Guest easter lily Posted September 1, 2007 Share Posted September 1, 2007 My first post - here goes. I have two main problems. The first is my parents, long-term hoarders, increasingly frail, and may soon become housebound. They seem to accept the idea of some help, but the reality of whatever is offered is either not acceptable to them, for one reason or another, or someone comes and clears a space and it rapidly gets filled in again. Either way, things just get steadily worse. I think they also reject the idea of OCD hoarding and have avoided ever being in a position where a 'diagnosis' might be made. I've done a lot of reading on this and know this is a common reaction. So - how can I help them, before they drown? My second problem is that, having grown up in an environment that I consider disgusting, how can I deal with my own feelings, and be supportive to them in a way that doesn't cause more damage to myelf? Very hard when they're antagonistic or evasive. It would be so easy to just walk away and leave them to it. Does anyone here have any experience of this? Link to comment
Guest Deb Posted September 1, 2007 Share Posted September 1, 2007 Hi Easter lily, welcome! :original: Thats a couple of tough questions. It must be a very difficult situation for you all to be in. You mention that your parents are not against the idea of extra help, I was wondering if any kind of assessment had been performed perhaps by local authorities to identify where extra help may be needed or required? I'd have to hold my hands up and admit to knowing very little with regards to "hoarding". I am aware that it can be very difficult to tackle. Are both your parents happy with the way things are or is it a possibility that one parent is more accepting of the hoarding rather than contributing to it? I know you mention OCD and I wonder if that could be a diagnosis? I guess your parents would have to be in agreement to see a practitioner to find out the answer to that. I was wondering though if your parents "hoarding" is possibly more to do with the values often held by the older generation rather specific mental health symptoms. Of course only you are in the position of being aware how severe and problematic your parents behaviour is. Are there other members of your family that could support you in speaking to your parents about your concerns? It must be very difficult for you to be approaching this alone. Perhaps someone here with some experience can offer some helpful suggestions. Meanwhile, please take good care of yourself and try to find some time to relax and take care of your own needs to. Your health is also very important both for yourself and to enable you to be able to help support your parents. Take care & best wishes, Deb Link to comment
Guest obrien Posted September 7, 2007 Share Posted September 7, 2007 Hello! As I've mentioned on the forums before, my mother was a hoarder. She is dead now. I didn't realize she must have really been an OCD sufferer until I married my husband with contamination OCD and learned all about OCD. Now I know that I have been living with OCD sufferers my entire life!!! My mom kept newspapers. When my dad died, she had to move into a small, old trailer which she quickly filled with newspapers, eventually accumulating almost 10yrs worth of Washington Posts and the local weekly. If you know anything about the flimsy-ness of trailer floors...you know this was a weight hazard for sure! The papers lined the walls in stacks up to my knees and higher in places. She too was "drowning" like you said about your mom and dad. Then my mom got sick with ALS and it all went to pot even worse. You mentioned your parents were frail. I understand something about what you might be going through. My mom couldn't get a wheelchair down the hallway to the bathroom due to the newspapers taking up the width of the space. We asked her if we could remove the papers. She PICKED keeping the papers and actually crawling on her hands, dragging her body down the hall (sometimes ending up going in her pants if she was too slow), rather than allow us to remove her beloved papers so that her wheelchair would fit. Being a daughter in this situation, you feel so helpless. When she got frail, her newspapers became even more symbolic to her. She didn't want to accept her oncoming death. When we said that she'd never read all the papers, she got even more angry than ever and insisted that she wanted to keep the papers (as a way to keep the hope alive that she'd keep living long enough to read them all). It is so hard dealing with this as a daughter. In fact, it sucks. I know what you are talking about regarding them filling up the space AS SOON as it is emptied for them. When I was young, I used to clean up when my mom was gone from the house. It was sneaky. When she returned this one time, I remember her getting so mad and looking me right in the eye and smiling this wierd smile and saying, "Don't worry, give me an hour...I'll have it all right back where it was." I still live with guilt from my relationship w/her. I feel like I alternated constantly between just leaving my mom to her own defenses and trying to intervene very strongly, which always caused me to receive her anger. Because there were some spots where I "walked away," in my life, I feel like I abandoned her during times when she needed me. You mentioned this too. I can only say that it helps to talk to a therapist who can remind you that you are in fact a good daughter and that it is ok to take care of yourself and your own mental health needs. Also, if you are anything like me, you veer into the territory of having a "perfect" house--everything symetrically and clean and sparse. This is how I dealt with all those years of living in filth. The trouble is, in my quest to be Martha Stewart at a young age, I ended up valuing a "secure and clean" home over what really mattered. While other young adults were searching for their lives, I was playing Ms. Homemaker and ended up losing sense of my life. In fact, in college, my dorm room was freakishly neat and well decorated. It was the first time I had a space of my own that I could keep clean, and I just went overboard with it. I'm sure I came off like a big wierdo to others. I think these two issues (the guilt over "walking away," and now my own opposite neat tendendies) are the best advice I can pass along--just for you to watch out for these issues if they come up and be aware of them. I was not aware of them until much later. In fact, I've recently realized that, with my OCD husband, I probably am reenacting some of those unresolved issues with my mom regarding "saving her from herself." Sometimes you just have to give the responsibility up. You can only do so much. Just don't be hard on yourself. If you need to "walk away" for a period or longer, allow yourself to do so. Link to comment
Guest easter lily Posted November 18, 2007 Share Posted November 18, 2007 Thank you Deb and Obrien - it's a relief to feel that I'm not alone in this (having grown up with such a sense of shame). So much of your story rang true for me, Obrien. The really painful part is that they just can't see how much danger they are putting themselves in, and how many of the simple pleasures of life they are denying themselves. They hardly get to see their grandchildren, and they really don't seem to care. It's taken me a long while to get to this point, but I've fully accepted at last that my parents are the only people who can do anything about their situation, and no amount of persuading and cajoling from their grown up children will change anything - except, apparently, to make them all the more stubborn. So, if nothing will get better until they are ready to face up to things, I'm wondering what help there actually is out there (UK) for them to work through their issues? I've asked them to talk it over with the GP and ask to be referred to a specialist, counsellor, therapist, whatever's available, but I don't know yet what, if anything, has come of this. I know people whose lives have been turned around by AA and Al Anon, and there does seem to be a recognised national structure for these organisations. But what help is there for hoarders? Link to comment
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