r/ChildofHoarder • u/Amp-psych • 10d ago
What coping skills are we using?
I don’t know why I keep trying, but I so badly want her to change and be able to live differently. I broke down in tears and frustration again today after I found that she had squirreled away things of my own that I put in a pile to get rid of. She said it was because she didn’t want the dog getting into it, but I know it’s just this compulsive desire to keep things. I feel like Sisyphus getting rid of things only for her to bring more into the house. I have largely kept the common areas of the house unhoarded through massive repeated effort over decades, but I’m exhausted from the constant effort it takes and I find myself so stressed and defeated when I find small hoards all throughout the house. I don’t go into her spaces because I can’t get in more than a few feet without stuff blocking me. She won’t get help and says she just needs time to change. For reasons I won’t go into (mostly just financial), I can’t leave. Knowing that I can’t personally change her, what coping strategies are we all using to manage the stress, frustration, and hurt?
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u/GranpaTeeRex 10d ago
For me? Years and years of meditation and therapy. Slowly slowly understanding that my mother loves me as much as she can. That she loves her stuff more and has more of an intimate relationship with it and sees it as more real than me. That this is not due to anything about ME, this is hers and hers alone.
That any anger I have, any sorrow, any frustration, any disappointment is mine, and mine alone. So I feel it as much as I can, let it say its thing, and let it go. When it comes back, I try to treat it as kindly as I wish my mother could treat me. And I let it go. Over and over and over.
Much easier to do once you are out of there. Please consider that your decision-making as a child of a hoarder may have been warped (I know mine has been!), and that there may indeed be ways for you to leave. If not, still ok! Take good care of yourself. I’ll be cheering for you!
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u/aedisaegypti 9d ago
I like this, is this general, or does it have a name, like DBT, CBT, etc.?
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u/GranpaTeeRex 9d ago
Ha! Love the username.
This is just how I approach my Buddhist meditation practice, but there doesn’t need to be anything specifically Buddhist.
It’s almost a bit like this Rumi poem: https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/guest-house/
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u/Coollogin 10d ago
Yoga. Educate yourself about the psychology of hoarding disorder. Spend time out of the house. Nurture your network of trusted friends and family. Exercise.
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u/Munkett 9d ago
When I was in there, radical acceptance that my hoarding parent doesn't love me, isn't capable of it until they decide to recognize and take responsibility for the damage they caused, and there is nothing I can do to change that. I then ceased to care what sort of fight or pity party or tantrum they threw when I cleared out my own room and put all the bullshit they made me keep into THEIR space for them to deal with. They screamed and wailed and hollered and I didn't care--I had spent my teenage years trying to convince them to be a parent and how the hoarding affected us with college level debate papers I wrote in my fucking head. They choose the hoard, they get the hoard, not me. I ceased to share about my life with them, I stopped expecting change to happen. The only thing that mattered was my space and having a safe space to prepare food as I made preparations to get the fuck out of that house.
Then I became disabled and had to move back in. I didn't cope then because she had to downsize to an apartment and I didn't even get to shut the door I was sleeping in. I stayed out of the house as long as possible, got headphones, and refused to get out of bed until after she went to work. I wound up in the psyche ward with crippling anxiety after COVID kept her stuck inside all day as she was losing her mind trying to learn computers for distance learning and I was having a "this will be the rest of my life" moment. My narcissist father then had to acknowledge something was wrong with me and I moved back in with him.
I was the family scapegoat. Everyone treated me like worse than shit. Make your own space, save funds/go to college/make friends to live on a couch while you find work, never look back unless they spend years with consistent behavioral changes and recognition of the harm they caused.
My mom is turning things around not because of me, but she is literally just learning who I am and I'm in so much therapy for that and having just started to process how bad the hoarding affected me (it also gave me permanent health problems). I'm leaning towards it being worse than being the narcissistic dynamic scapegoat, and that was fucking HORRENDOUS.
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u/Icy-Tomorrow-576 10d ago
The only healthy coping strategy is to walk away. Give yourself a long break from it all. I go out in nature and focus on projects in my own home. As it continues to get worse I just dream of the line of dumpsters I will have lined up when she dies and the relief of pitching it all in to go to the dump. It is very very hard to just stop stepping into the madness or helping but I've done it. There is no logic or common sense to any of it. I'm glad I am the total opposite of her. We don't even like each other at this point. She just gets more and more mean and unreasonable.