That time we couldn't throw away a 20 yr old tank top

In this episode of "WTH ADHD," the Kelly and Leti discuss their struggles with clutter and sentimental attachment to items. Leti shares her method of consciously consuming clothes by not doing laundry for two weeks and deciding to keep only used items. She aims to purge 100 pieces but only manage to declutter 100 out of 3,000 items. Kelly emphasizes the importance of reducing clutter for mental clarity. They also discuss the emotional challenges of letting go of items, including a shared memory of losing a favorite skirt. The conversation highlights the need for a balanced approach to decluttering and the impact of ADHD on managing personal belongings.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Relationship with Clothes and ADHD
• 3:08 Challenges of Decluttering
• 4:35 Emotional Attachment to Clothes
• 9:22 Impact of ADHD on Clutter
• 18:51 Strategies for Managing Clutter
• 40:31 Understanding Different Perspectives on Clutter
• 48:11 Support and Encouragement
• 50:01 Final Thoughts and Future Plans

Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

Hey. Leti, yeah, Kelly, remember that time you couldn't throw away that tank top from 20,000 years ago? You Good morning, everybody. Morning. Good morning. Are you listening to this? Midnight? Good midnight. Good night. Good, good, no, good night's weird. That's because if we're in the air, good everything. Wake them up. Hi, welcome. Welcome to W th. ADHD, what the hell with clothes in ADHD, we were sitting here not really knowing what we're going to talk about today. And then, you know, a couple episodes back, we had talked about me getting, you know, that relationship with my closet sort of resolved, and starting to, you know, one that's starting to continue to like prune or whatnot to make it more virginal, purge, purge, which I do periodically, but this time, I really sat down and like I had in my planner for about a week, how many T shirts should I own question. I googled it to see what averages are. People have a lot of stuff. So I felt a little better about it. And then I thought about like, functionality. So what I did is I actually didn't do laundry for two weeks. And, well, I wasn't wearing anything dirty, though, because I have plenty. Oh, okay, they're not have to do laundry for two weeks, right? And what I decided that I was going to be really consciously consuming my clothes. And then when I wore it, once, I'd put it in the laundry basket because I'd worn it and enjoyed it, right? And then anything left over at that two week mark, then I would take out of the drawer and make decisions, okay? That's kind of how I approached it, okay? So I went ahead and did that, and decided that I get overwhelmed by that task all the time because there's so much, and then I get decision paralysis of where to even start, or I'll take everything out, because that's what you see on shows people do it. I have a lot of things. If I take everything out, I'll it will take me weeks. I'll just sleep on clothes, like, so I can't do that. It's not functional. I was like, Okay, how about just t shirts? You do one drawer, right? And then I took out all my T shirts and everything, and made decisions. And, like, not just t shirts, but T shirts, tank tops. And then when I had leftover, I was aiming for 100 pieces gone. So then when I didn't reach that number, I went into my closet and pulled like, you know, like a dress up sets, like work sets that I just haven't worn, that were really nice and whatever, and I just haven't worn them because they were facing backwards with their hanger for a year. And then I just pulled that until I got to 100 I have not made a dent in but it's okay. But that's the so much more okay. You haven't made a dent because you haven't gotten rid of that shit yet. It has nothing to do with that. No, you think it does? Yes, it does. What I mean is, visually, I haven't made a dent. It's still haven't gotten rid of the shit that you need to get rid of. It's not even, it's not even in my house. Where is it? It's gone. Where gone? Hi, Jedi, you know, I agree with you. This is highly upsetting. He's very upset about it, my dog. I feel like there's still so much more, and I still feel overwhelmed. Oh, there's obviously still so much more. Yeah, absolutely, because 100 pieces out of 3000 really isn't that much. Hey, I don't, I don't even know how much stuff, okay, but I'm just saying 100 out of 3000 isn't that much. So you're telling me you brought that stuff already to the goodwill? Yeah, you swear I do, yeah, because I had all this quarry stuff too from the previous thing. So everything's gone. It's not in your house. It's not in my house. Okay, good, yeah, because now you get to go do that all again and get pull another 100 pieces, not yet. Yeah, you can mourn whatever loss I've got going on right here. It's not like, it's not even like, mourn. I'm not but let's see what it actually is, because we discussed at the beginning of this. You have such a deep, deep, deep, deep relationship with fabric. Yes, clothes art, the beauty, the weave art, the pattern correct, the texture. That's literally how you were brought up, because your mother was is till this day a she. She is a fashion designer. She knows fashion up and down like the back of her hand. That's just, that's how she got through her life with you. Oh, yeah, absolutely you have a very deep, deep, deep, rooted feeling in clothes that I don't have because I literally had to save my babysitting money to be able to go buy a shirt, because my parents, you know, that's just wasn't, they didn't, well, they provided for us, but