Re: Hoarding

[Guest guest]

Hi Doug,

I'm new to this group but I also have been watching those shows on A and E and

it brings back memories of my nada doing this as I grew up. She's getting worse

now and the hoarding stands out to me. My father her stb-ex said she is even

having a hard time deleting texts and is mad that its slowing down her phone.

>I ve watched the show Hoarders some, and it brought flashbacks. Nada

>was an extreme hoarder. Her sister is as well. Grandmother was to a

>lesser extent.

>

>They hoard everything, magazines, newspapers, 30 copies of the same

>junky trinket. And with nada, as I found when I tried to help or clean,

>their attachment to the STUFF was greater than their love of a mere KO.

>

>This was a piece of the whole picture I had not concentrated on

>before, but it colored everything else. Manuevering around boxes and

>filth was so much the norm as I grew up.

>

>Am I alone? Or did other nadas put you guys through this as well?

>

>Doug

>

>

[Guest guest]

I love that show..everytime I watch it ,,,it makes me want to clean! LOL

My mother is definitely a hoarder...I didn't know that's what it was I just

thought she was a bit weird at first. She is a super clean and organized

hoarder. every surface if full of nicknack's...the whole fridge is full of

puffy vinyl stickers from the 80s..(remember those with the sponge

inside)..every inch!!! some on the tiles in the bathroom too. The walls

are covered with stuff. 3 bed room full to the top with racks and racks for

cloths and shelves with shoes. She has life size dolls of ornate Easter

bunny...Santa...Fairy's ..Princesses..in the house all year long. Big

stuffed tigers..sheep's. She has big ugly clowns too

At one point her boyfriend's daughter came up from Florida and stayed with

her. She has an 11 year old boy who cried because he was scared to sleep

with all those dolls..and she would not move them from the room...she

refused.

I once asked if I could borrow One of the 3 TVs she has in the house,,just

until I could save the money to get one I asked for the oldest one which

was then 8 years old..she said no..because she needed it to keep her stuff

on..

Stefanie

>

>

> I ve watched the show Hoarders some, and it brought flashbacks. Nada

> was an extreme hoarder. Her sister is as well. Grandmother was to a

> lesser extent.

>

> They hoard everything, magazines, newspapers, 30 copies of the same

> junky trinket. And with nada, as I found when I tried to help or clean,

> their attachment to the STUFF was greater than their love of a mere KO.

>

> This was a piece of the whole picture I had not concentrated on

> before, but it colored everything else. Manuevering around boxes and

> filth was so much the norm as I grew up.

>

> Am I alone? Or did other nadas put you guys through this as well?

>

> Doug

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

what about sticky notes all over the place. My NADA use to be notes on the doors

saying " shut the door " " close the lid on the washer the kiddy could get in!!!!! "

common sense things but sure enough there was a note so you had no excuses...

>

> >

> >

> > I ve watched the show Hoarders some, and it brought flashbacks. Nada

> > was an extreme hoarder. Her sister is as well. Grandmother was to a

> > lesser extent.

> >

> > They hoard everything, magazines, newspapers, 30 copies of the same

> > junky trinket. And with nada, as I found when I tried to help or clean,

> > their attachment to the STUFF was greater than their love of a mere KO.

> >

> > This was a piece of the whole picture I had not concentrated on

> > before, but it colored everything else. Manuevering around boxes and

> > filth was so much the norm as I grew up.

> >

> > Am I alone? Or did other nadas put you guys through this as well?

> >

> > Doug

> >

> >

> >

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

I just watched " Hoarders " for the first time last week (I don't have " broadcast "

TV anymore; the show recently became available on NetFlicks) and was amazed

again at this disordered behavior. I'm so, so sorry you had to grow up in such

horrific conditions, Doug. No child should have to endure that kind of

mistreatment.

I have known several individuals in my life who are hoarders, including my own

nada. But hers is an unusual (and oddly humorous) version. My nada is also an

obsessive-compulsive clean freak and uber-organizer. Her huge collections of

" stuff " are all neatly organized and labeled and carefully stored in clear

plastic containers!

But the Hoarders who are also filthy, it was really shocking. The woman who

wouldn't get rid of rotting, decaying food (and ate it!) and the woman with dead

cat carcasses littering her home/garage/yard were particularly shocking.

The theme that cropped up over and over again is that the hoarded objects or

animals took the place of human connectedness for the Hoarder.

