Hopeless feeling. A tale of my mother's compulsive hoarding.

I grew up as an only child in a house with both of my parents. For my early childhood, we lived in a small house and I don't remember there being any hoarding issues. My father was an entrepeneur who became quite financially successful in the mid 90's and my mother was a stay at home mom.

When I turned 6 my father was able to move us into a much larger home in the county. Around this time, my mother became VERY interested in antique furniture restoration. She started frequenting garage sales, church bazaars, antiques markets, auctions, and thrift stores every weekend in search of damaged or worn out antiques which she intended to bring home, restore back into good condition, and then resell at a profit. It was an idea that made her feel useful... a profitable hobby.

It started slowly, but within a couple of years she was impulse buying far more damaged antiques than she could possibly restore, and since my father was supplying her with as much money as she needed and we had a big house with lots of room to fit the stuff, every weekend a handful of new items of varying sizes would enter the house. Only a small fraction of it would ever leave the house.

I was around 10 years old when I remember starting to become uncomfortable with how increasingly cluttered our house was becoming. I also started becoming aware of the negative impact that it was having on my parent's relationship. My mother had brought so much stuff into our house at this point that our garage, basement, and spare rooms were completely full wall to wall with excess stuff and our main living areas were being now affected so that we were having to move awkwardly around the junk that was everywhere.
My mother clearly knew deep inside that this was in some way shameful or bad because she stopped allowing us to have visitors at the house. She would come up with a number of excuses as to why nobody was allowed over but we knew the real reason was because she was embarrassed about the state of the house, which had become so cluttered that it could no longer be cleaned properly. When my father would attempt to voice the issue to her, she would become extremely defensive and aggressive and show an absolute unwillingness to acknowledge the issues that her compulsive collecting was having on our family.

My father is a very social and organized guy by nature. Living amidst all this stuff and not being able to have friends and family over combined with my mother's complete denial of her issue became increasingly frustrating and hopeless for him. Many serious arguments ensued and when I was 15 my father decided to file for divorce. My parents had a number of issues with their relationship but my mother's hoarding was a major factor in why their marriage ended.

The divorce resulted in my mother getting the house. I continued to live there with her for another 6 years.

My father's presence there over the years had at least allowed for some sort of order and quality control to the items my mother brought home. When he moved out, my mother's hoarding became out of control. Having less money to buy nicer things, she would mostly bring home really low end junk from garage sales, and would frequently bring in garbage that she would find thrown to the curb by people who live in the neighborhood. She filled her 5000 square foot house wall to wall (floor to ceiling in some rooms) with old plates, cups, broken lamps, empty cardboard boxes, broken furniture, people's old paint by number paintings, clothing, you name it. I've even seen her have a collection of some random person's long dead pet dog's teeth. I've seen her fill her fridge with long expired condiments from a moving neighbor's house. Her house has taken on an unpleasant odor because of all the junk. It is completely irrational how she becomes sentimental about all of these objects.

When confronted about the issue, she makes it sound like she's saving the world from waste by taking in people's old stuff (often actual garbage) with the intention of fixing it up some how, and then selling it or donating it all to people who will get good usage out of it. In reality, she is living in a house overflowing with junk absorbed from other people's houses, 95% of which she will never find another home for and it will sit there indefinitely in disorganized heaps until somebody (AKA me) goes in and forcibly takes it out and disposes of it.

This has been an extremely stressful and upsetting situation for me for most of my life. I'm 31 years old now and I've lived away for many years. She is turning 65 this year and her hoarding has only been getting more severe with age. Being inside of her house is very overwhelming for me. I've spent many months of my life cleaning, organizing, and throwing out thousands upon thousands of pounds (literal truck loads) of junk whenever possible, facing her shouting at me and raising hell every step of the way. Had I had not done this for her she literally would not be able to move around in her own house at all. Not once have I been acknowledged for my efforts and I've instead been repeatedly demonized for it, and the new junk keeps coming in.

She has been financially dependent on me until last year when a recently widdowed high school boyfriend of hers found her online. They are now in a relationship and he lives with her amongst her stuff. He has been a great sport and is trying to help organize but it's clearly an uphill battle and I can see it is weighing heavy on him. He has told me in confidence that he is planning on getting rid of most of it some how but I don't think he fully realizes what he is in for if he tries it. There is no coming between my mother and her mountains of junk. She will put it before all else. My fear is that he will leave her because of this like my father did and I will have to go back to being the one to completely support her when I am now starting a family of my own.

I wish I understood what it is that makes her be like this. It seems like it may be her way of dealing with some trauma that she experienced in life. She definitely gets some sense of security of having all this stuff around her. I don't understand it and it just makes me really sad at this point.

I am looking for advice on how to deal with this. Any help appreciated.

 

I've watched at least a dozen episodes of the TV show Hoarders over it's 13 season run and I can't think of a single episode that had a happy ending.

 

I've watched Hoarders also and sometimes some progress was made, but only when the professionals were brought in. I'd advise you to contact that show and see if what they can advise or provide would be helpful for you. It's interesting watching how hostile hoarders can get and the solutions that sometimes help them with their mental attitudes. But I'm sure not for you when you are dealing with a loved one that has the affliction. Good luck and I hope that you can find a reasonable solution.

 

It sounds like she needs some form of treatment, though I'm not sure how effective treatment for hoarding is.

You could research treatment methods online or ask a doctor. Possibly conventional medication, or something like traditional Chinese medicine might help (assuming she's willing to try treatment).

This link has some information about Chinese medicine:
Alternative Treatments for Physical and Mental Illness

 

Holy moly that is so rough. I think you're spot on about it being a response to some trauma she experienced because hoarding really is a form of mental illness. Something in her brain is being triggered into feeling sentimental about literal trash. Does she see any sort of therapist? It sounds like confronting her about her hoarding causes her to become defensive so it probably would be hard to get her to see a therapist if she isn't willing to admit she has a problem but if you could get her into therapy I feel like that would be the best thing for her. Someone who is trained to work through issues with people without triggering their emotional responses in the same way us regular people tend to. Just a thought. But regardless I wish you the best and hope your mother gets well.