Feeling Less Alone

Hi everyone.

I'm 20 years old and have recently started to tell close friends that my parents are extreme hoarders. Until a year ago I had never said those words out loud. It's good to have a real reason they can't come over, though I think they might have already suspected. I felt so ashamed and isolated for years, but it has been helping my sanity to talk to other people about it. I've never talked to other children of hoarders before so I'm relieved to find this subreddit.

My parents have always been messy, but in the past six years or so it has gotten to the point where there's expired food sitting under piles of stuff, appliances break and aren't fixed (we go to a coin-op laundry now), and a few years ago our ceiling cracked and my dad fixed it with a nail gun. The crack is still there and sometimes I worry it's going to fall in. Our heat has been broken for the past three winters. My dad keeps buying parts to fix it that just add to the clutter. They use space heaters to keep specific rooms warm. I know this is a fire hazard but sometimes I wonder if that wouldn't be so bad. We never had much money so my dad always blames this kind of stuff on his income instead of the fact that the house is too cluttered to bring people in.

I've left home for college and every time I come back it gets worse. I got my own room to an acceptable level of clean before I left, and every time I come home there's more random stuff in there. You can't even get through the living room because of all the boxes and papers and things. It's upsetting seeing how much more dangerous and disgusting the house is getting every winter and summer, and I wonder if it can even get worse now. What happens when they can't get from room to room? I'm tired and I've tried to get them to clean for years. My mom says it's all my dad's fault when I ask her about it but I know she hoards food and art supplies too. They get mad at me and/or blame each other whenever I try to have a conversation about it, and throwing things away only ever starts a screaming match and resentment. I don't really know what to do, but I appreciate knowing I'm not alone with this problem.

Submitted November 30, 2019 at 10:51AM by cleansneeze https://ift.tt/2L49Mzu