Looking back almost 5 years, what would I have done differently, knowing now I am much healthier and may not have needed to get rid of my whole house of stuff. Our family suffered from CIRS, a mold illness and started treatment for it nearly 5 years ago. I have written several articles concerning how we cleaned our household items, cars, clothes etc. As time has passed and have met others who regret giving away everything due to a CIRS diagnosis, I decided I’d write an article, hoping to remind others, there’s hope in healing and remind others they may not need to so ambitiously purge their life of precious memories.
Ultimately, most of what I got rid of, I don’t regret: lots of house decorations, kids toys and books and ultimately my furniture. I will note, we kept much of our wood furniture for several years and just cleaned it, post CIRS diagnosis. It’s sort of impractical and expensive getting all new furniture when you might end up moving into another moldy house. It happened to us.
I kept sentimental stuff like scrap books and baby stuff and just put them in plastic bins to save away. Most of our art I donated because it was too overwhelming at the time and too dusty. We downsized a lot to just make it easier to clean and manage everything including half our Christmas stuff and lots of the boys toys and book. The boys recall now, missing their “stuff”. I miss memories of Christmas stuff I now realize I could have cleaned. I miss our every day hand made furniture my husband and I made pre kids which we ultimately gave away.
On a positive note, less stuff has allowed us to live more simply with less clutter. In the last year and a half our family decided to become a full time rv family. We live in a Livin Lite CampLite 21 ft and love the change in mindset and freedom it has given us. More to come on this…
My recommendations:
1) Save what is meaningful, just put it away in plastic bins till you heal. Keep photos, scrapbooks, baby memories etc which you would regret throwing away.
2) Don’t think being sick is the end of life and you will never be able to enjoy your stuff again. I remember feeling that way. It’s only a period in time. You will get through your illness and you will be able to take out those bins you saved and look through them again.
3) Furniture, linens and clothes, appliances and kitchenware etc are often cleanable. Check out my other posts on these topics.
4) Scan books which you want to preserve using a scanning service. We have used https://1dollarscan.com/about.php
Ultimately, living more simply to focus on healing with less distractions really did help us heal. God’s blessings to you in your journey to healing…
My Kids Healing Journey from CIRS and Lyme 