I keep finding really nice gifts that my mother has been given by myself and assorted other people. Instead of displaying these things or actually using them, she buys junk from the dollar store or uses old broken things instead. When I call her out on it or excitedly tell her I found a nice thing for her to use, she actually gets upset with me and refuses to have anything to do with it. Sometimes she refuses to even acknowledge that I found the thing. I used to always tried to find a nice an appropriate gift for my mother, but starting this year I'm not even going to try. Whatever I buy her is just going to end up under a pile of junk, never even taken out of the bag.
...
I've been tasked with house siting for my parents and my dad asked me to discreetly get rid of as much of my mom's hoarded stuff as possible.
I'm working on that, having started with the assumption that everything is random and there's no rhyme or reason other than the fleeting thought of "I want that" and "I can't throw that away because I might need it later". However, I'm starting to notice a pattern of different collections. Of course nothing is grouped together at all, but throughout the house I found a few things that my mother just buys over and over and over. Dishtowels, shopping bags, small flashlights, travel brochures, animal figurines for other people who have already told her 1000 times they don't collect them, kitchen utensils, bowls, cookie tins, and useless scraps of fabric like torn place mats and towels that have already been cut to pieces. There's also a ton of partially used bathroom products of all varieties, like she can't remember there was a nearly full tube of toothpaste this morning, so she goes and buys another at the grocery store this afternoon.
On top of all of this, she does not clean anything. She makes a big show of doing laundry and dishes, but the state of their kitchen tells me the countertops have not been wiped down in years, the windows are a mess, and the refrigerator is full of unidentifiable and expired foods.
I need to understand, from the point of view of somebody who does the same thing, exactly what is going on?
Why is it supposedly a good idea to let your belongings get covered in spiderwebs, dirt, and dead bugs? Why is it comforting to have a refrigerator full of expired food and grime? Exactly what is so pleasant about walking around barefoot on floors with visible tufts of dog hair and dirt everywhere? And how is it even feasible to step into a shower with years of soap scum and mold?
I understand that to some extent this is the result of some kind of mental illness, but I'm also unfortunately becoming extremely angry with the situation. I don't know what happened, but I know my mother blames my dad for all of her problems and firmly believes that everybody around her should do what she wants. For the record, she hasn't had to have a job in decades and dad buys her anything she wants and takes her on long vacations every year. He just doesn't know what he did to deserve her attitude and actions. He will never admit it, but I know he is depressed about all of this.
She seems to find it very satisfying to hear my dad, my brother, or myself remark on how dirty and cluttered the house is. Up until a few weeks ago any mention of donating her extra stuff or simply recycling or throwing things away was met with hostility and a tirade about how we just want to throw her away and we probably just can't wait for her to die so that we can get rid of all of her things. She and I have had a few serious chat about the matter, but she can't seem to act like an adult for more than a few minutes at a time before she goes back to talking and silly voices and yelling at the squirrels outside. There is very's obviously something amiss upstairs, but nothing the family says or does seems to have any effect on her whatsoever. After the passing of Robin Williams she did agree to go see a therapist, but makes sure to tell me over and over that therapy doesn't work, she doesn't want to do it, and that she really wishes we would just leave her alone. The appointment is not until the end of October, so unfortunately she still has plenty of time to change her mind and cancel it. Another note, sometimes I feel like I'm the only person who has noticed that there's something wrong with her, and therefore I'm the only person shouldering the burden and taking any kind of action to try and convince her to get help. Everybody else humors her a little bit, but mostly stays as far away from her as possible.
It would be one thing if she were struggling or actively seeking help, but sometimes she seems to be actively trying to irritate us and push our buttons. As if we've done something terrible to her and she is seeking revenge. I have heard that hoarding is the ultimate form of passive aggressive behavior, but I just can't seem to figure out what it was that we did to her to make her want to engulf us in junk and dirt. Or, what on earth it would accomplish to do so.
She keeps telling me over and over that she loves me and she wants me to visit more and do things with her, but I just can't. I'm pretty much of the opinion that your mental illness is your own business and that's fine, but the moment that it starts affecting the people around you it is your obligation as a human being to do something about it, and she's basically doing the opposite of that.
And just to make everything even more weird, she swings back-and-forth all day long between thanking me for doing this big cleanup, and then going behind my back and pulling things out of the trash saying I'm a terrible person for throwing her good things away. The most recent good things I threw away? Unopened blank VHS tapes. We checked and no recycling company takes them, but she still wants to keep them just in case. We have sat her down and explained at great length why there's no reason to keep them, but it seems like she wants to keep them just to stress us out.
To conclude, I am extremely stressed out about what I'm doing at my parents house right now. If I had no guilt complex, I would be scrubbing this place from top to bottom and throwing out/donating tons of stuff. However, I am simply cleaning everything and putting it back where it was.
The only thing I'm doing is collecting all of the random broken bits and pieces, pens that no longer have ink, holiday candy from five years ago, and putting it all in a box in the middle of the kitchen table. The rest of the kitchen has been dusted and scrubbed and windexed and organized and looks fabulous.
But I just know that when my mom comes home from her vacation she's not going to care about all of the useful work I did, but she's going to see that box on the table and be overcome with rage.
I guess I'm just an asshole who is just as passive aggressive as she is. :(
Submitted October 02, 2014 at 03:22AM by erroneousneophyte http://ift.tt/1oBhtJ8 hoarding
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