it wasn't clothes related. So I had to make my own money to get my own clothes. Well, my mom didn't make me clothes like I had to for prom. Yeah, prom, I went to my mom's clothing boutique, and she had two bags of, like these donated clothes that someone had, like, brought in that we like rifled through, like a week before prom, because my mom also has ADHD. So the planning went out, and we found in there, like this fuchsia and black, like tulip cut thing that I would have never really gotten, but it was the closest thing to something looking like a prom dress. And then that got altered for me to wear, and I pretty much hated it. And that that's so it's like that shoemakers, you know, shoes have holes in it kind of thing. So, because she was so busy doing that all the time, she wasn't, like, lovingly making me pieces, because she was earning her money, you know, so you gaining her respect clothes through that, watching her and sewing and, you know, cutting fabric, and the sound of cutting fabric, and my earliest memory, I was telling you, is like, like, like, putting my elbow on her industrial sewing machine and placing it my palm on my ear and listening to her so, because the engine of the machine sounded like an airplane, I would just like pretend, and then sort, she'd made me, like, sort buttons and whatever. And this is, like, I'm very young at this age, like, super small, and she had people who worked for her who had knitting machines that would knit fabric to make sweaters. And she dyed her own fabrics and started an incredible trend in the country for these like, you know, like pirate shirt looking things dyed with little dots that she hand painted on there. Like lot of you know, good memories, and then all those, all those memories went away because we left the country overnight, and I had a little tiny bag for two weeks supposed vacation. So I left everything behind. So all those things gone and I had no way to access them. So I held on to those memories really strongly. And then, you know, clothes were, you know, I had, what I had, we definitely didn't buy anything for next year and a half or whatever, maybe more. And then I don't know it was. It's a weird relationship for me. Clothes, clothes are tied with memories. So I was telling you, like, of all the things, I mean, several of those items. But in particular, there's one, like, where this tank top from whenever Madonna was on tour, and you know, that was the first time I had bought, like, really expensive tickets, and one with this great friend, and had this really awesome time. And you know that tank top, I pretty sure shrunk hard more, and it's hot pink with, like, like, what was the color when it's sparkly, not not glitter, but like, shiny, like, Madonna print. No, it's like, the like, tiny. Like, it's tiny, I don't know. Oh my god, yeah, glitter, not glitter. It's the other kind, when something's just shiny print. Oh my God, whatever. Yeah, that Well, anyways, and I certainly don't worry. But every time, you know, I'd open my drawer to, like, put clothes away that really love the memories there, and I got rid of it. I've moved that shirt like but you're traumatized by it, and I understand that you're questioning yourself and your your question. You're questioning your actions, not questioning my actions. I just miss it. Okay, that's not what you were saying before. You were having a hard time with it. I have a hard time with it because I miss it and I'm going to think about it for a really long time. I know it's the right decision, because I don't wear it and I need the space. So logically, I'm completely fine with what I did because I know I needed to, but I'm going to miss it for very, very long time, just like I missed my shirt from when I was three, because I remember it very, very well. I don't know, I get very attached to clothing and shoes and things like that. Yeah, I don't. I don't have that attachment. Definitely, there's, like, so many layers to that. Part of that is I change sizes so that. And, you know, I hold on to stuff for that size change. Or, you know, there's fabrics that I really like, how I feel in them. So, you know, hold on to that. Or I found this really awesome find that was a brand that was, you know, designer, and I'll hold on to that. I remember when I was, when do you have your 20 year class reunion? Yeah, 10 year? No, I think it must have been 10 years. So I was in my 20s. You have it 10 years after you graduate, 10 years, right? So I was, I had this skirt and shirt that were like my favorite it was like my favorite outfit, and I felt really cute in it, and I felt just really good in it. I'll never forget this. And I went to the 10 year reunion with friends, and the shirt was white, the skirt was black, and it was long, and it was just one of those really cute, flowy skirts back in the day, my friend's husband spilled red wine on my white shirt. No, like this was the cutest fucking shirt in the world. Okay, so he's all right on this white shirt. So I brought the white shirt and the skirt to the dry cleaners to get cleaned. I go to pick up, they lost my black skirt, no, and they couldn't clean my white shirt. I'd be like, let me back. Here it was. I looked through all your hangers well in my head, I was like, someone really liked that skirt and they wanted it at work there. Yeah, it was in my head, they literally had ADHD misplaced, probably, but it was devastating, yeah, and I still remember feeling devastated, like my favorite black skirt, and I couldn't get it again. I couldn't get it anywhere. No, that's the thing, like my favorite white shirt, but you know what I will and then I was