One woman said to her daughter, " You're not here every day, my stuff is always

here with me. " So it would seem that the massive piles of stuff are a kind of

fortress they're building to protect themselves from abandonment. Their stuff

won't leave them, and the more stuff they have surrounding them, the safer they

feel, it would seem. I was particularly awestruck that one woman was in danger

of losing her small children to Child Protective Services, and yet she was still

resisting the efforts of the people who had arrived to help her clean out her

place that was so filthy that mice had moved into the piles of accumulated

garbage and there were mouse feces everywhere. It was actually hard for her to

choose between keeping a piece of junk, or getting her kids back. Wow.

Its amazing: the objectifying of real human beings, combined with endowing

inanimate objects with human connectedness. Underlying it all seems to be a

need to control something or someone utterly. This is MINE, and you can't take

it away from me! Truly, both hoarding and personality disorders are severe

mental illnesses.

-Annie

>

> I ve watched the show Hoarders some, and it brought flashbacks. Nada

> was an extreme hoarder. Her sister is as well. Grandmother was to a

> lesser extent.

>

> They hoard everything, magazines, newspapers, 30 copies of the same

> junky trinket. And with nada, as I found when I tried to help or clean,

> their attachment to the STUFF was greater than their love of a mere KO.

>

> This was a piece of the whole picture I had not concentrated on

> before, but it colored everything else. Manuevering around boxes and

> filth was so much the norm as I grew up.

>

> Am I alone? Or did other nadas put you guys through this as well?

>

> Doug

>

[Guest guest]

Woah, yeah. My grandma and mother were both marked by the Depression, I'm sure

- so I could understand them wanting to hold on to useful items. HOWEVER -

after a lifetime of being uber-clean and neat, " house-proud " as it's called here

- and keeping the extra Tupperware and canning jars tucked away in the cabinets

for future emergencies - when my mom started to go downhill, emotionally, the

hoarding became evident. When she had the money to pay for big houses or

2-suite apartments, it wasn't so obvious. But she's had to move to smaller

places over the years, and refuses to clear out the extra sets of dishes or sell

the partial sets of fine china. It's now to the point that her apartment looks

almost as bad as the homes on the TV show. The home health aide can't arrange

for a physical therapist to come in, because there's no room to do therapy in

Nada's living room. There's room to sit in Nada's one recliner. Every other

chair or sofa is piled with junk, so anyone who visits her has to stand up the

whole time. While she struggles to pay her bills, she hangs on to things that

could be sold on Ebay to defray her expenses. When she is hospitalized and I

have to go to her place to pick up clothes, I mop and sweep the narrow path

through the living room to the kitchen, pick up the moldy dog food dishes, take

out the overflowing trash cans.

In the face of all her many physical and mental problems, I think this is the

issue that's finally going to get the attention of her doctors, psychiatrist,

and whatever governmental authorities will finally step in to declare her

incompetent. She has so much crap - QVC boxes of useless gizmo's, duplicate

sets of kitchen gadgets, gewgaws that might have amused one of her grandchildren

- fifteen years ago - that she can't find her bills and insurance forms to pay

them or file paperwork to keep the benefits coming. And the aides and doctors

want me to go up there and " help " - until I explain that I have done this. I've

gone through the papers. I've trucked load after load to Goodwill. I've made

her try on dozens of pairs of shoes so I could take away the ones that don't

fit. I've argued myself blue in the face trying to convince her that she'd be

able to have friends if she'd just stop hanging on to all this crap. It's no

use. Like the hoarders on TV, she imbues every old magazine, every plastic

drive-through toy, with potential importance.

As long as she retains her Constitutional right to privacy and

self-determination, she'll hold on to the junk. As long as she holds on to the

junk, her quality of life is diminished. As long as her apartment looks like

the city dump, I'm not going up there to visit. All she has to do is get rid of

ONE box or trashbag per day, or even per week, and stop bringing in new stuff,

and she'd make progress. But she won't.

Her friends and neighbors have tried to help. I've tried to help. The home

health aides have tried, as well. It's not going to be possible to reach a

middle ground with her - like, clean up the living room and kitchen, and have

one junk room full of boxes. This is going to wind up landing her in a nursing

home. When that happens, I will drive a pickup truck and trailer to her place,

put on a pair of rubber gloves, and start hauling out bags of trash and

donations. I'll load the marketable stuff for transport to an estate sale

agent, so maybe it will help to defray her expenses. When the apartment walls

are bare, I'll power-clean it all. She won't get to pick what she takes to the

nursing home with her. Her life will be reduced to one or two boxes of personal

items, and some clothing - and because she cannot make the decisions, she won't

even get to choose those. Her refusal to relinquish control over her junk is

going to lead to a total loss of control over her life. It's very, very sad.

