The Psychology of Decluttering

After the whole NFL playoff debacle Sunday, I wanted to investigate the reason people feel a need to have favorite sports teams, musicians--even authors.  While I was plugging search terms into Google, I came across the website for Psychology Today (a magazine).  I opened it and started plugging search terms on their home page.  My attempts with fanaticism and sports got me nowhere.  So I tried obsession.  This was the second hit it pulled up:  http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/two-minute-shrink/201011/decluttering-is-it-therapy.  It jumped out at me.  I hope you take the time to read it.  It isn't long; it's really a blog entry of a doctor.  It really made me think so I decided to change this topic to, well, the title above.  It opened my eyes to how this Great Clean-Out was therapeutic for me and I didn't consciously realize it!

Now I'm not a big fan of the "desensitization" therapy.  I understand the concept.  If someone has pteromerhanophobia (fear of flying), for instance, the idea is to get them on a plane.  The therapist goes along to help the person through the ordeal.  Now I can understand this if the person is, say, an executive of a Fortune 500 company who doesn't want to lose his job because he won't fly to Japan.  But if the person is a Midwestern soccer-mom, whose idea of a vacation is to go sunbathing at Lake Michigan, well, I don't see the point of making her fly.  I mean, really!  I have arachnophobia.  If someone suggested I spend time each day with spiders to get over my fear, I'd laugh and kick them in the n-ah, butt.  Probably I wouldn't even laugh.

I started decluttering to help my mother--mostly.  She's 79 years old now and she worries about leaving her kids with a houseful of junk.  And the idea of moving is appalling with the sheer volume of stuff in this house.  But when I started, I started upstairs.  With my closet.  Well, that's not entirely accurate.  I went through my mom's closet first, but not thoroughly.  We sorted her clothes and a few items on her shelves.  But the real labor-intensive cleaning was my closet.  Oh, I was sidetracked sometimes.  Like going through the bookshelves looking for a Bible.  And one day, when I was helping my mom put clean sheets on her bed, I cleaned out two small bins that were on her closet shelf.

The big question is, have I stopped collecting "stuff"?  Not completely.  Today I was sorting through a box of odds and ends that has been packed and stored since I moved out of my condo in October of '98.  Yep.  1998.  Would you believe that I took one of those small bins I had just cleaned out of my mom's closet and put some things in it that I thought I might use someday?  Oh, there's all sorts of logic to it.  I had to keep some cookie cutters so I had them when I have grandchildren some day.  Really?  If I have grandchildren some day, wouldn't I be more likely to buy those pre-shaped cookie dough packages?  I could say "Isn't this cool?  Your mom used these cookie cutters when she was a kid."  Except I really couldn't say that.  I doubt if Brittany would remember making cookies that we cut out by hand.  I only have a vague memory of making cookies from scratch that had to be rolled out and cut.  I'm much more of a "drop the dough on the cookie sheet with a spoon" kind of baker.

Does this mean I'm hopeless?  No!  I will go through that bin again and put those cookie cutters in the give-away!  I'll pull out those pink-and-white kitchen towels that have never been used, also, and give them away!  Maybe I'll get rid of the metal basket with the cat on the handle!  Ummmm, maybe not the metal cat basket.  I don't want to get too carried away!  After all, I wouldn't want to get obsessive about not having any clutter.  That would be boring!

Un-deck the Halls

Well, it's January.  The holidays are over.  Time to un-deck the halls.  My mother's birthday is the 7th, so, since she hates having the tree up on her birthday, the Christmas tree has to be down by then.  I always leave the tree up through New Year's Day.  (Well, except for Christmas of '86 when my then-significant other bought me a real tree that was so dry, I had to take it down on Christmas day!  In the morning!)  This year, the tree (artificial) came down on the 4th.  It is packed up in it's box, still in the living room.  But then, there are a few boxes still in the living room.

The Great Clean-Out of 2010 is now, officially, the Great Clean-Out of 2011--The Saga Continues.  I still have a few Christmas decorations to put away yet.  There is also wrapping paper to put away.  I did a gross sort of the wrapping paper early in December.  I've been meaning to further refine and organize the wrapping paper, but so far, I haven't.  And the loose wrapping paper is on top of the box for the decorations that are still up.

So, in order to finish putting the decorations away, I have to move a few rolls of wrapping paper and some tissue paper.  I need to have the wrapping paper boxes that my daughter took into the back bedroom (soon to be her bedroom), and the other wrapping paper box in the living room so I can sort the paper.  One box, um, I think the red and green one, will be for Christmas wrap.  The plain white one, I guess, will be for general/birthday wrap.  Then there are smaller boxes.  One with bows and ribbon.  One with boxes, folded wrap, gift bags, etc.

I'm telling you, it's the OCD.  I could just move the gift wrap, pack away the rest of the decorations and deal with the gift wrap some other time.  I could do that.  I'll have to have a talk with myself.  Now, don't make fun of me.  Self-talk is an honest-to-goodness therapeutic method of dealing with stressors in our lives.  There are whole books written about self-talk.  Remember the Little Engine That Could?  Well, he did, and mostly because of telling himself "I think I can, I think I can."  Actually, counselors would advise that you say "I can."  It's more positive.  Whatever.  It works.  There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people that shop at the stores where I shop that, unknowingly, have benefitted from my self-talk.  I say things like "It'll be crowded, just be patient."  And "If you hurt that %#@, you could be arrested and thrown in jail."  Now I'm rather ambivalent about jail.  On the one hand, I'd have three meals a day that I didn't have to prepare.  On the other hand, I'd have to use a toilet in front of other people.  So, in order to not hurt anyone, I think of the toilet when I say "jail."

But I've digressed.  Oh yeah, the decorations.  And the gift wrap.  I'll get to it.  Tomorrow I have to take my mother to a doctor's appointment.  And it's her birthday.  (It was her choice to make the appointment on her birthday!)  Probably Saturday I'll put the rest of the stuff away.  Maybe.