Trigger Warning?
FYI: Long post; not a native speaker & new to reddit.
Some background info:
My mother used to live with her parents in a 2-storied house in the countryside. Moved to an apartment in the city w/ my father when I was born. Later when I started school at somewhere else, we became "frequent flyers". Apartment was left empty during the commencement of school, and eventually got broken in. Nearly all the stuff were packed and sent back to my grandparents' house.
At some point my grandparents were relocated to an apartment. So nearly all the stuff, well, gets packed and sent to the new place. Only it was way smaller than a house.
My father took jobs that allowed him to get away. With every job he had, some stuff gets packed and sent back.
I hope you get the gist.
To start with, my mother was not an organized person. She had been a bit of a pack rat back when we lived at the apartment, but all the stuff were contained and the rooms was spacey.
As we started traveling to and fro, things had gotten out of control. The stuff had started to accumulate. The tiny rental apartment at where I went to school, was empty at first (of course). Seriously I don't remember how we've gotten here, but it's a level 8-9 in the living room now. I do not wish to take photos of this mess.
All the rooms are shared. I had grown up not knowing what it's like to own a room, a closet or a shoebox. Everything is shared. (As a side note, I still struggle to comprehend the meaning of privacy.)
I've had my fair share of trouble in school, too. I dropped out of high school, got into college by pure luck, and dropped out of it because of my mental condition.
Some time earlier, a friend of mine had led me to this term "hoarding". Certainly not a positive a-ha moment, but it opened up the sea of resources and this subreddit has been especially helpful. Hats off to all of you.
I was able to pick up the CoD book by Dr. Fugen Neziroglu at local library, but the read gets too painful and demanding at times I had to put it down. For days now I've been unable to pick it up again.
Guess it all boils down to this: There's no other way to do it. I've got to move out.
I've been recording my expenses for a while. With the minimum pay I'd still be able to feed myself and stay under a roof, that is if I could get a job in the first place.
The things which troubles me:
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My mother is most probably a secondary hoarder, i.e. the hoarding is one of the symptoms of another condition (if I had remembered right).
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At this point, genuinely I wish to cut the contact with any of my family members. But I see that they really love me, which saddens me a lot.
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As I've mentioned earlier, I don't have a room. If I leave now, all my stuff hidden and buried would be gone. It's not like I need all of that, but the thought of my mother preserving them, and not being able to at least discard stuff like the composition book from primary school gives me cringes.
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She's making progress. Yes, it's real slow; she's just realized buying less is better (but have turned to sweepstakes/prize draws instead) and there are 4 or 5 houses worth of stuff at two different spots right now, but she's making progress. It gives me pain to think what my leaving would do to her; what would it do to her progress? Could she even get worse?
So tired of repeating the "Just buy a new one, will you?" "I'm not buying another one!" conversations.
Lately I get angry over every little thing so easily.
Eating out costs a lot. Cooking is a pain. There's no refrigerator in the house, not since the old one broke.
And the hoard itself is visually overwhelming.
Sorry for the long post. I've cut off nearly every connection I have right now and needed to vent.
And this is the one place I feel safe enough to post about it.
EDIT: Format.
Submitted March 18, 2017 at 01:26AM by soberinj http://ift.tt/2nwdqb9 hoarding
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