>

> I ve watched the show Hoarders some, and it brought flashbacks. Nada

> was an extreme hoarder. Her sister is as well. Grandmother was to a

> lesser extent.

>

> They hoard everything, magazines, newspapers, 30 copies of the same

> junky trinket. And with nada, as I found when I tried to help or clean,

> their attachment to the STUFF was greater than their love of a mere KO.

>

> This was a piece of the whole picture I had not concentrated on

> before, but it colored everything else. Manuevering around boxes and

> filth was so much the norm as I grew up.

>

> Am I alone? Or did other nadas put you guys through this as well?

>

> Doug

>

[Guest guest]

thanks doug, yes i have experience with hoarding , but from my current companion

whom i live with and to a lesser extent myself.. our house is not as bad as the

tv houses but is still plenty cluttered and dusty.. no rotting food or bugs but

chaos none the less.  i think as we learn to be more comfortable with ourselves

and self confident and connected with supportive people we learn to let go a

bit.. and not feel compelled to buy and accumulate more and more stuff.  thanks

for sharing, blessings,ann

Subject: Re: Hoarding

To: WTOAdultChildren1

Date: Friday, September 17, 2010, 11:07 AM

 

Woah, yeah. My grandma and mother were both marked by the Depression, I'm

sure - so I could understand them wanting to hold on to useful items. HOWEVER -

after a lifetime of being uber-clean and neat, " house-proud " as it's called here

- and keeping the extra Tupperware and canning jars tucked away in the cabinets

for future emergencies - when my mom started to go downhill, emotionally, the

hoarding became evident. When she had the money to pay for big houses or

2-suite apartments, it wasn't so obvious. But she's had to move to smaller

places over the years, and refuses to clear out the extra sets of dishes or sell

the partial sets of fine china. It's now to the point that her apartment looks

almost as bad as the homes on the TV show. The home health aide can't arrange

for a physical therapist to come in, because there's no room to do therapy in

Nada's living room. There's room to sit in Nada's one recliner. Every other

chair or sofa is

piled with junk, so anyone who visits her has to stand up the whole time.

While she struggles to pay her bills, she hangs on to things that could be sold

on Ebay to defray her expenses. When she is hospitalized and I have to go to

her place to pick up clothes, I mop and sweep the narrow path through the living

room to the kitchen, pick up the moldy dog food dishes, take out the overflowing

trash cans.

In the face of all her many physical and mental problems, I think this is the

issue that's finally going to get the attention of her doctors, psychiatrist,

and whatever governmental authorities will finally step in to declare her

incompetent. She has so much crap - QVC boxes of useless gizmo's, duplicate

sets of kitchen gadgets, gewgaws that might have amused one of her grandchildren

- fifteen years ago - that she can't find her bills and insurance forms to pay

them or file paperwork to keep the benefits coming. And the aides and doctors

want me to go up there and " help " - until I explain that I have done this. I've

gone through the papers. I've trucked load after load to Goodwill. I've made

her try on dozens of pairs of shoes so I could take away the ones that don't

fit. I've argued myself blue in the face trying to convince her that she'd be

able to have friends if she'd just stop hanging on to all this crap. It's no

use. Like the hoarders on

TV, she imbues every old magazine, every plastic drive-through toy, with

potential importance.

As long as she retains her Constitutional right to privacy and

self-determination, she'll hold on to the junk. As long as she holds on to the

junk, her quality of life is diminished. As long as her apartment looks like

the city dump, I'm not going up there to visit. All she has to do is get rid of

ONE box or trashbag per day, or even per week, and stop bringing in new stuff,

and she'd make progress. But she won't.

Her friends and neighbors have tried to help. I've tried to help. The home

health aides have tried, as well. It's not going to be possible to reach a

middle ground with her - like, clean up the living room and kitchen, and have

one junk room full of boxes. This is going to wind up landing her in a nursing

home. When that happens, I will drive a pickup truck and trailer to her place,

put on a pair of rubber gloves, and start hauling out bags of trash and

donations. I'll load the marketable stuff for transport to an estate sale

agent, so maybe it will help to defray her expenses. When the apartment walls

are bare, I'll power-clean it all. She won't get to pick what she takes to the

nursing home with her. Her life will be reduced to one or two boxes of personal

items, and some clothing - and because she cannot make the decisions, she won't

even get to choose those. Her refusal to relinquish control over her junk is

going to lead to a total loss of

control over her life. It's very, very sad.