like, Yeah, fuck it, yeah. But, like, it was, I guess I was meant to have something else. No, you were meant to have that, and you were parted from it without, like, Judas, it was, like, my favorite outfit, like, ever wore a little jean jacket over it, because the white shirt was was tight, and then the sleeves came and flared out so it flared out of the jacket. I mean, it was so fucking cute, and then this cute, nah, but I feel like you, you were kind of devastated about it, but it wasn't like, like, no, but I remember it that was a long time ago. But did it make you hold on to things a little bit more, or anything like that? No, yes, I felt like I was just gonna find another black skirt and white shirt that I'd like just as much. But that one, that one held the memory of the thing, no, but it's, I don't have it anymore, so I'm gonna have to find something else. But that new thing, one had, the memory of the old things in my met my my mind, my ADHD, shitty mind will It surprises me how much I hold on to in my whole life. Letty, that's the fucking thing I held on to. Yeah, 25 memory number at your 10 year million, that's all you remember. Yeah, no, very important. Nothing else. How did the reunion go? I don't know. At the skirt? Yeah, I don't even remember because it was, it was shocked from the red wine being spilled, and then it's a blur from there. Oh, man, man. I looked real cute. So I don't know, do you have, like, maybe it's just me, but do you have like, attachments to any items that you look at, or like things like that that you just kind of for me. If you look in our office, and you look at my side of the office where I hold all my shit, I'm still holding on to the that you like clutter of shame. Yeah. So I'm still holding on to the paintings that I painted when I was eight or nine years old. My mom, I think you should hold up to those for sure. Okay, yeah, that's what I'm holding on to. I have all those paintings. Let your kid throw it out. Yes, those are things she can decide if she wants to have or not. So I hold on to that, and I hold on to honestly, nothing except for pictures. How I don't know, just thinking about that, like made my chest tight to not hold on to things. Isn't that strange? And then I also have my daughters. I have a box of firsts. Oh, yeah, so I've done that for sure, so I've held the firsts. I have two boxes now that are first, and they kind of go all the way. I'm gonna have it go all the way through her senior year, and that's about it. Almost all the art I've kept from my I have definitely picked and choosed. Choosed, yeah, you choose. Did it? Choose to, did choose to, did to keep this. Stuff, some stuff. I kept some stuff. I didn't, because it would just be too much. No, I need another addict. Now, my husband, on the other hand, that's a that's a completely different. So how's their relationship with stuff? Horrible? How? So he has definitely horrible. It's horrible. He has French. It's different. Looks different. No, it's different. Oh, he has a difference. He has checkbooks from 2003 Sure. No, um, that makes no sense in life. Um, 20 years ago, you want to look back on when you wrote that check? No, three. No, I don't know. I'm trying to make excuses for doing really well, though. You know he's doing really well in because my husband is an avid color collector toys and toy. I mean Legos, I mean high end inbox. No, no, no, no. He has every fucking McDonald's toy from the end of time, those things are like, we've looked them up. No, they're not. No money, so shut up the Legos. Yes, all his little Ronald McDonald and Hamburglar, no 70s, but he has, like, old Disneyland maps in perfect condition thing from 1978 so we're going through everything to collect it and to go in the Disney Museum. No, but he we looked them up. They're worth a little bit of money now, but they're not. They're pretty pristine. There's a lot of them out there. When you start to look this stuff up and see how much they're worth. Because you think a 1978 Disneyland poster from Big Thunder Mountain that is no longer existing now that might be worth something. Why isn't it framed and like, for dollars, maybe you could get a lot of money. Why isn't it framed and like, on the wall? Because he just found we're going through everything right now we're literally archiving and inventorying his collection, because I can't have it in the garage anymore. Remember, we can't, I can't if there's so many boxes, he's made 20 boxes so far of all of his collection and inventoried it so that we can then go back and really, really look. He's got some really good old Lego stuff in my head. Letty, this is for my daughter's college education, and then his head. That's where it's going. But I think when the date comes, it's another story for your retirement. His record collection. Leti is awesome, and I love it awesome. And it's COVID. It's 1000s of records, my neighbors, three, 500 some odd and unreal. How awesome it is. Worth some money. That whole collection. Want to spin it every day, could be worth some serious money. I don't think we're gonna I'm No, let it go ever. I'm gonna let it when we need to move. No, we're retiring, and we can't bring all that. Yes, you can. You put them in boxes. Kelly, that's what movers are for. Someone will love them very much. I will hold on to them temporarily, toys. Someone's gonna love them very much. