Marriage Doesn't Spark Joy
Extreme Minimalism
In the name of minimalism, 42-year-old Naoki Numahata, from Tokyo, limited his 4-year-old daughter to just a handful of toys—a doll, some cars, a yo-yo and a spinning top. They also had just three sets of chopsticks in the house, and no couch.
Tossing (Almost All) Pants
A Redditor named Cetlas decluttered down to just two pairs of jeans and one pair of sweatpants, because other pants failed to "spark joy." "I just feel like I know what I want, and I won't settle until I find it," they wrote on a KonMari thread.
Obsessively Spartan
For Jemima Sonorryan, decluttering veered into a disorder: obsessive-compulsive spartanism. "There was a time when I would get so anxious about excess items I would hurry out to the recycling bin for just a few objects—even if it was nearly midnight," she wrote in Medium. "Neighbours would ask if I was off to a party. I'd have to undeceive them that no, erm, I was actually just taking my empty olive oil bottle and cardboard toilet-roll centre to the recycling bank, because I, um … couldn't sleep with them still under my roof."
Don't Keep, Throw Away
Similarly, Annabelle Charbit struggled with obsessive-compulsive spartanism, long before she knew what it was and long before Marie Kondo was a household name. Even after getting help, however, it still remains a struggled. "After years of treatment, "I would rather throw something out and buy it again than keep it," she told The Atlantic.
Decluttering Regret
Kate Washington's decluttering regrets are not necessarily extreme, but still came with unintended consequences. As she wrote in Ravishly, after her husband's surprise cancer diagnosis, the loss of simple familiar things—a red vest—added to her devastation. She wrote, "I had divested myself of the familiar just before I entered a season of my life when that was exactly what I needed."
Goodbye, Clothes
It took Maria Walley four days to realize she had maybe overdone it, decluttering her closet and reducing it by two-thirds. "It had only been a few days, and everything I wanted to wear was in the hamper," she told The Village Voice. "That's when I started thinking I went too far."
