Letting Go

Okay, this has nothing to do with triathlon, except in the sense that it may ultimately infringe on my training. Also, the following is not for the faint of heart as you may find some of the pictures in this post disturbing.

My mother is a hoarder. Most people don't know what that means, but I found this definition and it fits my mother: "Hoarding is the excessive collection and retention of things or animals until they interfere with day-to-day functions such as home, health, family, work and social life. Severe hoarding causes safety and health hazards.”

My mother is a severe hoarder. She does not realize how extreme her condition is, which just goes to show how deep her denial runs. This is the current condition of her master bath. In fact, this picture was taken a few weeks ago, so it is probably worse by now or, at the very least, certainly no better. The sink is clogged with dirty dishes because her kitchen sink (forget the sink, the entire kitchen) is too full. I alternate between being angry with her for keeping her home in such a condition, frightened for her health and safety, and saddened by the current state of disarray.


Things have gotten so bad in my mother's home (and while she knows and acknowledges that things inside her home are bad, I'm not convinced she realizes exactly HOW bad) that she will no longer even invite her children into her home. The only reason I have these pictures is I was asked to feed her cat while she was in the hospital. While she did warn me, and I had in inclination of what to expect, I admit I was stunned by what I found. You've already seen the master bath and the kitchen. Check out where she sleeps. When there is no longer any room on the bed, it (whatever it may be) simply gets knocked onto the floor.

This is not a new phenomena. It has been going on for years, decades even. I can remember as a kid that her bedroom was always "cluttered" with "stuff." Once all we children had moved out, she began to accumulate more and more things and they collected all over the house. At one point, I can remember a can of tomato sauce that must have been so old that it exploded all over the pantry. The ensuing mess didn't get cleaned up until she moved some years later.

Several years ago, she was out of town for an extended period of time taking care of a sick relative. While she was gone, my sister and I went into her home and "cleaned up." We purchased containers in which to put her copious amounts of fabric (which she has since replaced even though she has macular degeneration and can no longer see well enough to stitch a line). Some of the meat in her freezer had been there for almost 10 years. In fact, she had so much stuff in her freezer, all of which she was loathe to dispose of, that the door on the freezer no longer closed properly and she was using rubber bands to keep it moderately closed!

In addition to that, she had cans of food in her pantry that were so old they bulged. We made the decision to throw out anything that didn't have an expiration date on it (because it was purchased well in advance of expiration dates being printed) or anything that was obviously well past the expiration date. By the time we were done, we had, gotten rid of a couple of tons of garbage--so said the scale at the local dump. This is what it looked like when we were done.


Just a few years later, this is what it looks like:


I've been reading up on the condition of hoarding and it seems it is not merely a hold over from the depression days, though many people of that era are affected (my mother was born in 1927). It has more to do, however, with the inability to "let go." People that hoard are afraid of losing control. They are afraid that once they do, they will need the information or thing that "it" represents and then be unable to retrieve it.

It also has to do with an inability to organize and/or make decisions regarding that organization. Part of the problem is because there are so many categories of one. Hoarders see each item as unique which means it cannot be grouped with anything else. But hoarders are intent on trying to organize, so much so, that containers are purchased for the express purpose of organizing only said containers to become just the latest victims of the disarray. Such is the case as can be seen in the above picture of my mothers living room. Note the white plastic baskets near the chair on the left hand side of the picture. Note also the walker that would be impossible to use in this home as there is no place left for one to walk.

No doubt by now you have also noticed all the paper bags scattered throughout the home. Most of them are empty. Those that aren't may contain one or two cans of vegetables or some other food staple. They don't get put away, though, because the cabinets they would go into are blocked by, you guessed it, more paper bags with one or two cans in them. The cycle is vicious and never ending.



Another natrual consequence of the inability to throw out anything is even the ability to throw out the garbage. My mother has a large plastic garbage bag hooked over the handle of the vacuum cleaner (or maybe it's a carpet cleaner) in her bedroom. When she has something she needs to discard, it goes in this bag. There must have been fruit or rotting vegetation in the bag as it was teeming with fruit flies. When I commented on this to my mother and pronounced my disgust, her answer was to spray the bag with fly killer! Um, Mom...the answer is to take out the garbage...which, of course, I did.

Remember that carpet cleaner or vacuum from which the garbage bag was hanging? Well, this is the state of the carpet. I tried to suggest to my mother that not only would the carpet need replacing, so would the sub-floor since her cat has decided that any spare floor space is it's litter box. Mom's carpet is so filthy it is sticky.



Okay, this is really all I have time for today. I'll have to post more about it some other time. I admit to being a little lost as to what to do. My mother is perfectly senile. She does not have dementia. She has simply become so overwhelmed, she doesn't know what to do or how to extricate herself from the mess. She is also too ashamed to ask for any help, so I may be forced to call Adult Protective Services to help me (and my family) deal with the problem as it is clearly a problem.

If anyone else out there has had a similar problem, I'd love to hear how or if you solved it or what solutions you used.