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I used to have a more need to save things I've lost that. How so, what happened? How did you do it? I don't know. I think I just realized, through this journey of ADHD, the clutter, I feel like the clutter is more of a problem than the sentimental value, because I feel like, you know, I have a nice little home, but I just feel like it's so cluttered. Yeah, and I've been working on getting rid of that clutter, which has been great, because we have, we've, we've got, gotten to the point where we have are, like, three weeks out, we have so much trash, we're three weeks out. Because there's so much trash on the side of the house that we can thrown away. We can't keep up with the pickups at nighttime, like just put it into people's trash cans when the day of trash day, that's what I do. Husband's thought process is to just order another trash can for a couple of months, and then we then put the trash can, take it out at night. Yeah. I mean, the cluttering is definitely what's been motivating me, because, you know, cuts into my creative sense, and it has that latent anxiety that runs through me that I don't really recognize, and it prevents me from being able to relax and, you know, do stuff because I don't have space to do things in, or that, I think that's a big motivation, because you're learning your space now is becoming more important to you, so that you have more of it. You have so much space. When you look at your house, there's so many. Space. There's so many rooms, and you're don't have a big house. And I'm not trying to say that at all, like my palace. No, we all we live in Nice, modest, 18 bedrooms, nice, modest, well, 1300 square feet, home bathrooms, right? Really? Just nice, good library. We need to be able to live in it. I live in it, buddy, I have a hard time walking in your house. Oh, my God. Why? Because there's so much stuff. But what do you mean? Yeah, I mean, like, books are important. I'm not. I'm not talking about books instruments. I'm not talking about instruments. There's like 18 instruments, inkwells. We collect inkwells. I like, I'm speechless. The inkwells are in their own little display case. My speech therapy stuff is hard. I think, you know, the pandemic when it came and we had to convert to telehealth, I feel like I had this, like, really good handle on my house, and then when that came because all those materials and everything had to be home, had to come home, and also had to be accessible on a daily basis, but not in an office space. So and I had to sit in some way where I could deliver that therapy and that ended up in the living room. And so, you know, I'm still like, once your living room became your office. Yeah, that was sitting room became your living room. Yes, okay, yes, your actual den, den became everything. Basically, like, everybody lives in there, yeah, everybody lives in there, all this stuff, yeah. So nowhere for, yeah. So I'm still kind of digging myself out of that and trying to figure out how to, you know, it's hard that one, that one's overwhelming, my suggestion, and this is what we don't work out of your house. No, what we did when we started with the garage is I made three trash bags for Claudio. And what's so funny is one trash bag, and I'm talking about those gigantic black trash bags. One was just for recycle bags. Okay, what exactly do you want me to put in there all the Ralphs, Trader Joe's, every free bag that you are is a reusable, recyclable bag. You know, when that whole thing happened, I said this bag is literally just for those reusable bags. It got filled up, by the way. What do you want me to put in them? Though I keep asking you, like, what do you want me to get rid of? Get rid of? We filled a trash bag of those bags, buddy. Listen, I had so many reusable bags. I filled a black trash bag of them. Do you hear like it was probably 600 bags? Because they're just little reusable bags. This is clearly highly upsetting for you. What the photo? What the fuck do you do with 600 reusable bags? You can strip them into plastic strips and weave a you're fucking nuts. So I had three trash bags. One was just for reusable bags, and it got filled up. And I have it here, and I can show you it. I believe you. You're so angry right now that your eyebrows are like, this is all he had to Oh, man. All we had to do before we did anything was that there was one trash bag and then there was one clothes back to donate to. So whatever, anything that was fabric related, because there's sleeping bags that went into there. There was like, like, suitcase bags. Okay, just take a breath. I'm getting so worked up I can't we're gonna have people like forwarding through this. Like, forward, forward, forward, like, skip, skip, skip. The fact of the matter is, the first thing he needed to do before he could do anything was get rid of the trash, well, the unnecessary stuff. I don't have trash. I have therapy materials. I have, you know, like, 20 board games. I have, you know, like, little I guarantees, like, I guarantee you, within your fucking 40 board games, there's probably three of the same, no, no repeats. Okay, there's probably missing pieces. Nope, I'm very, very like particular about that. No missing pieces. She kills me. People, no, it is an answer for everything. It's those are therapy things as they're sacramental. I take care of my therapy materials. Those should be in special places. Yes, that is, that is a fact. I need, I need an office. Yeah, you do, yeah, it's, it's, you know, working on it, trying to figure it out. You I need you to go through and try to figure out what is trash and what you know, you know, what I can get rid of. That's in the my garage is the bakery. I got rid of the bakery a long time. I got sugar flowers, dummy cakes, yeah, like, all those things that I can get rid of. And then definitely one wants them well, and that's what my thought