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Re: Some Voices of Daughters (Score: 1)
by JulieJ on Monday, October 29, 2007 @ 06:46:06 ICT
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I can't stop crying. I have been on and off this site now for over 4 hours. To read so many stories of other people whose loved ones and themselves are suffering in the same manner I have and watched my grandmother suffer. I finally understand now how she could be embarrassed about the condition of her home, but not really do much about it. She would clean occassionally, but my uncle never did.

I see how scare he is because my grandma is in such poor health. I know he thinks we're going to make him move into a nursing home when my grandmother dies.

This is all so very painful. I had no idea this illness was so powerful and my grandmother felt so helpless to control it all those years. It has become easier now that my grandmother is no longer mobile. She can't create too much mess. My uncle, however, just keeps on keeping on.

They have two different forms of this illness. His is both aquisition and failure to discard. My grandmother's has always been mostly failure to discard. Now she usually saves unused napkins, pens that don't write, anything she comes across that belonged to my mother, salt and pepper packets, styrofoam cups and margerine packets that come with takeout food.

On days that she doesn't get out of bed, I take an opportunity to discard most of this stuff.

My uncle has progressed some. Just last month, he agreed to throw away three trashbags full of magazines, junkmail, old condiment containers, rotted fruit and several tin and plastc takeout containers. And as the doctor suggested, he actually threw them out himself. He even volunteered the some of the single wrapped rolls, but kep about four just in case.

I plan to put one broken TV on the street soon, but I realize I have to work up to this. He will become extremely upset if I just do it.

So this is how I keep from letting their home get to the point I know it will if I never do anything. I just keep plugging away at it bit by bit so it at least doen't progress. I've taken the "contain it" approach. And with the help of this site, I think I've found renewed strength to continue with this approach.

Re: Some Voices of Daughters (Score: 1)
by picklessmith on Friday, November 16, 2007 @ 01:30:03 ICT
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I just watched the oprah show and saw the house I was forced to grow up in. I don't think my mother intended the mess but,anything that came into my house never left. My whole life was about cleaning things up when she out or sleeping. I never had a friend over and dreaded when say the heating man would come to fix the thermastat. I believe things started when when I was little and my mom went through a divorce then my grandmother who she carde for in our home died. I was all that was left. It never really came with my friends about not coming over, we just went to somewhere else, I don't think anyone ever noticed. I tried many times to clean but it just got out of hand, and I had a great childhood otherwise, so both of us were always on the go, she always said as soon as it gets warmer I'm gonna get to that, that never happened. Then I started throwing things away without her knowledge, and she would actually dig things out of the bags and bring them back into the house, maby so and so can use this;(thighmaster anyone?). There are corners of rooms in my house I have never seen. She also loves reading papers,(3 a day) to this day she says she is getting through them, they are stacked 6ft. high, she will never get there. Eventually I went to college, and worked as a singer dancer on tours, so my time home was limited, when I did get home I cleaned a little and avoided fighting with her as much as possible. I finally convinced her that if she would not let go through her stuff, I was going to go through mine. I personally took 100 bags of clothes to goodwill myself, (all things she would never let me get rid of). My mom is now in her 70's and still very active, always visiting her friends and myself in my apartment in nyc. But I dread her visits because she has way of cluttering my little space, we jokingly call her hurricane gail. She reads still 3 papers a day and it tends to get out of hand. We have had some good breakthroughs in the past couple of years, and my boyfriend knows of her problem and loves us both anyway. My mother is on heavier side and I can barely get through her house how she does is a mystery. The last meal I had in the house was pot roast when I was in highschool and the dirty plate is till in the sink. We cannot get over ther to clean the sink. At this point I don't know what to do and have resigned myself to the fact that I will only be able to clean out the house when she has passed, which makes me sad. I would love nothing more than for both of us to see the house the way it is supposed be. This forum is great, my whole life I only told two people, I never thought or knew someone else who grew up like I did. I try not to focus on it when she is here because it will not change anything at this point. I just know that when she does pass I will be over whelmed with grief for both of us, and part of me gets so mad because it is not fair to me, the clean up alone will take months and I will be devastated by her loss,I love her so.Thanks for giving me a place to vent. Wish me luck!

Re: Some Voices of Daughters by Cyndi on Friday, April 11, 2008 @ 13:39:02 ICT