I feel horrible for saying so because I love him so much,...

Below is the result of your feedback form. It was submitted on Saturday, September 13th, 2008 at 12:13 PM.


Relationship : daughter
Source : through google search
Message :

My father wasn't a hoarder when I was growing up. He was frugal and he tried to save money but he still bought things and threw things away. Now I am 24, and starting from when I was in college, my father began buying things from yard sales or garage sales for me or my sister. Most of the things we didn't need or want, but he slowly escalated to buying more things that he himself didn't needed . He stopped buying things for us, and started buying things that weren't needed by anyone at all.

Now, it's been about 4 or 5 years or so since he started, and he has "his" room (the guest room) and it is piled with so much stuff, that you can't see the ceiling. The rest of the house, he doesn't really control with his things, but in the yard, it's a whole other story. The thing is, I know my dad is troubled. Before he began hoarding, he had a temper, and like clockwork, the family would get into bad arguments every 3 months. Now that he has started hoarding, he hardly ever gets angry.

I've tried talking to him about it only once. I asked him why he brings so much home, and why he feels he needs to save these things. He explained to me that when he was growing up, money was tight with his family, and that his parents taught him to save, and that this practice is now stuck with him. I don't know what to do. I think my dad realizes there is a problem (he hides the things he brings home from me and my mom). The thing is: the hoarding is just the symptom of something else, and it is hard for a daughter to tell her father that he has a problem, and that he might need professional help. He's gotten to the point where he goes to the mall on a daily basis, and digs through the stores' trash to see what they've thrown away, and brings it all home. He hasn't actually bought or paid for anything in a good while. I don't know where he gets his food from, whether he asks people for their leftovers or looks through the trash for that too, but he has two refrigerators filled with old, expired food, that he still manages to eat; stinking up the whole house every time he warms it up. He is stepping across the border into unhealthy, and it's hard for me to see him like this. I feel horrible for saying so because I love him so much, but sometimes I wish he'd pass on, just so he can finally be at peace with himself.