Do you ever feel panic when it comes to parting with your things?

[clutterwarrior]

I round up bags and bags of stuff to go, then when I get around to it, I drive up to the charity bin or to St Vinnies, and have to take the bags from the boot.  I find that whenever I do this, I feel a last minute sense of panic that I am getting rid of something I shouldn't, and I often do a quick rummage through the bags, take a couple of things out of each, and then take the bags to the shop or bin.

The silly thing is that invariably when I get home and see my 'rescued' items in the boot, I wonder why I did it. I always think later that I didn't really need to keep these things.

I am not sure where this panic comes from...maybe just the fear of regretting what I am tossing...

[seawitch]

Yup. All the time. Luckily the fear is very fleeting, even though sometimes I have been known to take up to three occasions before I drop a particular item off. I don't like when an attendant tries to help, I like to be the one to take it up there myself. It makes me panic if they come rushing the car to get everything out, even though in my mind I know it was all set to go. Sometimes I will pull an item, but usually it goes right back into the next donate box. But in all the thousands of items I've donated over the years, I honestly can only remember three things that I regretted donating - and those were things we were moving and couldn't take with us. All the rest were just items I hesitated before giving away, and then had no second thought about once they were gone.

[sweetjasmine]

I do. Sometimes I will really look at something before I put it in the Goodwill box. Then I might change my mind and take it out. As I'm putting other items in the box I'll put it back in. Or keep it out and then it'll go in the next round. Yesterday dh and I took a large trash bag full of clothes and shoes and a small box containing vhs tapes and cds. I'm conscious that in the back of my mind some of the items may be a question mark but when we drop them off I put them out of my mind and drive off quickly. I think we develop a real emotional attachment to our stuff which can be unhealthy. But of course there are times when we think that perhaps we really could use such and such. I try not to get rid of my things impetuously so that I'm not sorry for it later although it has happened.

[skreader]

One thing we've found helpful for our son is to bundle stuff up and put it in  our storage shed for a while. Then, since no one misses it, or even remembers that much of what's in it, it's fairly easy to toss it.