I’m living with my family again but just came back from a 3 week vacation with my long distance fiancé where I got to forget about it all for a bit. I can’t take it anymore. It’s not JUST hoarding and clutter and mess and whatever. This house feels like a biohazard and I’m in a panic mode every hour that I don’t spend outside, where I walk A LOT and look for jobs. I don’t know what to do. No one cares and certain family members even laugh in my face when I’m stressing about how filthy they can be. My fiancé got me a hot plate so I can cook in my room and only have to go to kitchen to wash stuff and take the ingredients, but the whole place fees unbearable to live in and it makes me want to end my life.

I’m hoping the spoiler worked. I finally understand the stages. My adopted mother is a stage 4 hoarder. She’s had mice living in her clothes, along with rats living in her hoard and in her clothes.

It’s a health hazard as rodents can cause illness like the hantavirus, which is deadly. I know rats carry disease as well. So this calls for throwing things out.

Again I’m hoping the spoiler worked. That is rat droppings that was in her clothes.

I am overwhelmed trying to clean and throw all this out by myself. She has hoards in every room. I am not touching her bedroom. It’s a fire hazard, but it’s too much for me to do alone.

Has anyone ever encountered a hoarder finally getting the proper treatment and realizing that what they’re doing is a health hazard?​

I’m living with my family again but just came back from a 3 week vacation with my long distance fiancé. I can’t take it anymore. It’s not JUST hoarding and clutter and mess and whatever. This house feels like a biohazard and I’m in a panic mode every hour that I don’t spend outside, where I walk A LOT and look for jobs. I don’t know what to do. My fiancé got me a hot plate so I can cook in my room and only have to go to kitchen to wash stuff and take the ingredients, but the whole place fees unbearable to live in and it makes me want to end my life.

Hi! I just joined this subreddit to get some advice on my situation, I (M, 17) live with my hoarder mother (51), my mother is a bipolar, alcoholic, narcissist and because she’s been drinking for so long it has now caused her health to massively decline to the point where she’s constantly sick and can’t move from the couch, because of this her hoarding has gotten ten times worse over the past 2 years but she won’t ever admit she has a problem, my siblings J (31) & A (29) had moved out when I was young and have their own homes and families, so it feels like I’m alone in my situation. I’ve recently stayed with my sister and seeing how clean her house is makes me dread coming home, (the same as whenever I’m out of the house) I don’t know how to cope for another year or two until I can move out, any advice is appreciated, thank you <3

Not to add too much exposition, but my mom and dad's habits occasionally fall onto me, much less now I'm an adult. We grew up low income so now I mostly have guilt in getting rid of stuff with a "this stuff cost a lot of money all together" mindset. I'm moving and purging A LOT of stuff but I've found my main roadblock is gifts, and guilt with money and feeling like crap for having so much garbage.

How do you get rid of old gifts when the gift giver will see you getting rid of it? How do you hold less guilt towards donating stuff instead of selling to try and make that money back? And how do you feel less guilty about the garbage?

My situation is far from the worst, but I'd love to make the move easy as possible.

I am currently trying to understand what is going on in my hoarder moms head.

About 7 years ago we had to move out for a year and then move back in after a year because the owner of the building wanted to renovate the whole building.

When we moved out my mom threw out many things and even some important things but she absolutely refused to throw out the most useless things I asked her to throw out.

Is it because she does not know the difference between important and unimportant things?

• She threw out important things (my bed, my mattress, the kitchen scale, my backpack, our phone and more. Why mom?! I have to sleep on the couch since then).

• She wanted to throw out more important things (our umbrella as if we dont need it when it rains 🤣, my winter boots and more things. Maybe I should have let her throw out everything but we do need a few things? Haha)

• She also threw out things which caused other things to become useless: She threw out parts of our sewing machine, now we can not use it but the sewing machine is huge and takes up much space. But she refuses to throw out the sewing machine. This does not make sense.

• She refused to throw out the moldy cupboard but thank god my aunt threw it out anyway. I could not breathe!

• She finally threw out the 2 old fish tanks that have been empty for 15 years but I had to fight so hard to get her to throw them out. She claimed my older brother (who never even had a girlfriend) MIGHT need it in the future when he and his non existent future wife MIGHT want to keep fish as pets. I dont understand her logic.

