the ghosts of special interests past

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My house has gotten completely out of control, between my being away at school so much, my husband's development of some "delayed-reaction" physical difficulties stemming from his near-fatal car wreck last August, and my rapidly-worsening depression and feelings of being completely overwhelmed while I am on winter break.

With his physical problems and my mental ones, we are unable to take care of the house and barely able to take care of ourselves and our two cats now. One can barely walk from room to room in our home since everything began to fall apart earlier this year.

I'm thinking that one thing I can do is maybe try to get rid of some of the remnants of past special interests that I am no longer interested in. I hate to let these things go when I think of the countless hours I spent slaving over a scrapbook of my then-favorite baseball player, or all the money I spent on gardening books or pro hockey jerseys or NASCAR memorabilia or band posters from when I was a teenager.

Is anyone else overwhelmed by stuff accumulated from old special interests? I have read some really good decluttering books, but of course they don't deal with the intensity of the emotional investment of an Aspie obsessions vs. NT outdated hobbies.

I would welcome any advice. Anything that can get me out of bed and get moving again would be awesome. Way too many major bad things have happened in the past several months, with zero time to process one before the next happened and now that I am on break, I am falling apart. I am also afraid that my husband is going to need more surgery (he can barely get dressed in the morning at this point).

Sorry about this post rambling around so much. I just think that maybe if I can get moving on dejunking the house, at least I can feel like I have control over a little piece of my life.

Thanks in advance for any help anyone can give.

My special interests go in a cycle, or rather - I never know when they'll resurface again, so I don't through anything out. In the basement with it, I say

My house burned down recently, along with my collection of over 30'000 Magic: The Gathering cards that I had accumulated over more then ten years. It didn't take me long to just not miss them anymore, it's all just stuff. Maybe you can find someone else to sell some of your collectables to and ease some of your financial concerns as well. Hope things get better.

I am so very sorry to hear about your house fire. My best friend went through that in March of 2008. She and her husband weren't injured, but they lost everything, plus some of their cats didn't make it. There is absolutely nothing, no pictures, movies, first-person accounts, or anything else that can fully convey the magnitude of actually physically standing in the remains of a burned-out house (it was deemed safe to enter later on and try to salvage what we could--most of the damage was from heavy smoke). I will never forget the moment I first walked in after the fire.

That is another reason I'm trying to pull myself out of bed and get rid of stuff. A lot of what I have is paper...and paper, of course, burns very easily.

It's easier to get rid of things associated with older special interests if you simply bought them, rather than making them. Things that you bought can be bought again (ebay, remember?); things that you made, not so much. Books can be given away or thrown away because the information is in your head now. Collections... well, yes; those are difficult. But even those can be boxed up and put in a storage room. Not many collections actually take up a huge amount of space if they are packed tightly into storage boxes. When I was a teen, for example, I had a special interest in astronomy. I have two books from that time still with me (both books of star charts); the rest have been passed on to my littlest sister or to the library book sales. I no longer have my telescope because I could easily buy another if I happened to want one. The information, on the other hand, still waits in my head ready to be accessed whenever I like.

Ask yourself whether you could buy the item again if you really wanted it. If the answer's yes, and you haven't used it in a year, then toss, donate, or give away. Actually if you have trouble with decision-making and know how to do a flowchart, you could make yourself a flowchart to decide what to toss.

Did any of the books on de-cluttering appeal to you? I would say if so, then follow their suggestions as much as you can. I liked the book by Karen Kingston. Here's a link:
http://www.amazon.com/Clear-Your-Clutte ... 0767903595

I don't know how you feel about Feng Shui, but even if you aren't keen on it, she has some really good advice about simply getting started with sorting and clearing out stuff, and then going on from there.

If you can do it, you will be amazed at how free and clear you will feel afterward. Good luck!

My bedroom is nice, tidy, and neat - But beneath my bed is lurking my old interests, papers and papers of information that will never be used again. Just a mess under there.

Its funny how I attached to them I am... From day to day I find myself thinking "What will happen to my papers if I suddenly die?"

