event/era.

it's all really twisted, because i cherish my grandparent's and parent's personal histories in the form of objects - but i've had to learn how to edit it down, to seek their essence...without an overwhelming presence...of stuff!




the proliferation of junk haulers, clutter busters, etc., upsets me to no end.

wow that was a lot longer than i intended! :)

thanks for your insight and comments, kdkaboom! you didn't go on long at all. this is an important topic i think all of us have some kind of struggle with (i know i do!).

i watched the film with despair and horror and a few exclamations of, "oh, no!" and "nooo!" and "oh my god, oh my god".

Very interesting though kdkaboom - thanks!

My fiance and I have been steadily trying to get rid of all of our stuff. We move a lot and try to use that as a good time to sort but sometimes it is just easier to throw everything in a box and then throw it into a closet. Now that we have combined households it is getting harder because we are each still attached to our personal stuff.

N.

http://badhuman.wordpress.com

I remember watching that when it was originally on. Obviously some of those people have some real serious issues that extends past the "things" themselves. The sad thing is to much of my family and friends hoard, to much less an extent but they still have rooms, basements, or parts of rooms dedicated to things that can't rid themselves of, are constantly complaining about needing more storage for things they never use and most have twice the square footage as I do. While, they wouldn't have made the show, it has in some part taken over a noticeable part of their lives. I don't think that is all hereditary, much of our society is driven but this idea that bigger is better, more is better, look at the sizes of homes and automobiles now, compared to 20-30 years ago.

One advantage of living in a small space is it forces you to edit your life down to things you really need and/or really love. This doesn't mean you don't occasionally regret not holding onto some of those things, the vintage clothing your mother had, the plates your grandmother had, not being able to have much camping equipment ect. Most days though, I find I enjoy the calmness and simplicity that having less affords me.

However putting too much value on possessions and hoarding it's always synonymous. I don't have many things at all but sometimes I feel they become unnecessarily important to me. A few years ago my youngest sister sat on my brand new, only a few months old wassily chair with sequence on the back of her jeans and scratched the seat up. I was so upset I yelled at her something good, actually cried and felt sick to my stomach over a chair! Until I realized I should be more upset about how my 23 year old self reacted to my 14 year old sisters mistake. I apologized ofcourse, but I still find myself looking at the backs of peoples pants when they come over!

Everyone dies and unless people hundreds of generations after us can truly use any of our possessions, they're just things to get us thru "right here, right now".

In every case, the fear of lacking (past, present, future) is so huge to cope with, that they just save it without thinking. In case of some people, they're so poor, they can't let a chair go if it gets broken because they're afraid they'll never be able to afford another one, or even worse, if it's a "one of a kind" because they're afraid they'll have to work really hard to get a replacement.

As a society, (in real life) people are being somewhat FORCED to downsize. Houses are being replaced with apts, and unless you're filthy rich, homes aren't getting any bigger and car mileage is more important than size. All of this, attached to many other reasons to be afraid just lead some people to act crazy... yet since it's not criminally insane nobody cares enough to help these sick people.

This "film" is an expensive version of HGTV's Clean House without the loud people in it and with British accents; yet it makes us see that we're all in the same boat.

There is a great short story in this month's New Yorker about stuff/self. I haven't seen the above documentary, but recently saw a documentary Alan Stone's daughter made about growing up in a house that was packed with his wonderful art collection. I took it as more inspirational than cautionary. I imagine this documentary could be sad, but I also wonder about people who live in aesthetic perfection, if that is not also a form of compulsion.

I read this article a friend forwarded me some years ago... and it's still relevant for me.

http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/SavingandDebt/P43217.asp

The hidden costs of too much stuff

Its not just the gear, the gadgets and the gizmos. Its the bigger house, the wasted energy and the missed opportunities that come with them.

By MP Dunleavey

Interesting.

I've never been a hoarder, by any means... At some points in my life, I have felt that I didn't hold onto enough senimental things. But, my family never had heilooms that were passed on, or anything like that. So, anything I were to gather would have been self-serving above anything else.

I do save some things.. I never throw out cards and I hold onto race numbers. I started collecting matches, but that's over now. I began to collect wine corks when the matches thing ended (No Smoking Ban/Chicago 2008). But, honestly... I'll never remember which was from which bottles I liked, or had meaning... So, I'm going to throw them out.

My boyfriend and I live in a small modern space and he's been encouraging the live simple/efficient way of life. I have purged a lot. Stuff I don't miss. And, I can do more. And, I plan on it, because I can live this way easily.

But, there's something about having stuff! My heart clenches when I have to get rid. But, then I think about it and realize that it's just stuff. It does not define me.