>

> I ve watched the show Hoarders some, and it brought flashbacks. Nada

> was an extreme hoarder. Her sister is as well. Grandmother was to a

> lesser extent.

>

> They hoard everything, magazines, newspapers, 30 copies of the same

> junky trinket. And with nada, as I found when I tried to help or clean,

> their attachment to the STUFF was greater than their love of a mere KO.

>

> This was a piece of the whole picture I had not concentrated on

> before, but it colored everything else. Manuevering around boxes and

> filth was so much the norm as I grew up.

>

> Am I alone? Or did other nadas put you guys through this as well?

>

> Doug

>

[Guest guest]

YES YES YES on the hoarding. And treating THINGS like they were more

important than your children. Maybe not to the MOST extreme degree, but

pretty damn bad.

I worry that i have a touch of this flea - i collect art, vintage purses,

locally designed clothing. But I don't think its too bad. Boyfriend and I

don't have the cleanest house on the street, but it gets cleaned and picked

up pretty regularly. Its hard to have a perfectly clean home when you have 3

messy dogs. . .

Well hugs to everyone. the hoarding is so WEIRD!

>

>

> thanks doug, yes i have experience with hoarding , but from my current

> companion whom i live with and to a lesser extent myself.. our house is not

> as bad as the tv houses but is still plenty cluttered and dusty.. no rotting

> food or bugs but chaos none the less. i think as we learn to be more

> comfortable with ourselves and self confident and connected with supportive

> people we learn to let go a bit.. and not feel compelled to buy and

> accumulate more and more stuff. thanks for sharing, blessings,ann

>

>

>

> From: shirleyspawn <talexander73@...<talexander73%40bellsouth.net>

> >

> Subject: Re: Hoarding

> To: WTOAdultChildren1 <WTOAdultChildren1%40yahoogroups.com>

> Date: Friday, September 17, 2010, 11:07 AM

>

>

>

>

> Woah, yeah. My grandma and mother were both marked by the Depression, I'm

> sure - so I could understand them wanting to hold on to useful items.

> HOWEVER - after a lifetime of being uber-clean and neat, " house-proud " as

> it's called here - and keeping the extra Tupperware and canning jars tucked

> away in the cabinets for future emergencies - when my mom started to go

> downhill, emotionally, the hoarding became evident. When she had the money

> to pay for big houses or 2-suite apartments, it wasn't so obvious. But she's

> had to move to smaller places over the years, and refuses to clear out the

> extra sets of dishes or sell the partial sets of fine china. It's now to the

> point that her apartment looks almost as bad as the homes on the TV show.

> The home health aide can't arrange for a physical therapist to come in,

> because there's no room to do therapy in Nada's living room. There's room to

> sit in Nada's one recliner. Every other chair or sofa is

> piled with junk, so anyone who visits her has to stand up the whole time.

> While she struggles to pay her bills, she hangs on to things that could be

> sold on Ebay to defray her expenses. When she is hospitalized and I have to

> go to her place to pick up clothes, I mop and sweep the narrow path through

> the living room to the kitchen, pick up the moldy dog food dishes, take out

> the overflowing trash cans.

>

> In the face of all her many physical and mental problems, I think this is

> the issue that's finally going to get the attention of her doctors,

> psychiatrist, and whatever governmental authorities will finally step in to

> declare her incompetent. She has so much crap - QVC boxes of useless

> gizmo's, duplicate sets of kitchen gadgets, gewgaws that might have amused

> one of her grandchildren - fifteen years ago - that she can't find her bills

> and insurance forms to pay them or file paperwork to keep the benefits

> coming. And the aides and doctors want me to go up there and " help " - until

> I explain that I have done this. I've gone through the papers. I've trucked

> load after load to Goodwill. I've made her try on dozens of pairs of shoes

> so I could take away the ones that don't fit. I've argued myself blue in the

> face trying to convince her that she'd be able to have friends if she'd just

> stop hanging on to all this crap. It's no use. Like the hoarders on

> TV, she imbues every old magazine, every plastic drive-through toy, with

> potential importance.