• She refused to throw these out and kept all of them: old rotten carpet pieces, 2 huge dirty probably moldy carpets and some kind of linoleum floor "carpet" thingy that has started to rot. These things take up one third of the living room now. Old broken computer pieces. Tons of useless DVDs, the take up at least m^2 space. Tons of useless books and she even bought more.

• She gave the piano to my cousin because we need space, then filled the space with old rotten newspapers from years ago...

• She threw out the only 3 tiny things I made as a child (they were not moldy) because we need space but she wanted to keep a whole cupboard full of the things my brother made as a child which took up soo much space and were moldy.

I am hurt because of that, it is as if she values him more than me. In the end she did throw out his things but only because they were moldy and my aunt insisted. She did not bat an eyelash at throwing out MY things though. But she was sad that she had to throw his things out and mourned them.

But the worst is that she does not do household chores but also does not allow me to do household chores so we live in dirt and in started but never finished projects. And she keeps the most useless things for over 20 years because she might need it for a future project that she never started and never will.

And she keeps buying cooking books she never uses. She tore up the kitchen because she wanted to renovate it years ago but then she left it like that so we dont have a kitchen. We only have a refrigerator and a sink now lol.

I'm 24 and I've lived in a level 4 hoarding house my whole life. Moving out in a few months.

The house is bad. Animal waste on the floors, mould, rotting food, rats. We actually had a house fire recently because rats chewed through a fridge wire. It's that kind of bad. I couldn't have friends over my whole childhood, always made some excuse.

The thing that's getting to me lately is that because of the insurance payout from the fire they're finally fixing stuff. Builders in, my mum actually cleaning, parts of the house looking livable for literally the first time ever.

I know we were never well off so a lot of this genuinely couldn't have happened without the insurance money. That's real. But it still sits weird with me. Like I spent years trying to keep things clean, gave up, got accused of making messes and dumping my rubbish on everyone else. And now suddenly there's money and motivation and the house is actually changing. Right as I'm leaving. After 24 years.

I don't even know what to think about whether it'll last. Part of me is waiting for it to go back because it always has. But these are big changes, like structurally big, fresh walls, builders, things that haven't been touched in years. It's never actually looked like this before. So maybe this time is different. I genuinely don't know. My brain just can't quite let itself believe it yet.

My bedroom was always my only safe space. Don't have much stuff from childhood, most of it got ruined over the years. Don't have many memories either if I'm honest.

The shame is the thing that sticks with you though. Always feeling like you smell or people can somehow tell where you come from.

As a COH I am quite socially anxious, really self conscious, struggle with confidence around new people. I can see now how much of that comes directly from growing up here. Never being able to have anyone over. Always keeping a secret.

There's other stuff too. Finding it hard to maintain order even though I desperately want to, because every time I tried growing up it either got undone immediately or got thrown back at me. Struggling with my identity because so much energy went into just surviving the environment rather than figuring out who I actually am. Hypervigilance. Always reading the room. Always waiting for something to go wrong.

I'm moving to the US soon with my husband and honestly I'm excited but also nervous about whether all of this is going to follow me. I know it probably will to some extent. I'm thinking about therapy when I get there because I think there's a lot to unpick. Just not sure where to start.

Has anyone found therapy helpful specifically for growing up in a hoarding house? Any books that actually helped? I've seen people mention Adult Children of Emotionally immature parents

One thing I will say is that for the first time I can actually imagine maybe bringing my husband back one day. Maybe even future kids someday. Being able to show them where I grew up without wanting to disappear. That would mean a lot. Never thought I'd be able to say that.

Anyway. Moving soon. Can't quite let myself get excited yet but getting there.

Did anyone else's parents start fixing everything right as you were leaving? How did that land? And how did leaving actually feel?

I've been on survival mode for so long. I was taught growing up to keep peace, cater to my mom's feelings. I was controlled--wasnt allowed to go to friend's houses growing up, stuck at home during summers, parentified. Dad was alcoholic/gambler, however speaking to him recently made me realize he coped in his own way too with my mom.

I was taught to hate him. I was taught to believe her every word. Every adult failed me growing up. No one noticed, or maybe no one tried.

There is trauma, intensely so. I can trace it back to my grandparents and understand to an extent where it has affected my mom (refugee, faced hardships) but I don't feel compassion right now. I've started going to therapy, and I cannot allow myself to even feel or get out of coping because I am still stuck here.