has been. But they're only I walked into. Wants them actually, to be honest, they're packaged and beautiful. I mean, those don't, you know, I walked into a baker and asked them, like, do you guys need have, like, a need for, like, pans and equipment and things like that. And they're like, looking at me like, I'm from Mars. So I was like, All right, I would have been all over it, but that's because I always look at stuff and value them. So I don't know definitely I think you should, but it's in the garage. It's the name inside my home, trying to deal with the inside of my home. But I feel like you need to make room for some places. Yeah. I mean, I have cabinet put in there in, you know, take out of the home to put in the garage. If it's stuff that you really, really, really want to keep, then maybe it's time to take a dedicated space for them. True. True, true. I move finally, literally, we had board games everywhere, my room, daughter's room. I had them in one place. We had them everywhere. I finally, because I cleaned out that cabinet in the hallway, all of the board games are up top there, like them to finally, finally in one place. So that can't, haven't played one of them. But I have them in two places, because one is games that we would actually play with the family, and then the other one is really just the therapy, because they're younger games. Now, my puzzles are kind of all over the place. Those I need to consolidate. I don't know, you're just, you're really just you're you have a huge block I have, and I have large inventories of things, right? So, large inventory, large inventory of things, and see what you can do to scale it down. Kim Kardashian, and you know, we talk about the Kardashian, I'm gonna, just like, live in a portion of her house with my stuff. You could, but this is, like, in her garage next to her, like eight baby vehicles that are parked in their own parking zone. I had to laugh at her. You know, we always say Kardashians, more power to them. I think they're, they're, they're, they're moguls, they're whatever. The one thing that made me laugh was I and I watched the show 100% I watch it. She has storage units of archiving. She archives or stuff. Now she's she has star and has, like, huge pieces, like, if you told me you wanted to throw away one of your Dolce and Gabbana, I'd say, uh, no, you keep that shit right. That's just what I'm saying. So she has her archives of all her beautiful, beautiful, beautiful things, but she sent a museum one day, and she's trying to cut them down. And she's realizing a lot of the stuff she needs to cut down, cut down. And she went through Kanye, is her ex husband's storage units, and I guess she's like, he had 14 storage units. And I cut it down to three. How did she do that? You know how she did it? And you imagine what he kept, but you know how she did it? She was really mad at him. Yeah, I'm throwing this out. And you never looked at this, and she did. I remember when you wore this, you were looking at that other but she kept all the important pieces. Like, I will say this like, but this is what I need you to start doing. You need a certain decision for someone else that is so much easier than making decisions for yourself. You know, no, but you have to think she's not thinking. She's thinking. She's really putting thought into the pieces that are being kept so that those could be kept for whatever. So no there is like serious thought process that goes into there, whatever we have ADHD credit compounded by trauma, which makes this process 14 of kanyes storage units you can make three tracks of. Give me cash just from your living room. You know what? I don't have trash in my living room. I do know what trash about? What you think is when you talk about trash, I'm talking about stuff that you think you should keep that is not worth keeping. Like, what are you thinking trash gonna come into your house? I'm gonna go Letty. Do you need this fucking piece of paper from 2013 Yes, I need it because it says something for speech pathology. I'm gonna go, I'm gonna make a fucking scan of it, and you're gonna put it on your phone away. I have been scanning that that that's, that's what I'm gonna do. Our next I have been bowling, is gonna be after Kelly goes to letty's house and teaches her how to create trash out of what she doesn't think is trash. And I bet you, I will find you don't value it. You know, no one person's trash is another person's treasure, not a fucking piece of paper from 2013 that is not depends no data. Oh, it's 20 years old. You scan it, you put it in your shirt archive, and you throw it away, and then I won't remember it exists, because you know why I'm not coming across it physically not important, because it's not important. You didn't use it 10 years ago, and you're never going to use it now, but you have your scan just in case you remember, holy shit, Kelly, that paper she threw away had a word on it. That's right. Go back into your scans and find it. So you're saying, I have paper clutter. Is that what you're saying, Oh my God, you're you're hilarious. I have no idea what kind of clutter you have, because I haven't been in that living room in a very long time. Oh, well, you'll be pleasantly surprised. Okay, then let me into the guest room, sure. Let me into the upstairs room that's hidden, that has tar bites in it, and let me in there, sure. And let me get rid of that shit. Great. Oh, I'm gonna come over and get rid of tar bite stuff for you know, I would love that. Okay, actually, I actually would love that. Yeah, because, remember, we have like, eight boxes of pens. Does anyone know what tar bites is? No, it's