Hoarding's scars

Hoarding's scars
My parent’s house is a disgrace. The floor is covered with trash and important papers. Furniture is covered with anything and everything, so they cannot be used for its intended purpose. The first check I got as a lawyer, I went out and bought them a dining room set that matched the sitting room set, both of which matched my mother’s dreams. I bought them a deep freezer, a refrigerator, a washing machine and a dryer. I honestly thought that having pretty things, they would clean and keep things up. However, my mom will not clean to save her life, and my dad had to work until he retired four years ago. We cannot sit in the table to eat together, and there are many times in which we have to push things aside to sit in the loveseat, sofa, and armchair.

I feel the need to clarify that I only mention my mother when I talk about hoarding, because my father is equally traumatized and scarred by my mom’s hoarding. However, for the sake of peace, he tries to say nothing and not confront my mom. I often wonder if this is the best way of action, and get mad that I was left to battle this alone.

I left my parents’ home to study my JD. I stay in it afterwards because I did not want to return to the hoarding, and I got a job away from home to have an excuse. My apartment was the total opposite of my mom's... I would get up every day to sweep and mop, and every weekend I would clean the complete 2-bedroom, 1bathroom. I felt happy breathing the clean air, being able to receive visits in my apartment... and to top it all, when my siblings came to visit to the area, they would stay with me instead of staying with my mom (a 45 minutes travel). They would tease me and call me "Captain Clean" or "the butterfly" (because I was in constant movement)... but I didn't mind because I felt so clean, so organized, and in turn, my brain was more organized and I felt much more efficient.

At first, I'd visit my parents every weekend...but since I was the last to leave, the house got much worse when I left to my apartment. Understanding that she was depressed and feeling the empty nest syndrome (we were 5 kids, plus the friends who "adopted my parents because beside the mess, they were very cool), I would take my weekends to help her clean. However, the next weekend, it would be the same or worse. It would frustrate me, as I felt that my efforts (while I was studying for my JD) were not appreciated. So I decided to stop visiting at all... anyway, when I left after a visit, I would feel down and overwhelmed... and the eternal question, "how can she live like that?," "how doesn't that bother her?" So they started visiting me and started hoarding my apartment and I had to lay down the law... which meant nothing to her. So after she left, I'd spend hours picking things up and had to put aside a space for the stuff she started to leave behind and I felt no right to throw away. After that, it was a constant battle.
Now I fell extremely sick (I need a transplant), and had to stop working. I needed to return to the hoarding, which increases the depression and frustration of losing everything. I try to make plans to clean, but since I can't really help physically in a meaningful way, she ignores everything. And it amazes me how the mess doesn't bother her... she is not like other hoarders who won't let people inside the house. Ooooh, no, she insists on them coming inside to see the last thing she acquired. It also surprises me, since one of my fondest memories from childhood was the spring cleanings: she would move all the furniture aside, and hose the walls down, and clean all the floors meticulously. I do not totally understand what changed. She always complained that my father’s mother rejected her because she was not a good housewife… but my grandma exaggerated with the cleaning, like I used to do; if she had seen the house now, she had died on the spot.

Now that I reminiscence, I recall that it was always a battle that got worse with the time. I remember me sending them to weekend retreats (I would pay for them), so my siblings and I would clean the entire house… however, it would return to “normal” in less than a week because she would take things out and never put them back where they belonged. Actually, she would get mad if she could not find things because we had put them in a different place. She would also get mad, and still does, because we doing the cleaning were “telling her that she was not doing it.” So, in her mind, we were supposed to live happily like we did. The feeling of rejection and disapproval were strong, and fact that you had spent three days cleaning and picking up after other people, received a “half kiss” as a reward, and then see her undoing everything was incredibly frustrating. Furthermore, in my house there is a room that has being designed as a “library,” because the walls are covered by books from the floor to the ceiling, and there are still piles of books on the floor. I have organized that room more times that I can remember, my subject, my author, cleaning each and every book- which covers the room from ceiling to bottom. It never lasts, and I already gave up on it.

My mom is crazy about crafts, and that has a great role in her hoarding. She chooses a hobby (i.e., sewing), so she acquires all she needs to sew (normal machine, machine for terminations, like 4 huge boxes of fabrics, buttons, etc), and when she has everything to start, she moves on to another craft (i.e., Scrapbooking). She has more than $5k in machines, adornments, charms, etc, to do great albums... but now she wants to do jewelry. Funny thing is that I both took a liking to Scrapbooking and jewelry, but she won't join me when I'm working on either... she always has an excuse.

The worst part is that I'm not eligible to a treatment that is suppose to increase my quality of life because the mess and dirt in the house. She knows it, but won't do anything about it. I don't desire this on anyone, trying to find the amazing parent who made your childhood awesome among mountains of stuff and unrealistic plans. I wish luck to all of you who are trying and will continue trying... and I wish that you come out with little bruises and scabs, and the whole process does not end a relationship that should last our whole lives.