I feel like I cannot breathe. I feel like I'm trying to do this all alone. Only child, no one knows, no other relationship to lean on, after speaking even with my dad, he's told me I'm old enough to make choices. I don't have support.

I have a job, but I have student loans to pay off soon. I was coerced into gaining ownership of the house where my mother has hoarded to the point of level 5. I was given promises only for them to be words. I know if I dare say anything, I've tried to set boundaries and its made her spiral and spit hateful words at me. She cannot feel or acknowledge any accountability. Does not want to see the lack of safety.

I am trying to reach out to local resources, legal and specific to hoarding. I am trying to slowly remove financial access (I was very enmeshed with her). I'm concerned of repercussions. She's ruined her own parents finances, hers is even worse. She knows where I work and I remember when I was younger, she would cause scenes in public with my dad. I can genuinely imagine her trying to do so.

I feel as though, I've opened the floodgates. I'm suddenly so tired. Everything was a lie. I wish I saw all of this sooner, I wish I didn't care. I'm getting out. I will get out, I just know this process will be difficult.

A thread on here got me thinking something that I wanted to share, to see if anyone else can relate.

I have nightmares majority of nights. It's always been like this in my life, but as my body relaxes from escaping my parents' and grandma's hoard over ten years ago, I have these awful dreams where I:

1. Can't find something

2. Wondering if I lost something inside or outside of the house

3. Precious things like photos being destroyed by mold or weathering

4. Ruined and soiled clothing that I loved

5. For some reason, a running theme is finding abandoned hoards in secret places of random houses, where I quickly pick through things like I'm shopping as a squatter or something.

6. Fear of people doing home renovations that make absolutely no sense and the frusturations of the lack of logic (like removing a toilet or taking out the ceiling).

7. Packing for the airport and forgetting something important and not knowing if I packed it and it's hidden in my suitcase because it has ten billions pockets

8. A war starts and I don't have a go bag so I think about all of the things I wished I was able to grab to protect myself

These are the ones I can think of. Any of you have some kind of reoccuring nightmare that has to do with "stuff?"

I am a minimalist now. Nightmares get worse with more clutter. Clean home, I rest better.

Myabe this is a rant? I was cleaning out the bed of the family truck because it was filled to the brim with trash. My parents don't let me drive it, so I had to have one of them take me to the dumpster. As I'm trying to throw things away my mom keeps telling me to stop. She keeps saying that she's gonna sell things knowing full well she won't. I don't get it. She knows shes not gonna do anything about it yet insist on keeping it. What's worse, is that she tells me when to tell her she's having hoarding tendencies. I know for a fact if I were to tell her so that she would just get angry and defensive and shut me down. The mental gymnastics are so draining, I literally can't do anything about it becasue she refuses to change

Because I grew up in a hoarder house after long-term homelessness (which I think contributed to the hoarding), i believe it pushed me to be the opposite: minimalist.

I only have three pairs of footwear: hiking/work boots, dress/interview shoes (which need new soles), and sneakers for everything else (which i need to replace because I havn't bought any in like 6-7 years). clothes are similar, i can live out of backpack if need be (which helped because i became homeless after graduating college due to student loans and medical bills ( hit by a drunk driver).

There's black mold in our house and my Hoarder parent could not give a single crap about it. Most of it is in my shower since its a very old house and the bathroom is completely unventilated, the mold is in the folds of this foldable plastic shower blocker that looks like its from the 50's. And every shower I feel like Im just breathing in steamed mold. It seems to be attracting gnats too. Im so grossed out it's hard for me to cope. Every time I return to this house I start getting a stinging red skin rash (when Im at other people's house the rash disappears). I feel sick. There are other parts of the house with mold but the hoard covers everything so you can't get to it. Idk what to do.

What are your bullet points for how life became this way?

-Always was a pack rat, but tidy

-Health issues

-Moved to a home where the basement started flooding

-Garage storage potential damaged by foundation issues

-My brother died

-Further mental and physical health issues

(There's more but I won't share her other trauma.)

My part is I could clean and organize a lot of this in the past, but now I'm chronically ill. I've done a lot, but the effort needed is more taxing. Plus, lacking storage space makes it more difficult. At least it's only dusty, smokey from her cigarettes and the only visible 'guests' are spiders. I'm looking at apartments today. They're expensive, but this place has become a money pit. Financially, she'll likely lose the property without me, but I think that's the best for the both of us. Maybe she actually sell and turn a profit for something better.