>

> As long as she retains her Constitutional right to privacy and

> self-determination, she'll hold on to the junk. As long as she holds on to

> the junk, her quality of life is diminished. As long as her apartment looks

> like the city dump, I'm not going up there to visit. All she has to do is

> get rid of ONE box or trashbag per day, or even per week, and stop bringing

> in new stuff, and she'd make progress. But she won't.

>

> Her friends and neighbors have tried to help. I've tried to help. The home

> health aides have tried, as well. It's not going to be possible to reach a

> middle ground with her - like, clean up the living room and kitchen, and

> have one junk room full of boxes. This is going to wind up landing her in a

> nursing home. When that happens, I will drive a pickup truck and trailer to

> her place, put on a pair of rubber gloves, and start hauling out bags of

> trash and donations. I'll load the marketable stuff for transport to an

> estate sale agent, so maybe it will help to defray her expenses. When the

> apartment walls are bare, I'll power-clean it all. She won't get to pick

> what she takes to the nursing home with her. Her life will be reduced to one

> or two boxes of personal items, and some clothing - and because she cannot

> make the decisions, she won't even get to choose those. Her refusal to

> relinquish control over her junk is going to lead to a total loss of

> control over her life. It's very, very sad.

>

>

>

>

>

> >

>

> > I ve watched the show Hoarders some, and it brought flashbacks. Nada

>

> > was an extreme hoarder. Her sister is as well. Grandmother was to a

>

> > lesser extent.

>

> >

>

> > They hoard everything, magazines, newspapers, 30 copies of the same

>

> > junky trinket. And with nada, as I found when I tried to help or clean,

>

> > their attachment to the STUFF was greater than their love of a mere KO.

>

> >

>

> > This was a piece of the whole picture I had not concentrated on

>

> > before, but it colored everything else. Manuevering around boxes and

>

> > filth was so much the norm as I grew up.

>

> >

>

> > Am I alone? Or did other nadas put you guys through this as well?

>

> >

>

> > Doug

>

> >

>

>

[Guest guest]

My mother isn't a hoarder per se but I think she has way too much stuff. The

attic is full of stuff, to the gills. Every nook and cranny of their house has

useless trinkets in it. It drives me nuts. I recently got a storage unit as a

way of setting some boundaries and preparing to leave so that if I do have to

leave in a hurry most of my possessions are elsewhere and i can grab a few

things a go, and almost immediately nada asked me if she could put some things

in my storage unit. I told her it was too small, though it really isn't. I felt

loads of guilt for that because at the time it was just one piece of furniture,

she can't put it in the attic because the attic is overflowing. I told them

years ago they needed to set a five year goal of getting that attic emptied out

because they are both too old to be climbing up the fold down staircase. It is

much fuller now than it was then. But that is their choice. I told nada she

could get her own storage unit and her response was that she wasn't as fortunate

as me because she 'has' to hand her paycheck over to fada and she has no say as

to what happens to her money...in a woe is me tone suggesting i am so much more

better off than her. She makes good money and has benefits, and is a year from

retirement. I make just above minimum wage and haven't had any benefits in

almost a decade. She really thinks she is this poor and put upon. I toyed with

the idea of letting her store one piece in my unit but then I backed off of that

idea because it would be no longer 'mine' and would instead feel 'invaded'. I am

struggling really hard with assigning the word 'choice' to her behaviors because

she portrays herself as a helpless victim all the time. But she does have a

choice, so she can pony up the 30 bucks a month and get her own d*mn unit.

>

> I ve watched the show Hoarders some, and it brought flashbacks. Nada

> was an extreme hoarder. Her sister is as well. Grandmother was to a

> lesser extent.

>

> They hoard everything, magazines, newspapers, 30 copies of the same

> junky trinket. And with nada, as I found when I tried to help or clean,

> their attachment to the STUFF was greater than their love of a mere KO.

>

> This was a piece of the whole picture I had not concentrated on

> before, but it colored everything else. Manuevering around boxes and

> filth was so much the norm as I grew up.

>

> Am I alone? Or did other nadas put you guys through this as well?

>

> Doug

>

[Guest guest]

Yep. I've never been quite sure where my nada fits on the hoarding continuum

because it isn't that she looooves the stuff so much. It's more that she just

seem uncomfortable with open spaces - wants to fill up every thing and is way

too comfortable with things being unclean and filthy. She once said to me that

she always felt that cleaning/organizing had nothing to do with her. Of course

as the only adult in a home raising a child it had PLENTY to do with her. Not

only did it leave me a legacy of deep shame and social isolation growing up, it

also left me with very bad habits and a lack of knowledge on how to maintain a

normal looking home. I still struggle with it to this day. The human cost to

the children of mentally ill parents is huge and spans lifetimes.

