Finding Initiative

After the Big Clean with my mom's help, I've been trying to at least maintain the most-used rooms in my apartment -- meaning the bathroom, living room, and my bedroom. Despite picking things up off of the floor in my bedroom, my dresser drawers were still bursting with clothes -- they wouldn't even close! I knew I had to go through them since I had all seasons of clothes in there and probably some things I would be able to give away/consign. So, the other night, when I actually didn't have any evening plans, I went home and did it. All the drawers were emptied one by one and piles were made on my bed: Keep, Donate, Consign, Seasonal. I had a lot of Keep. Granted, what I kept did not overflow my drawers, especially as I took a bulk of the 'seasonal' clothes and put them in the other room. I did have quite a few items to donate/consign, which was also a good thing. But clearing those drawers out wasn't too bad. Did I run across the brown cords my dad got me and the odd sleeved-thing my sister got me? Yes. But I put them into 'Consign' since they weren't my colors and I never really wore them. Brown cords are fine, but the shape wasn't that flattering to me...and the brown sleeve-thing was fun, but totally not my colors. But it wasn't really hard to get rid of them. That was kind of nice to realize. On Saturday, Beth came over to help me clean. She was prepared to do scrubbing and stuff, but I actually talked to her about what I was going through and being on the Hoarding spectrum and feeling ashamed, but since she was helping, I felt that she needed to know. She was actually pretty wonderful about it. She asked me a couple of questions but then said that I didn't need to be ashamed of anything with her. So that helped quite a bit. I managed to give her some of the clothes that I was going to get rid of as well as my old, yet perfectly workable DVD/VCR combo which was replaced by the Blu Ray player. She even took a bag of things to Goodwill...and far too late did I realize that a pair of shoes in that bag could have been consigned. Oh well. I guess the point is that someone should get them. She then helped me take out all the trash/recycling that was left in the Living Room and finish cleaning that out of all papers and crap under/behind the sofa. I finally called it quits after 2 1/2 hours. She then offered to come back and help me with the kitchen, saying that it wouldn't take that long at all. I hope she's right! But that part, again, wasn't so bad. I know I need to figure out what to do with the stuff in the spare room and get rid of things...like the computer desk and computer. I also need a place to get a new dresser for all my off-season clothes, but I bet if I clear out the plastic sets of drawers in my room and closet, I might have more room for things. I did end up getting some organizational tools from a Zulily sale and I hope that will help!