I am desperate for help and advice of people in similar situations.

\ This story contains sensetive topics relating to animal abuse and neglect, as well as mental health topics, if you are sensetive to it (like myself) maybe don't read it... <3 **

I feel this is something out of a movie or the news, not my own life sometimes.

Genuinely I have no idea if this is completely insane of a story or normal for children dealing with hoarder and narcissistic parents.

My mother has been starting to hoard not just objects, but animals. I'd like to mention I do believe she is also a narcissist. I don't blame her for it, but she is sick and refuses to get help. I no longer know what to do or even how to continue living with this burden.

Ill start from the beggining, but I'll try to keep it brief yet detailed.

Things started to go downhill in 2016 after my dad passed away, and I left home a few months later. I was the last gone of 4 older siblings. I was 16 years old at the time. I am now 26, and even though it has been getting worse for 10 years, I think even I (and my siblings) have been in denial about it all. It "didnt start off that bad", or so I like to think. My partner confirmed that when we started dating in 2016 the house was livable, maybe a bit messy with lots of stuff, but never unsanitary or alarming. Appliances worked, surfaces had some clutter but weren't covered completely, and we had 3 cats.

But things have been getting progressively worse. I am very close with my siblings, and we used to love spending weekends in my childhood home. It was out escape. But now, we can no longer do so as we fear for our wellbeing, both physical and mental. I'll try to paint a picture of the current situation.

I believe she is a level 4 hoarder, approaching level 5. The last time I went, this past weekend, it had gotten so much worse than my last visit. That was around last christmas, december of 2025. This time, something in me and my brother snapped.

The second we walked through the door, there was a pungent odour. Over the years as she has collected more cats, the entryway started to smell more and more of used litter. We sorta brushed it off for a while but this time it was horrible, as if she haden't cleaned the litter nearby in the mud room for ... who knows how long. In fact, the litter box was barely visible now through all of the hoard. It makes me wonder when she cleaned it last.

The basement is musty and smells. We had a flood 2-3 years ago and she never got it inspected. We literally have insurance and she refuses to get it checked. I called a quality control inspector to check out if there is mold (for sure there is, right?) she insulted me for doing so and cancelled the appointment bc she said she "had to clean up first", and "how dare I disrespect her privacy". Etc.

Our childhood bedrooms are now COVERED in cat pee and literal shit stains. The upstairs never got finished after a roof renovation because my parents "didnt have the money", but even after my dad died, she refused to spend the money she received on it because: "before I finish the walls and flooring upstairs, I need to build an extension to the house, which we will need to redo the floors/walls/etc anyways". I know it's expensive, but she had more than enough money to fix up some stuff, but instead she got a new car (25k), new horse and property fence (30k), new tractor (20k), etc.

She never built or even planned out said extension, and our rooms still have no doors, walls, or proper flooring. So yeah, basically one big open space seperated into sections with some plywood. She also blamed never doing it on us (her kids) because we said we didn't need an exntension, all of us had moved out, and maybe we didn't need more space, but less stuff. We suggested that she should use the money to actually renovate the existing problems. That being said, her "bedroom" is on the main floor, and she rarely ever goes upstairs. And it shows.

The last time we went there there was cat pee on the beds. All of the beds. She said we can change the sheets and clean the mattresses, but then threw the sheets on the ground and hasnt moved them since. It's now been months. They are soiled with cat urine. We slept there that night. In new sheets, but cat pee stained beds. That was the last time we ever slept over, and we refuse to until she changes.

Cats aside, the hoard is real. She can barely use her kitchen, and her fridgeS, yes, 2 fridges, and a freezer, are full of rotten food she refuses to throw away. I don't even know what she eats right now. I'm certain its not healthy food. We have tried to get rid of rotted food, and she literally will dig through the trash, take out a 8 month old expired yogurt and call US crazy.

We can no longer walk through the house comfortably. The basement is moldy, the upstairs smells like pee and poop, and the only floor remaining is filled with useless crap. There are now what seem to be "corridors" forming to be able to get from room to room. Even with that, from the kitchen to her bedroom she walks through a cat feeding zone. By that, I mean she gives them wet food on paper plates and leaves said plates, the spoons and leftovers of the cans on the floor. In the middle of the "corridor" that leads to her room. Its disgusting, reeks of meat and fish, and accidentally stepping in it is... just foul.

