Hoarding

Hoarding is real. Stuff is real. Clinging onto things of this world is real. Hoarding is a mental illness. I watched as it took over my mother. I watched as it took over my grandmother. It makes me sad that these women, people that shared my blood got so caught up in the need not only for things, but to collect.

My grandmother and I last spoke nearly 25 years ago. I had not seen her in years and asked her if could come and visit her. She lived about an hour and a half a way most of my life. I had two children at the time and wanted her to meet them. As we spoke over the phone she told me that I could not come see her as if I saw her place, I would call health and human services on her. She lived with boxes up to the ceiling and a pathway through the boxes. I remember growing up my grandmother would always send my mother newspaper articles. I could only guess that some of these boxes housed some of those papers. I was not close with my grandmother. She was never a very friendly woman. She was not harsh, she just was not affectionate at all. She came down for holidays and seemed to more enjoy spending time with my mother than me. My mom and her would go to the veteran’s thrift store when they were together. It is what they did. I remember spending hours with them at these stores. Looking back, this fueled their hoarding.

It makes me sad that this woman, who raised my mom was this way. I know she couldn’t control it or change it. I never saw how or where she lived. She lived such a life of non emotion. Something she passed on to her daughter. Did the things make her happy? Was she ever really happy? Did she sit in her home and find joy in the things around her? I will never know. I will never know if she had peace in her heart or her soul. She could have. To live where you have to have a walkway. I will never understand.

It what drives me to keep minimal with everything I own. It somehow fuels me to be able to fit everything I own in my car and to limit it to two car fulls. To me, it is still too much. If I did not have furniture, it would all fit. But still, I have to have a bed to sleep on. I also have had to move 7 times in the last 3 years. Something I do not wish on anyone. The things I carry now, well it is much different than that first move almost three years ago.

My mother and her hoarding makes me really sad for her. We lived in this huge house during her marriage and then we moved to this small condo. She wanted to bring that great big lifestyle with her. It did not fit. It felt like the walls were caving in on me. That was how I spent a few years of my teenage time with her. Having a small room with all this furniture that was hers growing up. Green furniture, wall to wall furniture in my room. No room to really do anything. I had to have it. I did not have a choice. That bedroom I had was so small. It was fine at the time but I realize now that the furniture needed the space, not me. She had to keep her furniture from when she was a child. Wonder where it is now.

My mother was found dead among her things. Probably fell over something in her last minutes of life. I can not even imagine. What a sad state of affairs. My brothers had to scavage through her things, hoping to find her will or anything that would have been salvagable. Only to find, everything was covered in roaches and possibly other things. The mental illness of hoaring got her. It took over many years ago and robbed her of life. It robbed her of relationships and peace in her soul. I am not her. I can not even imagine. I am very aware that it runs in my family. I am very aware of it, as I lived in the middle of it for many years. Could not have people over as her fear of what they would say about the state of the house ruled her. It was beyond not being clean. It was filthy, unliveable, and just plain wrong. She needed help for this, sadly, she never got it.

My sincere hope is that she did have things around her that brought her joy. I hope she had that certain something that she would see or hold and it brought her joy. Things can sometimes fill the void of that lonliness, I can understand that. I hope she had that with something, anything she pocessed.

With the thoughts on this, I can only just look up and look at all my things and say I could walk away from it all if I needed to. I have no one to impress with my things. I have very little. I am very purposeful about it as I know the mental illness of hoarding creeps around me. Two generations and possibly more have struggled with it. I will not leave my children to that. I will not leave them to sort out my things or wonder why I chose things over them. I learned that years ago. I do not have much. What I have lies within my heart and it is all I can give. I am proud of what I have but really could walk away from all of it. I am very intentional about what I bring into my home. My space, my mind, my place. I have not inherited hoarding. May they be at peace.