our old bakery. We had a bakery that's been gone many years ago, but, like, we had a bakery. So I know you're, like, really, like, amped up about the, sorry, I didn't mean to be so amped up, and I apologize for being kind of No, it's okay, uppity, but, but I think what also happens, Kelly here, is you have a very different ADHD and focus than I do. You are correct, and what I'm experiencing with you right now is very typical in that I don't feel understood. Oh. I feel like, no, no, but it's, I want to put it out there, because I feel like a lot of people have this kind of experience, and it's your parents, it's your friends, it's it's your relatives coming into your home and telling you about how wrong and how horrible you are because you're clearly a child who's unable to clear their home and keep a normal adult human household. Now let me finish so I know you're nodding, but let me just talk about these emotions that come up when you're being told that what's wrong with you, because I can come in there, and I can just do it for you. And what happens often is people do come in because at one point you do feel like, oh my god, I clearly need help. There's something wrong with me. I can't do it. And then you go in and you help this person who has ADHD and has difficulty with this task. And what you're doing is you're taking away their agency to learn from this experience and to be able to understand the processes behind it. And so every time you clean up your child's room, every time you clean up a friend's room, they don't gain the skill of how to do it. So this skill, for me, is taking a really long time, but it is building, right? And so, you know, coming with a no, no, I'm not done yet, because I have a lot of feelings inside me right now that I do want to express, and I'm not managing any way. But I don't think you're mad at me at all, no, but I do want to at all. I do want to identify these feelings I'm experiencing so that when you our lovely listener are getting this experience, you know, what can you do? Because there's, there's two options, maybe three. One, I'm going to shut it down. I'm just going to agree with whatever they're saying, right? Because I'm feeling horrible and that that really, you know, horror of someone seeing your place as being a giant trash dump or whatnot, you know, makes you want to cry. I kind of want to cry right now, cry and, oh, you know, like, or you want to just be like, Okay, I'll just throw everything out, because then it's an all or nothing option, right? And that's not good either. But what's going to happen is this thing's going to happen again. You're going to end up in an accumulation state, and it's going to happen again. So I think a really slow and gentle approach, like just taking my T shirts versus, you know, everything that I look around and see, I almost didn't do it because I felt so overwhelmed, because I know this needs to be done, that needs to be done. So that executive function, component of one starting to sequencing and organizing these things in your head in a way that feels doable. Those are impaired and to you know, a lesser or greater degree in whatever area that might be for you, whether that's work or home or things like that. So, you know, how do you channel this? And I have to, at this point, you know, go back to my tools of giving myself a little self love and knowing that it's okay if someone doesn't understand, where are you coming from, what you're working through. Mm. And just kind of getting into a space where one you forgive the other individual for not Understanding you because they're your best friend, and this is not how they see the world. And then, you know, giving yourself a little bit of that space to to know that even though you've been working so hard and someone else sees your home as a trash dumpster that you have been making gains, and it's okay, and it's going to take a little time. So while I cry right now for a little bit because I'm acknowledging these feelings and not shoving them deep down inside like I normally do, I'm proud of I'm going to let you talk for a minute. Okay, I completely understand why you think I'm trashing you and trashing your house, not trashing me your house. I understand that my dumpster with seagulls flying over it and hamburgers you've created in your mind, piles over trash you created in your mind, from what I said, but I didn't actually say that at all. None of that came out of my mouth. I feel absolutely things are valid, not realistic. Oh, my God, valid fucking lutely. I totally understand that. What I want to say to you is I definitely can be harsh. In words, when I get worked up, I get that by your 600 trash bags or what kind of panics I don't know. It doesn't matter. Whatever. It doesn't matter. I can be harsh, but if you were to allow me to come into your house, what you would see, what I would do is not invalidate anything that's going on in your house. I would never invalidate one pieces of material. You mean that paper from 2013 Yes, but that's an actual fact. Is it not? Maybe depends on the paper. I don't know what you're talking about. That's the thing, right, right? It's I just because the paper is from 2003 I'm not telling you you're a fucking pig. No, that's not what I said, but I heard what you heard. That's what you heard. And I appreciate that, because I hear I'm a fucking pig all the time, and nobody has ever said That's me in my life. What I would do is come in there with you, if you wanted me to, and I would literally sit down with you, and we would discuss each piece of thing, and I would not too long like I'm already tired. I'm already tired from