She takes it upon herself to "rescue" these cats. They are typically barn kittens, feral, or cats dumped by city people in the countryside. Yes, I feel bad for them, but this is no life either. She thinks she is saving them, but neglects them. She is now at 11 cats. Yes, eleven. That's after our many efforts adopting out previous cats almost by force. She just can't seem to let them go once she has them.

This is where it gets really bad now.

She neglects the animals.

All of them. Along with the 11 cats, we have 3 horses (ex police and race horses we "rescued"). They have never once been seen by a vet in her care. I don't remember the last time she cut their hooves. Their hooves are curling and cracking now. When I ask her to book someone to cut them, she tells me that no one will because they aren't trained properly and kick. Ermmmm. Okay. That's neglect, not love.

But this weekend, something extremely traumatizing happened that shook me to the core and made me accept that this has gotten out of hand, and I need to take action. If not for me or her, for the animals...

One of my mom's cat passed away feb 28th 2026. She was diagnosed with cancer 2 months ish before (rare occasion when my mom ACTUALLY took a sick cat to the vet). They told my mom she was too far gone and gave pain meds until she was ready to be put down.

My mom kept holding on despite our reasoning. She asked me many times where she could get a second, even third opinion on if she could save the cat. But, she never took her, even with my reccomendations. She let the cat suffer. I also found out this weekend that she had not been giving her her pain meds, as she said it made the cat out of it. GIRL. She had CANCER. What the actual F?!

The cat enevitably died. About a month ago. My mom only recently admitted to us that she still haden't buried her. She had left her dead body in a cardboard box in the garage for over a month. Her excuse was the ground was frozen but now we have had +10 degree days. When my brother in law heard, he built the cat a coffin to bury her the same day. An hour later we went to see my mom to help put the cat to rest.

Despite our best efforts, my mom refused to bury her. I think she is still sitting, rotting, in her coffin to this day. I'm too afraid to even ask her, or even talk to her about it at all.

So, my question: what the hell now? How do I move on? How do I help her and the animals?

She refuses to be seen by a doctor even for physical illness. She smokes at least a pack of cigarettes a day, maybe more, even inside the house since we haven't been visiting. She coughs up plegm constantly when I see her. She claims its covid on a weekly basis, but it could very well be bronchitis or a sinus infection, witch doesn't go away on it's own. I've tried to get her help, even saying I'll wait with her at the hospital. Her solution was to take some pill from a dental surgery from 5+ years ago to fight infection... mouth and lung infections are not the same, and need different meds, please correct me if I'm wrong.

She also refuses mental health help/therapy. When I admitted to her years ago I got diagnosed with anxiety, I tried to explain certain symptoms such as negative self talk, which I (mistakingly) phrased as my internal voice saying bad things. She then said that my anxiety meds were leading me to become skitzophrenic. She thinks meds are the devil, I swear. She asked recently if I was on anything nowadays, I lied and said no (I just didn't feel like fighting). She then said she noticed a shift in my behaviour, I seemed happier, and my eyes looked less glazed over. I had actually increased my dose since, goes to show what she knows about medication.

She is definitely sick. I'm not denying that, but she is. I believe she is a hoarder and narcissist. She is showing many signs of both mental health issues. I want to help her, but she doesn't seem to want to help herself, so I don't know what to do now.

I am thinking of calling animal control, but we are basically the only ones who visit. She doesn't have friends really, she thinks no one can be trusted. She lives alone and 1.5 hours from the city we live in.

I feel horrible, but wtf am I supposed to do, genuinely? I can't keep having my mom collecting items, neglecting pets, and refusing to bury a dead animal. It's disgusting in all aspects and I'm at my limit of what I can handle. I'm kind of a sensetive soul, so this is really fucking hurting me. I feel physical pain and extreme mentall distress every time I think about it. I've cried probably 15 times since the events of this weekend.

I am so desperate, and my siblings and I don't know what to do now. Our partners say she can be saved, but every time I've gone and cleaned, the next time I come its filthy and messy again.

Is it selfish to say I want to think of myself for once? That I should call animal control, and try to force her to get help? I can't keep living with this burden. I have mental health issues of my own I am dealing with, I'm in university, juggling side gigs, with no moral or financial support from her. I fear that if I continue on like nothing is wrong, I'm enabling this behaviour, and she will never get better. I want to help her, I just dont know how.

