Difficult Conversations with Family

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moonarchia

The Scientific Shitlord
24,260
45,542
Always fun to hear your mom say shes ashamed of how her kids turned out.

So my mom is moving into my house, and my brother, sister and i have been moving her stuff. Problem is shes basically a hoarder. Not as bad as the people on tv, but pretty bad. Going through her stuff she has 5 vacuum cleaners, 3 of them broke. She had 4 kurig coffee makers. Boxes and boxes of entire sets of dishes, silverware, multiple full sets of pots/pans etc. This has been an ongoing problem since I was born. Every single place we lived, just completely cluttered full of shit she never used. I remember in one townhouse we lived in that had a two car garage, she had it packed completely full of junk, barely able to park her car in the garage.

So this has always been a source of friction between us, mainly because for the past 10 years its myself and siblings that have had to deal with it. When she moved from her condo 4 1/2 years ago, she could have left anything she didnt want behind as they where going to be demolished. Did she? Nope, she absolutely refused to let anything go and guilted us into taking every possible thing we could to her new place. At the time we didnt deal with the problem, as we figured she would actually deal with the junk at the new place. Didnt happen.

I ended up living with her for two years at the new place and she never did anything with the junk, even though I constantly talked to her about it and let her know she needs to take care of it The entire time I lived with her the sides of the garage where stacked floor to ceiling with boxes, the small patio completely filled with boxes and misc junk. After two years I bought my house and moved out. In the space I left, she quickly filled with more junk. The extra room became filled with nothing but boxes, same for the space in the garage I no longer parked in.

So this all comes full circle again when last month my mom was informed by her land lord that he would be ending the rental agreement today(she was month to month, no lease). The big problem aside from the junk that needs to be dealt with, is that she has been dealing with a hernia and was in the hospital due to it when the landlord informed her of this. The hernia isnt a result of just dealing with the junk but she has a very bad habit of needing to completely rearrange her living space every month. A woman in her 60s pushing couches, loveseats, tv sets, dragging them outside to clean them etc. And shes surprised she has a hernia problem.

End result is that after getting back out of the hospital last month for it, she ends up aggravating the hernia last weekend, almost certainly due to her trying to deal with the junk. This causes her to have to go back into the hospital and now she has surgery scheduled in a few weeks to hopefully take care of the problem. During this time I have offered to come over and get rid of the stuff, but just like before she has admittedly refused to let myself or my brother throw the stuff away. If she cant donate it to goodwill or give it to someone she refuses to let it just be thrown away.

So over the past few days of dealing with this stuff(quite a bit ended up coming to my house, a lot we put into storage) we have tried to explain to her the serious health problems that are a direct result of her actions, and that she doesnt have time to sort through this stuff it just needs to go asap as she has to be out of the place in a few days. The entire time she has fought with us, saying we are ungrateful, she cant believe how we turned out after being raised by her, how disappointed and ashamed of us she is, if the rest of her family only knew how we where treating her etc. Pure emotional manipulation. Thing that really got to me tonight, was that I said again, this stuff just needs to be thrown away(she still has a garage full of stuff and needs to be out in 24 hours) as she does not have time to rely on goodwill to take the stuff. She responds by saying that she should just move back to Florida as her sisters there would happily let her live with them.

Not exactly sure how I didnt explode on her then and throw everything in her face and just let her deal with the mess shes created. I just bit my tongue and left.

Put the junk in one of the many many many many public storage places out there. Put 3 months rent down, tell her she has until the end of that time to figure something out. Be very blunt that none of it will be at your house under any circumstances. If she ever asks to move in you will need to be extremely strict about house rules in that area. Legally binding contracts and all.
 

ToeMissile

Pronouns: zie/zhem/zer
<Gold Donor>
3,266
2,137
Sound like she needs professional help, counseling/therapy/???. Shitty situation man, best of luck.

As annoying as my dad can be, (lack of social situational awareness, woooon't shut up once he get's talking, stubborn, etc) he's at least trying to be helpful.

My brother-in-law (wife's sister's husband, will call him Rick) has been dealing with some pretty rough stuff for a while though. His two younger siblings (both in their 40's) have basically mooched off the family business (sorta do office work on occasion, but are on the board so have received ~100k/yr salary) that he's been running for close to 10 years. Works his ass off and the company has been very successful despite the dead weight.

A year ago he found out that an employee of 6 years had been falsifying records for at least a year - invalidated a bunch of training they were contracted to do with a number of local businesses and municipalities. Around the middle of last year his dad started to get really sick and just passed away about a month ago. During this time, his sister and her husband tried to take control of the business by falsifying documents. His mother and younger brother started to pull the "your dad wants your brother/me to run the company" starting a couple months before his dad died. They basically kept Rick out of the loop with any of the funeral arrangements and the ceremony until the last minute when realized nothing was getting done. The rest of the family didn't tell/invite him to an event/viewing with family coming in from out of town. The younger brother had a bunch of friend come who all got shit-faced at a post-funeral meal provided by the family. The mom/brother/sister also voted him out of the company to take control, called the cops on him when he cleared out his office of personal effects, and are fucking him over with severance/his share/equity in the company. They're going to last a year at best.

tldr - Dad died, shit-bag remaining family (mom/brother/sister) kicked him out of the business he built.
 

dizzie

Triggered Happy
2,509
3,939
If you are worried that she is suffering from a condition like dementia you should speak to professional body regarding your concerns before doing anything. Are there organisations/charity's that offer free advice? We have a few in the UK so presume there must be some over there. Tell them what's happening and your worries and they can maybe point you in the right direction, they get calls about people all the time; it's not all loved ones nearly setting houses on fire and such forth.

Dementia's a right bastard, Grandmother had Alzheimer's and I watched it manifest over 10 years. It'd be safe to say that after 2 years she wasn't the Nan I knew and loved anymore. In the end she had to live in a secure home as she just kept walking off places and was becoming extremely violent. (she tried to stab my Dad with a smashed sherry decanter one time). Think we were all relieved when she passed.

I'm sure there's plenty of places you can discuss this.
 

Big Phoenix

Pronouns: zie/zhem/zer
<Gold Donor>
46,669
99,507
From the way she reacted it sounds like she's lashing out because you're threatening her, in her mind.
Yeah, not like any of this was me coming in out of the blue telling her to get rid of shit. Up until the landlord came to get the keys we where still removing stuff from the house because she never wanted to let a single thing go.

I could have said fuck it deal with it yourself but that would of just resulted in her having a nervous break down and god knows what.