that, and we haven't even done it. Sounds exhausting, but I get I want to talk about it. Once it happened, it would get easier and easier, because it just takes the start. Now I don't think you're talking about it makes it easier. I understand that you're fighting me on all of this. Absolutely I feel it. You're gonna done this. No, I've done this, and it doesn't make it easier. Ultimately, I have to just put it into small increments and put it in front of me, which is what I've been doing with papers, is I take small increments of it and just go through it, but discussing in that stuff, because then I feel like there's room for me to make an excuse for the item or to explain or I feel like I need to explain myself with the item, and it puts me like in a defensive state. So I don't know. You can also go, what do you think? Kelly, no, because I know what you're going to think. Get rid of it. I don't need to ask. So why don't you attempt to start I happen, but I do it every day. You're right. You have been you have happened every day, every day you have been You're right. I feel like I just want to help you more, and that's just because I know it will help your overall overwhelmness. But it's a process, and it takes time you're ready. There's a balancing act there too, because if you do it too fast, when you're not ready for that much, then you're going to create this panic, and that panic can result in a refill of that space, Because I can't have empty cupboards, because having empty cupboards reminds me of not having food, right? So I fill my cupboards with things to the brim, and that makes me feel like I'm going to be okay and my kids are going to be okay if something happens. We have food right now, if I were to empty all my cupboards, right and just put in the two cans that are, you know, viable. And those things, I would look at it and go, Oh my God, I need to go shopping and fill it, versus slowly pairing it down so visually I can get accustomed to what feels like, not food scarcity. So same goes for a lot of those other things. So I've been working through them very slowly, so you can't, you know, like those purges I see on TV, like, you get rid of everything. Like that's terrifying to me. Now, I would like our listeners to tell me if they imagine my home with little aisles that you can walk through. Because I'm a hoarder, because that's what I feel like. It's not like I think, no, with bags and bags like overflowing bags of trash. I don't know. I don't know what people are thinking now, I feel like a horrible person. Oh, my God, hey. Well, then I know we're living into their imagination. They're embarrassed, okay, but you know what's so funny, so embarrassed? What's so funny is they're probably like relating so much, and they probably have the same fucking shit and the same piles. I got a pile over there, I got a pile over here, I got a pile over there. I got about 85 piles in the garage, because it's the garage is a you're calling them piles, and you called mine trash, because I I cleaned all, all of the actual trash I was in it, and there was a lot of trash. So you're saying I still have trash. You might, you might have stuff that's really easily to throw away, but you just can't see it, because you see all the good stuff that you're keeping, and then that stuff, I guess my thing is, you're calling it trash. And trash for me is like food scraps. And I guess trash for me is stuff that you don't need in your home anymore because you don't use it. When I say you, I mean a collective No, and I think define the term trash would be really important right now, maybe I need a tie, okay? Because trash for me is landfill like that. You donate to trash is 3000 reusable bags. Why do I have sure that's Trash? Trash to me, right? And I don't. I don't I don't have trash because I'm not going to throw it away. I'm actually going to give it away, because some people might be able to use all those bags. There's a lot of great bags, and they might not want to. Those should be recycled. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. So it's not trash, it's trash in my house, recycling is trash, and so I don't have jars and things hanging out that, right, recycled like, but I call, I was calling that trash. I was calling bags of clothes that were sitting in my garage. Trash is it? Because it's in a trash bag and it literally is just blocking my walkway. Okay? It's just, it's unusable. And it's interesting too, because I'm thinking about it like trash for me is also synonymous with charity. Oh, see, no, see, trash to me isn't dirty. Trash is dirty, like that apartment with like, food wrappers and pizza boxes on the floor and roaches everywhere. That's for me trash, because that I could pick up and throw out. That's Trash. Trash is something easily thrown out, right? But different, not on trash. So I need to use my words wisely, maybe with Claudia too. No, he's fine with that. You're trash. No, I wasn't saying your trash. I was just saying the trash that we have accumulate, accumulated. How about what's another word for that? Then I guess there. It's extra stuff that you don't need. Yeah, so all this extra stuff that we don't need, that we accumulated, we finally collected and realized it, and then got rid of it. And I think this is really, like, a very important thing to recognize too, because ADHD comes with that rejection, sensitivity, dysphoria, and you know, if you not you necessarily, but the collective, a neurotypical comes over to you and says, Your house is, you know, cluttered with trash. Like, that's what I'm thinking. I'm thinking there's like, cigarette butts and none of us