Grew up in poverty and now I hoard and save stuff that I dont use

[StressedSlug]

I always save stuff I wish I could use, most of the time i save it until it expires or gets damaged and then I cant use it anyway but I dont want to throw it away because of guilt. I saved all my gift cards and never spent them and ended up losing them. I never redeemed several toyrs r us gift cards I got when I was little. I always save money and dont do anything with it. Whenever popele give me anything I dont use it and store it away. I now have to throw away a lot of nice food I was storing away because of a bug problem and it hurts that I didn't eat the nice food I had. things havent been scarce for me in over a decade but I still havent adjusted. I deprive myself and convince myself there is a better time to use things other than right now. It leads to so much waste, which is a mental nightmare for me and I probably dont even have to say why. It's so hard... I wish I could get better but it doesn't feel possible. Every time I'm confronted with my disordered way of living I convince myself I will change but I haven't been able to. I could have enjoyed so much in life but I refused to because of these internal arbitrary rules I put on myself that dont even work out in the long term because I even save stuff prone to spoilage. This feels different than traditional hoarding which I dont suffer from as much and have better control over. I have to throw so much stuff away and I am in anguish looking at all the healthy and delicious things I had that I didn't eat.

Being poor really messed with my head a lot. I try so hard to change but so far I haven't been able to. I feel so awful having to throw things away and it just feels like a cruel punishment that I might not even be able to learn from.

 

[may71]

I'm sorry this is happening.

Growing up in poverty can certainly have an effect on someone's psychology. I think hoarding can also be an aspect of someone's personality too.

I always save money and dont do anything with it.

Money is a relatively good thing to hoard because it doesn't go bad, and if you store it in investments or in interest bearing accounts, you can get more money from it. That aspect isn't necessarily maladjusted, but other things are.

I hope there will be a way for this to get better.

 

[LumberJack]

You too, huh? I grew up in what is not poverty, exactly, but the same effect ensued. It wasn't poverty because there was money, but my dad didn't spend any of it on his family. Eventually he took off and left my mom with nothing (deadbeat). Luckily we already knew how to survive with low cash flow, I guess. And now, I do the same thing as far as going without, without, without, until... I crack and go on a spending spree and buy things that are nice but not necessary. It's a similar pattern in other dimensions of life, too. Like I'm never done training sufficiently to go out and do the thing I was training for. I've not yet stockpiled enough coin in the RPG world to go take on the big boss, and don't ever beat the game but I lose eventually lose the memory chip that had the game saved with enough virtual currency to buy every weapons upgrade possible.

I saw a YT video that was (IMHO) very good and about a very similar problem to what you're describing. I'd have to go digging so lmk first if you want me to link it, but it is a real thing to feel like we always have to save stuff for later. But "later" never becomes "now." So at what point do we step out of the classroom and into the world of doing stuff? Surely if I just study a lil more, I'd be better off and then I will be ready to do the thing. Get stuck in that loop, tho - and we might never launch.

I was going to go into speculation about why we do these things to ourselves, but that doesn't matter. The only thing that we can change is what we to today. I've gotten down to the bottom of numerous, "why in tf do I do these things," questions and solving that mystery does nothing to move me forward. It seems like you are heaping a lot of criticism upon yourself. I might ask if that's helping you, and if not, would it be worth just trying out the idea that judging your past is entirely optional. If you want to do better going forward, it doesn't have to be undercut by regret with respect to the past. Just my $0.02

 

[StressedSlug]

You too, huh? I grew up in what is not poverty, exactly, but the same effect ensued. It wasn't poverty because there was money, but my dad didn't spend any of it on his family. Eventually he took off and left my mom with nothing (deadbeat). Luckily we already knew how to survive with low cash flow, I guess. And now, I do the same thing as far as going without, without, without, until... I crack and go on a spending spree and buy things that are nice but not necessary. It's a similar pattern in other dimensions of life, too. Like I'm never done training sufficiently to go out and do the thing I was training for. I've not yet stockpiled enough coin in the RPG world to go take on the big boss, and don't ever beat the game but I lose eventually lose the memory chip that had the game saved with enough virtual currency to buy every weapons upgrade possible.

I saw a YT video that was (IMHO) very good and about a very similar problem to what you're describing. I'd have to go digging so lmk first if you want me to link it, but it is a real thing to feel like we always have to save stuff for later. But "later" never becomes "now." So at what point do we step out of the classroom and into the world of doing stuff? Surely if I just study a lil more, I'd be better off and then I will be ready to do the thing. Get stuck in that loop, tho - and we might never launch.

I was going to go into speculation about why we do these things to ourselves, but that doesn't matter. The only thing that we can change is what we to today. I've gotten down to the bottom of numerous, "why in tf do I do these things," questions and solving that mystery does nothing to move me forward. It seems like you are heaping a lot of criticism upon yourself. I might ask if that's helping you, and if not, would it be worth just trying out the idea that judging your past is entirely optional. If you want to do better going forward, it doesn't have to be undercut by regret with respect to the past. Just my $0.02

dang, what you are saying sounds really similiar to what I'm dealing with, especially with how it appears in other parts of my life. The spending spree after being on "lockdown", which is that I call it. The video game thing as well.

I honesly don't feel overly crtitcal of myself in this case. It just brings me genuine emotional pain when I have to toss the stuff I collected because it's such a waste. I don't blame myself but I don;t know how to manage it either, so it still gets out of control and I have to deal with the outcome of that. I don't have the same ability to manage this like I do with other complsuive behaviors. If you have the time to find that link I would definitely appreciate it. But if you cant find it then it wont bother me. Alternatively if you know the name of the channel I'll look for it myself.

It's too far to say that I'm "glad" you relate, but no one else in my family really turned out with these kinds of issues despite being in similar circumstances. It's been hard to find people who relate. I couldn't find anything by just browsing the internet which is part of why I posted this thread

 

[3nufk1n.sheepies]

I was really overprotected as a teenager and wasn't allowed the internet. By adulthood I had very excessive screen time