Sometimes I still wonder if hoarding is really a mental illness. I mean I know it’s completely abnormal to live like this but I still have trouble realizing that my mother and grandmother are actually mentally ill.

But the truth is, ”Compulsive hoarding is a mental illness that may affect as many as 2 million people in the United States alone. ‘It’s not simply an issue of bad housekeeping, and the answer is not as simple as simply picking up your stuff,’ says Dr. David Tolin. ‘The person has a lot of psychological issues that are preventing them from doing that. And they need to overcome those issues before they can really make sustained progress.’” — Oprah article

That’s why even if I were to clean out this house for my mom, not only would she just fill it back up, but she wouldn’t be happy. Neither would my grandmother. They have a lot of problems that are not going to be magically cleared up along with their houses. It’s totally a real mental illness even though it’s hard for me to believe sometimes. There’s something wrong psychologically that I don’t have the power to change.

1 month ago · 0 notes

So yesterday I cleared off the bed so dad could finally get some rest and let his knee heal. Well what did I expect? Today mom got a total incapacitating headache and was in bed till 5pm. This happens every single time her house gets disrupted, either because she had to find something, or had to clean because people were coming over… she gets headaches at other times too, but they’re only this severe when her things are disrupted. She didn’t even have to DO anything! Just the knowledge that her daughter was messing around, piling things up close to the ceiling all around the bed, made her sick.

1 month ago · 0 notes

I’ve done it before and I’ll do it again… I cleared off my mom’s bed. But unlike other times, I couldn’t take anything outside the room because she’s trying desperately to keep the house “nice” for GRAMMA who comes over every day to antagonize us. So I just piled everything up to the ceiling all around the bed. I had to go in the bathroom once in awhile and just sit on the floor and cry. Cleaning out a little island of a bed like that and seeing just how much work that actually is, makes a person realize how totally hopeless this house and our lives really are.

All of this wasted time and energy because I wasn’t going to let my dad come home from knee surgery and sleep crooked on a couch. Can’t wait to watch the quick-sand fill up the bed again in a matter of weeks.

Just another example of mom’s indifference… she knows her husband is going to have surgery, and isn’t worried enough to clear off the bed herself? There are no limits to how much she doesn’t care. Nothing makes her wake up to this… nothing. But it’s not like she just goes on with her day in total denial either… she HATES her house and is always yelling about this and that, stubbing her toes on everything, hating the fact that she can’t find anything ever, wrestling with stuff underneath piles of crap… she’s completely miserable and yet she can’t do anything to fix it.

It’s really maddening to live here. I’m even used to it but it still makes me so mad. To just walk through a room you have to do high-hurdles, to find an outfit you have to sift through piles of unorganized, wrinkled clothes for like ten minutes, to get a frying pan out of the corner cupboard you have to pinch your finger, hit your head on the door, bruise your elbow on the hinge while you’re trying to loosen it from underneath all the other heavy pans that haven’t been used in forever… everything you do in this house takes so much time and so many unnecessary steps to do… and my mom puts up with all these little annoyances because apparently it’s easier than throwing things away.

1 month ago · 0 notes

…if it’s killing me or making me stronger.

I keep thinking there will be some kind of revelation in my life where everything finally falls into place, but I’m having my doubts. I know in my head all the right things: I don’t have to let mom’s hoarding define my life, I’m not responsible for her, I have to get out of here and move on with my own life, I’m being stifled living in this stupid environment… but that’s not enough, just to know those things. No one is going to say “You’ve won a new life with a beautiful organized house, a rewarding career, and friends who actually like you! You have 24 hours to claim it!” I have to be the kind of person to go out there and get that, but I honestly don’t know if I have the determination or the self confidence to actually live out my dreams. I keep reading all these inspiring quotes and crap, but it’s all in this out-of-reach dreamworld of who I want to be.

There are those who can overcome things, no matter what. Then there are those who just don’t know any better and get trampled by the world. Then there are people like me who know better, want a good life, know the steps to get there, but give up because they don’t see any point to it and figure they were never destined to have a good life in the first place.

I see total losers all around me and I just want to be the complete opposite of them. But I’m too impressionable, and being around losers is slowly turning me into one.

1 month ago · 0 notes

It doesn’t matter what I’m doing, how much I’m trying to concentrate on something, or even if I’m just trying to relax and enjoy some quiet time… Mom talks non-stop and it is incredibly tiring for me let alone her. I mean her brain must be just this constant stream of consciousness and it never turns off. It’s like ADHD out loud. I can only categorize this as another aspect of her hoarding. She has a mentally disorganized mind. She’ll bounce from one topic to the next, and it’s not just idle chatter… it’s anxiety-ridden chit-chat that drives me absolutely crazy. What she hasn’t done, what she should be doing, “Do you think we should do this? Do you think they would like that? What is this all about? Can you look this up for me?”, etc. etc. etc. Especially at night. When I’m trying to SLEEP ON A COUCH in the same room where she’s SLEEPING ON A CHAIR. She can’t settle down. And then when I can’t stand it after weeks and weeks of not saying anything, I’ll finally break down and nicely tell her to stop and just chill out.

“Oh I just can’t talk to anybody, can I? I’m done. I’ll stop bothering you with anything.” Then she clams up and starts crying or something.

I benefit from peace and quiet and I just don’t get that in this house. I have to have time to myself, time to be alone with my thoughts, and not constantly bombarded with this and that and random crap all the time.

I will get my peace and quiet in my eventual new home, but let me feel sorry for myself for a minute. All these years have gone by without a space to call my own. In my own house, I do not have one place to find a moment of peace and quiet and calm. Nowhere. That’s pathetic, not right, and looking back on what I’ve put up with, it makes me sick that I’ve missed out on the basic need to be alone in a quiet bedroom to read or just sit and think, or fall asleep in peace and quiet.

Oh God. Now she’s watching some TV show about depression. And asking me to go online for some recipe.

1 month ago · 0 notes