smoke, and like newspapers from the 30s piled but I'm just saying like, because that is literally, literally trash, versus a loved item that you know could go somewhere else and it could be thrown out, and it could technically be trash can worthy, but not necessarily dirt and filth and trash, right? I think that you probably have stuff that is so donatable. Donatable because you keep such good care of your stuff that I do think that you probably have donatable stuff worthy for somebody else to use, because you haven't used it in a while. Okay, that's a really beautiful way of putting it. That's so much better comes. It comes in much better. Okay, like you are a fabulous collector. I am a collector, really beautiful things. The problem is you love to collect. So many things do, and that is the problem that maybe someone else would love some of your collection, and maybe they can't afford it, so you donate it, and then they get that collection at a really small price. If someone out there really loves to knit you. I have two beautiful bins of alpaca yarn, and I mean, all kinds, I feel like I know so many yarns that I really just haven't had the opportunity to explore deeper. Maybe I'll wait until I'm 90, and that's all I can do. And if you're interested, just say I'll take that off. I'll work it over lovingly with the 300 knitting needles. And see, I just, I see, that's the thing I know about you, is you have 300 knitting needles. You're literally one person. Well, my grandma didn't decide and have 300 let me tell you, do you want it to go somewhere where I know it's gonna get loved, like I do too, and I think that's part of the problem. I guess maybe we come up with an Etsy shop, or I can just take it to a senior citizen place, and they can probably give it to people actually are spending their time knitting. In California, we need sweaters. But here's the sweaters here. I realized this like the worst craft to pick up, because I made scarves. The other thing where everyone and no one warm. Here's the thing, you might have some really good yarn, and you could maybe just have like, you could get some, make some money and make a like. Here's a knitting thing for beginners and all the best yarn, or for intermediate or professionals, I have all this professional intermediate yarn. Isn't there, like, different types of yarn that's good and patterns that get difficult. Oh, what do I know? I thought it was alpacas, intermediate. Alpaca yarn intermediate. What's a professional, cheapest, beginners. Okay, maybe like, oh, oh, I don't know. Like, like, like, sloth yar. Now they give it up willingly, like you just collected from there where they're hanging. You put a cloth drop club you just gave them right there, all right, well, here, here, this is what we've learned separate that the moss that grows on their back from the yarn, and then you spin it, and then we spin it. This is what we've learned. Trash means different things, different things to different people. Be careful with your ADHD ers, and if someone has done that to you, ADHD er go ahead and let that person know in a question, What do you mean by trash? Maybe before you get all upset about it, I know that's really hard, but I guess I would just get upset about it. No, and, and that's fine. Buddy just went mad to occur on this episode of emotions because I said that, because I called her trash, basically. And then I just got really embarrassed and ashamed, right? That I saw that. I saw that, that shame, you know, is a huge part of, you know, our our need to mask and hide, that we've got it together. And then when someone like, even though you feel like you've been working so hard, someone like, says, like, No, you haven't, then you're just like, oh, fuck it up. I'm just gonna go eat well, I'm sorry if you felt that way, because that's definitely but I know I'm, like, harsh at the beginning, and I have like, these harsh tendencies. Oh, but I did too. It's, it's yeah, it's recognizing I feel like I know you are so much better than what you think you are, and it makes me mad, and I just want to scream at you. That's what it is, but I know that that's not how the process works. It's not helpful. Beat it out of you. I just want to beat you into submission. That's been done to me before, so and I didn't like it, but that was a whole different scenario, and I like it was very traumatic, but, yeah, wow. What a what a great episode. I think a little bit of a maybe well back you get to feel how Kelly's felt the last two episodes now, and you get to take that home, think about it for a while, and then we'll do that mindful reflection on this episode. No, I think I did okay, because I was able to actually not just identify that I was having emotions, and I wasn't trying to pretend that I was okay, and I wasn't trying to just not acknowledge them to myself or to you. I went ahead and let it out proud of you. Sure Now you sound just like I sound at the end of those episodes, but you'll feel you'll we'll reflect the next episode. I'll write another thing really fast that's completely illegible, and I'll reach to you, and I won't be able to read it. Okay, sounds good. Well, party people have trash in your home. Don't feel bad. It's fine. Ellie will do goals, get a friend to come in with a rake and dumpster, and you're fine. You'll be just fine. Tell us about your piles of trash so I feel better. Tell me about your relationship with your shoes and clothes or tchotchkes and send it in. So I can feel better about myself, and I will tell you to love those objects, and then thank you for listening to W th. ADHD, you this has been a high. It's me, ADHD production.