Hi--Just spent days struggling to clean up even a tiny bit of mom's house--the excuses why nothing could be removed were the most bizarre yet--if it were written down (which I'd like to do) you'd think she was insane. Add to that a Strange Laundry Occurence (is she seriously going to claim a GHOST is using her washer? The Invisible Man? X Files Sewer Dwellers?) and I'm just fit to be tied. I know it has very little to do with LGBT issues, but thought I'd toss it out here to you collection of awesome folks, just in case.:bang:
yes, and yes. my family likes getting & keeping many different things, & rarely get rid of anything. also, my friend has a g-ma that hoards soooooooooooooo many useless junk. he's not alone, so does mine.
Doesn't it just make you go "HUH?" The excuses the hoarder will trot out to defend their possessions are so...bizarre. But repeating them back to display the madness doesn't seem to register to the hoarder, they just ignore it and come up with something even more outlandish. My mom topped it off finally this trip, when she went into full on Self-Righteous Recycling Mode, meaning every dirty q-tip, every old rubber band, every scrap of cardboard had to be examined, assessed, sorted, and properly contained before I could drive it to the recycle center to be thrown in a dumpster. This took her so long we ran out of time, but dont rush her!!! She's SAVING THE PLANET!!! I never did quite understand how burying first-edition, autographed books belonging to my late father under piles of ancient cat urine soaked newspapers, wads of pet hair, and dead bugs wasn't a problem--but when I tried to remove those boxes, suddenly she HAD to go onto eBay and painstakingly check unused Garfield the Cat Christmas cards from 1985 for potential resale value.
My parents aren't hoarders, but my grandpa was a major one. It's been a few years since he passed and we're still digging our way through his house. We've managed to clear out the middle and top floor and are on the basement now. The amount of crap he managed to store down there is incredible...
I hear you, Jonathon. She is just aware enough of the issue to say she doesn't want us to have to fight with her crazy hoarder house after she has died, but it doesn't really mean much since she still won't let a single thing go, and is in fact still buying off the internet, so the hoard is growing. Sigh.
If one of my parents were hoarders, I wouldn't be in their house. Especially seeing some of the homes on Hoarders (A&E). I don't understand nor care about the psychological reasons. Call me insensitive but there's no legitimate excuse in my book for a lot of the things that happen. One lady's toilet was so full of junk, she had to defecate in diapers. AND THEN STACKED THE OLD DIAPERS IN THE BATH TUB. Another was using a bucket as a toilet, and emptying it in her front yard.
Yes my Mom is one, I can't touch a thing and it's all crap she says she know were everything is some much clothing it would blow your mind!! She know she has a problem with it but that's as far as she has come with it. When I was a kid I couldn't have friend over sleepovers it was really embarrassing.
my mother's like that too....sort of. She throws away more often now...it's getting better. Before our house was a dog house....
I have been doing a lot of reading on the internet about hoarding--found a great site called Children Of Hoarders [COH Site] Awareness, Understanding, and Support ยป Children of Hoarders where you can at least find people who truly understand what it's like trying to deal with it. Spirithawk--you're right in that it makes no sense to you, but that is because you're not mentally ill. It doesn't make the behavior any easier to deal with, but there it is. It's one thing to want to refuse to be in their disgusting house, and something else to cut a parent our of your life, if other than the hoarding they are a decent person. Maybe my viewpoint has changed since I started dating another woman instead of a man. I dread the thought that my mother might refuse to be part of my life if she ever found out I was bisexual. Perhaps she dreads the idea that her daughter would cut her out of her life for being a hoarder. I don't know....What lengths we will go to for our families, what we will accept from them, what justifies cutting a family member out of your life....I think I'm on much thinner ice than I used to be.
