Back in episode 127, I talked with the very wise Paige from @overcoming_overspending and here she's talking about indications that our spending and acquiring might be out of control.

Subscribe to the podcast here https://www.overcomecompulsivehoarding.co.uk/subscribe

#hoarding #hoardingdisorder #hoardingpodcast #mentalhealth #podcast

TL;DR: ADHD + relationship unhappiness + toxic work environment = 10 years of incredibly messy office

I have spent the last week (no, seriously; 30-50 hours) #cleaning my office in my house. It's liberating and lovely and empowering yadda yadda. Also it's a week I really could have spent doing something else.

When we moved to this house just over a decade ago my marriage was not doing great, but I didn't quite know why or what to do about it. I left a very satisfying professional situation across the country to move here, hoping for better schools for my very young daughter and better job opportunities for my wife. Also because she made it clear over the previous 8 years that she would be the Saddest Bi Girl In The World if she didn't live near her family. So I worked my ass off to get nearly any job near her family.

The #job I got turned out to be #toxic and nasty. #Bullying, retaliation, complete death of any possibility of a research career with any impact beyond my personal enjoyment, and about every three months a new revelation that someone I thought was trustworthy was actually secretly BFFs with a pretty awful work bully and/or was willing to throw me (or anyone, really) under any available bus if it might get them a couple of points. And #management are almost cartoonishly assholey.

Also, my wife got a very good job. My daughter got into much better schools than were available where we used to live. My marriage continued to drift in confusing and deeply painful ways, always away from the closeness or future I had once imagined, and my #career died a slow, petty death. But at least my family was doing OK.

And I started more or less #hoarding. I didn't meet the clinical definition, but it was bad. My acquisitiveness, fueled by #ADHD, is about supplies for crafts, construction projects, electronic projects, art pieces, and stuff like that. In our house my wife and I (at her insistence and continued insistence that everything between us was fine, etc.) slept in the same bed until last year. Not that anything was happening in said bed. She has had a girlfriend for about six years, now. Eventually I started looking and at some point (about three years ago) happened to meet someone I could never have dreamed might exist. It's really good.

My wife eventually (before the gf, thank heavens) started to talk to me about all the things she had avoided (no, avoided) for 15 years. The marriage got better--I mean we didn't get any more marriagey, but at least we were finally talking. It turns out she is maybe only very technically bi, and mostly just gay (wedding singer gif here). Meanwhile, my office in our house was difficult to even walk through, let alone use for any purpose. It was a fire hazard and probably other kinds of hazard, too (but not gross; no mold, food, etc.; just clutter).

Three summers ago I realized--finally admitted to myself--that my current job had killed my career. I will never have a significant research impact and I will also, perversely, never win teaching awards, both due to how my university is (mis)managed. So I said Fuck It and decided that, for the first time in over 25 years, I would actually stop working (unless I personally wanted to) during holidays and summers. In other words, I decided to stop doing the frankly ridiculous amount of unpaid labor I felt I needed to do until then. It was very liberating. I've had three completely lovely summers, now.

Last year, as we continued to discuss moseying casually toward divorce, my wife decided to start sleeping in her office on a pull-out couch. Honestly, it's been very satisfying. I didn't realize how much tension I held trying to sleep in the same bed for the past who-knows-how-many years.

About two weeks ago, after delaying for a semester or two (#academic life is dominated by the semester schedule) I finally bit the bullet and cleaned the office for the first time in about 8 years. Now it's a lovely little bedroom with an attached former closet with a 3D printer and small workbench (still working on the last part) . It's delightful. It's very livable. There are probably 30 large bins (and 10-20 small ones) full of stuff in the hallway, some of which will be repatriated to the bedroom but most will go outside in the garage or to Goodwill.

I think I have a very hard time seeing patterns in my own life. The quasi-hoarding started as it became apparent I had given up a big chunk of my life, career, and relationship possibilities for a nothingburger1 . I didn't do anything to reverse that trend until the situation finally reached an inflection point toward proactively finding satisfaction and control over my two most intensely miserable life issues (relationship & work... kind of big issues). TBF, that was partly by choice and partly due to circumstances I had little control over. Now I feel different, for the first time in a long time. I feel like I own my space, and like I want to make it livable, for me and also my lovely partner when she's in town. I did not feel this until very recently. I just felt... different. Worse. Now it's better. 🤷

Anyway, my office is clean for the first time in almost a decade.

1 As a marriage, my marriage... isn't. Arguably, it never was. I was pretty unhappy for almost two decades as I tried everything I knew how to make my marriage work the way I hoped it might (or anything reasonably close) and the way my wife continued to insist she wanted, as well. Yeah, she's gay, so as a marriage it pretty much blows. As a friendship it's pretty good--tons of baggage and highly mixed past experiences but solid. As a partnership raising a child it's good. We've always been a pretty good team. We're great roommates :/ But that's not a #marriage.

Good morning. 🌊🌊🌊

10 August 2025

Do you ever hesitate to throw something away because you might—just maybe—need it someday? I’ve got a bag of old cables tucked in the closet of my office. I haven’t rummaged through it in years. Mostly coax cables, I think. I still use a few of those for satellite TV, so they’re not entirely obsolete. There might be some CAT 5 cables in there too, though I should probably check. Then again, I hardly use CAT 5 anymore—except for the computer I’m typing on now, which is hardwired to the modem/router. Everything else in the house runs on Wi-Fi. So really, the bag just sits there, taking up space. Maybe it’s time to let it go. It’s not like I’m curating a museum of rare, vintage cables… or am I?

“My idea of cleaning is throwing everything into a drawer and hoping it never comes up again.” — Phyllis Diller

#morning #ocean #platform #cables #hoarding #birds #seabirds #photo #photography #photographer #photographylovers #wildlife #nature

Heh. Yeah, I'm this person. Multiple bags, labeled with sharpie, holding oodles of cables and adapters for every damn need that comes up. Cable's failed? Don't worry, I've got 15 more of that one! Need a longer one? What about this 8ft long one? Need an adapter to an adapter to an adapter to achieve hooking up some old thing to a new thing? Gots em. This is only one of like 3 piles I've got kicking around the house. I just cleaned this one up a bit.

#tech #cables #hoarding?

Bloke might have use for a charger he has been hoarding

He has been saving old chargers for decades - just in case. Finally he might have a chance to make use of one and justify his hoarding to his wife

#hoarding #MadeUpNews #satire

https://daily-twerk.com/general/bloke-might-have-use-for-a-charger-he-has-been-hoarding/

Bloke might have use for a charger he has been hoarding

He has been saving old chargers for decades – just in case. Finally he might have a chance to make use of one and justify his hoarding to his wife

https://daily-twerk.com/general/bloke-might-have-use-for-a-charger-he-has-been-hoarding/

#hoarding #MadeUpNews #satire

n the latest #podcast episode, Dr Jan Eppingstall and I talked about uncertainty - why is it so hard to deal with? And what's the connection with #HoardingDisorder?

Listen in your usual places!

#hoarding #hoardingdisorder #hoardingpodcast #mentalhealth #podcast #podcastersofinstagram #podcasting #podcasters #homeorganization #homeorganizing #clutterfree #clutter #declutter #declutteryourlife

discogs.com/seller/EvMustG…

tons of new stuff added

#noise #dead #classicrock #vinyl #cds #PortfolioDay #recordstoreday #rsd

#vinylrecords #cds #recordcollector
#7inchsingle #hoarding #discogs