>

> I ve watched the show Hoarders some, and it brought flashbacks. Nada

> was an extreme hoarder. Her sister is as well. Grandmother was to a

> lesser extent.

>

> They hoard everything, magazines, newspapers, 30 copies of the same

> junky trinket. And with nada, as I found when I tried to help or clean,

> their attachment to the STUFF was greater than their love of a mere KO.

>

> This was a piece of the whole picture I had not concentrated on

> before, but it colored everything else. Manuevering around boxes and

> filth was so much the norm as I grew up.

>

> Am I alone? Or did other nadas put you guys through this as well?

>

> Doug

>

[Guest guest]

My nada isn't a hoarder like you see on TV (haven't seen the show but I have a

friend who is a hoarder and is working on healing). My nada buys all this stuff

with the twisted idea that it will be a collectible and worth all kinds of money

in a few years. Even now, she worries about what will happen to all this stuff

when she dies. Beanie babies, plates, other dolls, even her furniture. She loves

all this stuff and I get the impression the only right answer is if I was to

tell her I'd take it all and take good care of it. No thanks!

>

> I ve watched the show Hoarders some, and it brought flashbacks. Nada

> was an extreme hoarder. Her sister is as well. Grandmother was to a

> lesser extent.

>

> They hoard everything, magazines, newspapers, 30 copies of the same

> junky trinket. And with nada, as I found when I tried to help or clean,

> their attachment to the STUFF was greater than their love of a mere KO.

>

> This was a piece of the whole picture I had not concentrated on

> before, but it colored everything else. Manuevering around boxes and

> filth was so much the norm as I grew up.

>

> Am I alone? Or did other nadas put you guys through this as well?

>

> Doug

>

[Guest guest]

Doug,

So glad you're back. We were really missing you there for awhile. I want

to second everyone else in letting you know we're all routing for you. Your

posts are always right on the nose, full of wisdom and inspiration.

My Nada is also an extreme hoarder, and I'm really wondering about that. I

guess some BPD's are hoarders, and some are extreme neat-freaks? I can

understand that it has to do with control, that they want to " possess " things,

like they possess us, their KO's. In my Nada's case, I think she wants to

control/conquer/possess information, so she collects books, articles, magazines,

brochures, medical info, etc.... anything that contains knowledge. Before she

was forced to go into a nursing home last year (because she could no longer walk

at age 83), she " lived " in her living room, sitting in a wheelchair or lying in

bed all day. Stacked to the ceiling all around her were boxes, papers, books,

literature, etc. You literally couldn't walk through the room. Her whole house

was like that, junk piled to the ceiling in every room. I'm sure it hadn't been

cleaned for at least 20 years (I was NC for many of those years). The Dept of

Aging even had a caseworker who came to her house and kept telling her it wasn't

safe to live there. In case of fire or other emergency she wouldn't have been

able to get out, but she just would not leave any of her STUFF.

When we were young my brother & I were required to actually sit down with

her and go through each box with great care, for the express purpose of culling

items to throw out. But she wouldn't let us just throw away items, OH NO. We

had to read to her every paper contained therein. Then she would discuss it at

great length, for hours. Then usually she would say to " keep that, it's

important " . And it would be some random newspaper clipping about vitamin E or

something. So in the end we'd do all this work, and end up not really throwing

much away. She just kept collecting and collecting more & more of it, so that

in the end she just sat in the middle of the room surrounded by towers of it.

She was angry at the end that we would no longer to allow her to waste our time

by going through the boxes for her. She was constantly berating us that we were

bad children (my brother is 45 & I'm 51) for not coming to her house each

Saturday to have us go through her boxes with her. Hoo boy. NUT CASE.

Jan

>

> I ve watched the show Hoarders some, and it brought flashbacks. Nada

> was an extreme hoarder. Her sister is as well. Grandmother was to a

> lesser extent.

>

> They hoard everything, magazines, newspapers, 30 copies of the same

> junky trinket. And with nada, as I found when I tried to help or clean,

> their attachment to the STUFF was greater than their love of a mere KO.

>

> This was a piece of the whole picture I had not concentrated on

> before, but it colored everything else. Manuevering around boxes and

> filth was so much the norm as I grew up.

>

> Am I alone? Or did other nadas put you guys through this as well?

>

> Doug

>