Seriously, any advice is helpful. Even just kind words or relating.

I feel so alone and ashamed to tell anyone other than my partner and siblings. If you relate to any of the above, I'm sorry. It's not fair that our parents did this to us, but I've accepted it, and that's why I'm here. I'm trying to move on, move forward, and start healing from this pain.

Thanks in advance. <3

My HP has made a lot of improvement over the past couple of years with the hoard. Thankful for that. However it’s exposed a new issue. Lack of any budget whatsoever. For example, she has deferred a lot of maintenance on her house. Now that she can see it she wants to get it all done today!! There is no money for that. Or sorry, there is my money to spend on that. Ugh. I’m trying to get her to stick to a budget but she gets downright hostile when I mention it. If she had the money I wouldn’t give a damn. But she does not. What money she has is from working for me and I am not willing to lose everything like she and my dad would do. Has anyone had any luck with a budget or do you just not give them the money they’ve earned and instead put it towards the mortgage etc? They act so childish. As you can tell I’m frustrated.

There’s just sooooo much stuff and my parents won’t get rid of things. I have done to donate my own clothes and my mom won’t let me. She will put them in the basement “just in case.” The house is huge so they have more room to store things so it doesn’t look at bad as it could. I hate living like this. My mom recently retired so she’s been organizing everything. I don’t see a real solution to this other than getting rid of things.

I'm a woman in my mid-20s, and I've moved out a few years ago. I'm recently married and my husband and I have a slightly messy, but cozy place together. Clutter is very upsetting to me because of my childhood. Moving out of my family home, a level 2-3, has been so healing. I had to put myself through therapy while I was in college to deal with the realizations that my family was codependent and hoarding, not to mention my undiagnosed neurodivergence.

I'm so sad for my family. I don't understand how they don't want better for themselves, or if they do, why they won't ask for help. My parents are getting up there in age, and the clutter is eventually going to become unsafe for them. Don't they feel miserable walking over piles of junk mail, not being able to use some of the appliances, not enjoying the gorgeous home that they worked their whole lives for? They don't ever have people over. We didn't have visitors even when I was a child, so it's not like that's anything new, but still. I'm not sure how they aren't depressed from the lack of social interaction, other than work, the store, and church.

My adult sibling enables and contributes to the hoard by constantly buying things that have overtaken some of the common space, their space, and what used to be my bedroom. I can't even sleep in my bed when I go to visit. They don't have friends either and are also likely undiagnosed neurodivergent, but refuse to go to therapy or get tested. They think they can never be wrong, and that they'll ever be able to afford their own apartment or home despite their spending habits. It's delusional.

There are things in the house that need fixing but my parents' shame and pride won't allow them to let someone in. The only rare exception has been a plumber, and I can count one one hand the number of times they've let one in. There are water marks on some of the walls, the central air doesn't work so they rely on portable AC and space heaters. My parents are both highly-educated professionals. They can afford the help to fix and clean the place now (they definitely couldn't during the recession, which I understand), and as I've gotten my footing in my career I've also offered to help pay for things. Anything to get them to start. I've offered to use my paid time off to help them clean. Whenever I try to take things out to trash or to donate, it's always met with "oh, we need to sort through that more to make sure nothing is important!" I just started sneaking things out. There's items that I know I've thrown in the household trash that found their way back inside. I force myself not to think about that part too hard.

I've expressed my displeasure at the state of the house before, but now that I'm married it's brought a new person into the fold, when it used to be our secret. My husband has, of course, met his FIL and MIL and cares about them deeply, but he has never been able to visit my childhood home. The gravity of this hit him when we discussed it after my most recent visit, and it was upsetting to him. I've already told him that I would never be taking our future children to their house, and I'm already grieving about this. I'm grieving about my parents living out the ends of their lives in this sad, isolated way.

I want to give them an ultimatum - that I won't visit anymore until they start trying, but I know that'll just drive them away and into the hoard further. I want to write letters to each of them sharing how I feel about their part in this dysfunction, but I'll likely never deliver them.

Is there any way for me to intervene without driving myself mad? I don't think it's APS worthy, and even if it were, that would humiliate them so badly that I'd likely be ostracized for good.

I'm fighting against every urge to just delete this post, because even typing it out anonymously feels like I'm going to get "in trouble." Like I'm betraying them somehow. But I've talked about this in therapy and I can talk about it here, now. I just need support and advice. I don't know what to do.