I've had the same obsessions since childhood but then my obsession is zoology which is a wide concept. I've NEVER lost intrest in meerkats (my main special intrest today) and Lion King since I first discovered them in mid 1994 and think I will take my special intrest in them to the grave. I feel quilty when I think I am getting a new special intrest outside the feild of zoology because I feel I am negelecting meerkats and Lion King. When I discovered the movie Titan A.E. was becoming a new one I felt horrible because I felt Lion King was being negelected. My mom had always used the term "putting on a shelf" for learning how to deal with special obsessions. I think I may be able to put Titan A.E. "on a shelf" or I am simply loosing intrest in it. I developed a special intrest in lizards because of it (one of the characters is an anthropromorphic lizard voiced by the same dude who does Timon the meerkat in The Lion King) for some reason I HAD to have a lizard of my own. I convinced my parents to let me have a bearded dragon and now I have my Pippin (I almost named her after the one in the movie but thought she would like her own idenity). Ever since I got Pippin I've really had no desire to watch Titan A.E.. Maybe I've just "put it on a shelf" because it's still there. I rememember being obsessed with the cartoon Tiny Toon Adventures as young as four. It was all I talked ot thought about until I discovered Lion King. I didn't understand the jokes or pop culture refrences, I just liked the little animals in it. I NEVER liked slapstick humor. I never realy had the desire to see Tiny Toons after I was old enough to understand the jokes, it was actualy kinda boring. Maybe that's the one special intrest that got "thrown in the trash".

Suggestions...

Do you have a spare room in your house or an area thats not used much? I call mine the art room - maybe you'd like a hobby room... this is where all the spare bits and toys go (yes i'm 41 but i still have toys) - pop some empty boxes in it... tidy this room last

once you've decided which space the junk goes in decide next which room is most important to you - choose one area in your favourite room and go hard - strip out everything that dosent belong or dosent have a use in that space - make it a small area and stop when you've done just that bit - like a bookshelf or a desk or bench or set of drawers - sort everything in it - and move all spare stuff to the hobby space - chuck out anything useless...

Dont take on the whole house at once - or even a whole room - just tick along a small area or 2 a day...

After a while the art room/hobby room/junk corner can be shuffled about a bit so that you get piles of similar things in the boxes - all the paints over here, all the books over there kinda thing...

For stuff that you come across thats still useful - but you're not sure you want to chuck or sell - and not sure you want to keep it either - i put a box just inside my door with a "free to a good home" sign on it - and pop stuff in that i think someone might want - if it finds a good home all well and good, i know where it went - else its still in the box if i want it back later

After a while (a year or so if you're as bad at the motivation thing as i am) - when the problem of stuff everywhere has been condensed to a very messy room with lots in it - you can pull out the random boxes and sort through them - one type of stuff at a time - eg pull out the books and sort them and work out how much room they need and how accessible they need to be - if some should be on a bookshelf and some can be stored in boxes in the corner - put all the stuff that needs to be easy to get at on one side of your space and pack the other stuff neatly into boxes (that are about the right size for that type of stuff) and stack the boxes neatly on the other side...

Eventually you're left with a pile of stuff you really want - then you can look at things like second hand bookshelves or drawers to organise these into....

Long and involved process i know - but after going through everything 2 or 3 times you soon get to see whats important to you and whats for storage or giveaways....

As to the day to day stuff - like vacuuming (geez did i even spell that right?) and dusting - keeping on top of that is way beyond me - the only advice i have there is get a cleaner if you can - i cant afford mine anymore so i'm starting to trip over things too - apart from in my recently tidied small areas that migrate round the house on a more or less yearly basis by the time i get back to the start

*sighs* it was ever so lovely having a cleaner come once a week - saved so many silly arguments with myself - i really miss that

Anyway - hope thats helpful to get started on sorting out that ever so important "stuff" we all seem to become attached to...

For the special interests of bygone days that involved a lot of unused supplies, I find it hard to just throw away perfectly good stuff. I feel much better knowing it is going to a good home where someone will use it. Freecycle is the best place I've found for this kind of thing. I feel good at de-cluttering and helping someone else with their special interest.

go on that TV show Hoarders

A spiritual awakening topic

My special interest(s) rarely include objects, except for books, most borrowed from the library. I let the local book depository "hold" my interest.

Collections are priceless, and have a special place in heart and home. If a person is no longer into that interest, perhaps the memorabilia could be donated/sold to someone who is currently absorbed in that interest.

Sorry about the poor cats. They tend to hide when there is fire.

Wow, thanks for the TONS of good advice! The replies to my post also gave me the push I needed to start moving again. While I am not feeling anywhere near 100%, at least I am functional, and I have made some progress as far as the house goes.

Thanks again for all the help!

I'm glad for you. Keep us posted! Let us know how you manage!