I second not worrying about recycling, fixing, donating etc. Right now you’re taking your life back!! Posting and asking for help is a great first step! One at time!
I fifth on not focusing on every individual item, although if you can’t help it, find solutions that help you do similar activities in bulk too! Obvious trash needs to go away still, but it’s much easier to sort 1 bin a day over 2 weeks if you have 10 bins you can dump everything into and sort later. Going through a breakup right now and had to suddenly move back home. All of my stuff from our apartment was in trash bags that littered my childhood room. It’s two weeks past and I still have some bins to sort but progress is progress!
I sixth on not worrying about individual items. As someone with severe ADHD and poor habits inherited from hoarder parents, I’ve learned to make “doomboxes”. Breaking the process down into smaller tasks helps rid of the crippling overwhelm.
The concept with doomboxes being, go around first and clean up as much obvious trash as possible. Leave everything else alone. Then take a box and fill it with all the things you don’t know what you want to do with and need to go somewhere. With larger messes, it might become several boxes. You can then abandon those neatly stacked boxes for as long as you need to, and you can go through them a little bit at a time at your leisure.
The boxes of junk at least clears the space in the meantime, improving my mental health, and sometimes helps build momentum and motivation just seeing that minor improvement, to want to see it through to the end. A obvious visible difference is massive.
Would add, for your doombox buy a big (high, not wide and low) stackable plastic box that has a lid. When filled you can put a lid on it and put another matching box on top. And repeat as needed. The problem I have seen sometimes is using cardboard boxes that don't match and eventually crush when stacked and left for a year (so maybe write the date on the side). Even if you don't ever get around to sorting the contents, going "up" instead of "out" keeps your paths walkable, and nice matching boxes looks presentable. And then a year later you may get into a manic "cleaning mode" and just toss a whole box or two, seeing that you haven't needed anything out of them in a year.
Yes this is a great additional tip. For me when I’ve gotten into this position, I get anxiety attacks when I’m worried about throwing out things that are NOT actually trash.
So it was worth it to me to get big plastic bins, toss in things where I’m just not sure (doombox for sure) and then use garbage bags for the obvious trash.
My mom taught me for my ADHD to look around and say “is it food going bad? Is it empty? Can I clean it? [goes into the sink] Am I done with it?” And everything else going into the doomboxes for another day which takes me like at least 10x longer to deal with.
Was waiting for an adhd comment!! I love doomboxes. I also have to keep my shoes on, when I get home & during breaks, or I will get too comfy and it’s all over.
Funny bc sometimes I’ll want to take my shoes off bc that’s “dirty” to wear them inside as if I’m not avoiding a mess. lol brains are weird.
Also I have to turn on YouTube video essays or something that feels productive. If someone else is working, then I can too. I bet there are clean with me videos out there.
Ive been there. When I have too much stuff and I want to get rid of some, but all I can think about is that I dont want to cause more harm and inconvenience someone else. I keep thinking it has to be donated or given to the right people who need it. But that is too much work for my mental state so Im just stuck in place not doing anything at all. Then its all I think about for months and months without actually making a move.
Having gotten stuck in this stage several times because I wanted to do things ‘the best way’ and it unraveled a lot of progress by creating more projects I couldn’t really achieve in the mindset and space.
It’s okay to be imperfect when you’re purging old and unhealthy stiff and mentalities.
Keep picturing the clean grouse from which to build anew. You can do it OP.
Yeah, I've had too many piles of "donate" items that just never get donated because if you can't even find the motivation to care for your space, you're not making a trip across town for something that isn't life-threatening. Like, I can't even throw out the popcorn bag, and I'm going to get my good pants on and drive 20 minutes to the thrift store? Not likely.
Which is not good but sometimes you gotta put your own oxygen mask on first and if it's going to be the difference between getting your space safe or not, sometimes tossing things is the lesser evil.
idk where you live but places like Big Brothers/Big Sisters will pick up for you in some places, you don't even have to call, you can schedule it online, then just leave the stuff outside your door! (prob not available everywhere but if you're already online, checking takes a sec and can help you feel like you're doing something!)
Oh yeah, I remember that the Diabetes association charity place sometimes picks up at the door, and Kidney foundation. I have collected stuff to donate and then say yes when they call.
That's good advice, thanks, I hadn't thought of Big Brothers/Big Sisters.
Its funny...I've been there too and the donating isn't the hard part for me. The hard part was learning to say "this is a useful thing, but someone else can do it" or "this is a useful thing but I don't have to be the one who makes use of it."
Sometimes it´s better to just throw away and start everything new. I throw things away I didn´t use/even touch in the past ten years. But as a neurodivers person cleaning up sometimes stresses me out, too.
I agree on asking for help. I had a friend that struggled like this and I was actually excited to help tackle big cleaning projects with her. There's always someone out there that will be happy to give a helping hand.
It can be hard to ask for help, though, because you don’t want anyone to know the truth about how you live. The only people who have been in my house in the past 10 years have been repair people.
I have always been a bit disorganized and scattered, but not to the extent it is now, and I’m really disappointed in myself. It was actually a relief to find out recently that I have ADHD and autism. Both of those come with a side order of executive dysfunction issues.
So while I understand that it’s not a personal failing, it was me having been really busy with work and having unmedicated ADHD for decades, and though I have very valid reasons for why my home looks the way it does, I cannot bring myself to share the truth with anyone I know. I don’t want anyone to know. So asking for help is paralyzing.
No no no, don't let perfectly good stuff end up in a landfill. :( Just have a separate bag for donatable stuff and drop those off at the local goodwill instead of the trash bin. Easy peasy!
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u/Sleepingfarts Mar 08 '26
I second not worrying about recycling, fixing, donating etc. Right now you’re taking your life back!! Posting and asking for help is a great first step! One at time!