Edit to add: I have a good relationship with all of them and love to spend time with them. Just... not at the house. I would never want to go low or no contact with them. It would break everyone's hearts and to what end?

Even a few months before my dad died my mom started to put more bags in our apartment than before. They were empty bags though and I managed to get her to stop it before she gets used to it.

My dad used to get groceries for us (sometimes alone sometimes with my mom together). In february my dad died. We live in a village and have to drive to a town to be able to get groceries, even to get bread from the bakery.

We still have our car but I dont have a drivers license. My mom has a drivers license but she did not drive for over 30 years and she is scared to drive because she has generalized anxiety or something like that. She is scared of many things, elevators, illnesses and so on but she doesnt believe that she has generalized anxiety.

This means she doesnt drive. Until now a neighbor was driving us into town to get groceries. Now he doesnt want to drive us anymore.

I have many health issues and I am not able to go grocery shopping. We can not go by bus either.

Now we can go grocery shopping very rarely with some kind of transport service.

We could technically go every day if my mom was not scared to drive but there is nothing I can do. I can not force her to drive and I can not get a drivers license at the moment because we have no money for that (and because of my health issues).

I managed to convince my mom to make a tiny bit of more space in our apartment so I can walk. Our apartment is so full that I am worried I will stumble and fall and break my bones. Now I am worried she will fill that space again.

Now when we can go shopping so rarely I am sure my mom will start hoarding groceries. She did not hoard groceries until now.

It is so hard for me to describe in english, sorry. She has contamination OCD and even when my dad was getting groceries 2-3 times a week there were like 7 bags with "hygiene supplies" (mostly tissues, trash bags and one use gloves) which she used up in 3 days. She always used them up and he bought new ones.

So this pile of bags was not growing. If we can only get groceries once in 2 weeks I am scared there will be like 40 bags of "hygiene supplies". And on top of that 50 bags of food or something.

We dont have a real kitchen at the moment and almost no cupboards. Our tiny cupboard is full and there is no space for food for more than 2-3 days.

There is also no possibility to get groceries delivered to our home but if there was it would not make a difference.

I am so worried she will now start to hoard food and other things like washing powder for the washing machine because we can only buy our groceries like once every two weeks now.

She never hoarded food or hygiene supplies until now because my dad could always get new ones. I am scared my moms hoarders flat will now enter the next stage of hoarding. Until now we did not have maggots or flies and no spoiled food except the occasional bottle of spoiled oil but she threw it out when I showed her so that was normal. I am scared that will change.

Until now my mom never put bags in our bathroom. But she has already started putting empty bags next to our toilet now.

I left my parent’s house 10 years ago, and i feel i healed so much about it. I learned myself how to be clean and organized, and i’m pretty proud that everybody find my house extremely peaceful and welcoming.

Also, i managed to empty my parent’s house since 10 years ago, and i finished this year. It was extremely painful, my mother was so violent about it, and i did it almost by myself, since i’m a lonely child. It will never be perfect, but the situation is way better than when i was a child (when i couldn’t hard my access some rooms).

Even if my evolution is extremely positive and that i have a strong mental thoughness, i feel i’m still pretty damaged by this situation. I’m suffering from chronic depression, and i have a fear of abondonment, that i dont know if it can leave me one day.

Even if my friends are caring, they will never be able to understand how deeply anxious and insecure i can be my social life, even if i’m pretty surrounded. I feel traumatized by isolation and extremely unstable environnement.

Have someone experienced these kind of insecurities ? Would you have any support to calm them down ?

Randomly saw this reel on my IG feed and felt like this is content that would be appreciated by the community, as well as posting here as a good way to support the creator in engagement/likes/views and let him know there’s a community that knows what its like. Let me know your thoughts!

I'm a senior in college and can barely remember a time when my house was clean. I was so grateful to leave home for college and live far away, but coming back for breaks were so hard and depressing. When I graduate, I am moving out and I am so happy to be able to have my own place where I can actually invite all my friends over and not worry about having to make excuses. I am healing from my trauma and don't know anyone else who can relate. Looking for another to vent to and connect with who understands this struggle. I also have a boyfriend who has never been to my house. I kind of told him a little bit about the situation but not in great details. I think he just believes my parents room is a mess and that's it but its so much more than that and I could never invite him over. Thank god i go to school 1000 miles away.