Saturday, August 4, 2007

My Mum the Pack rat!

Mum has always been a hoarder. She used to keep absolutely everything just in case it might be useful. Bottle tops, buttons, newspapers, takeaway food containers. When I cleaned her little 2 bedroom we took 2 tonnes to the tip and had 3 skip bins of rubbish taken away.

What was left came to our house because we simply ran out of time to get through it. So my once clean house now resembles her old junk filled house and I hate it. My house no longer feels like my home. My husband told me this week that it doesn't feel like his home anymore, it feels like my mothers house. We built our home almost 20 years ago and raised our kids here. It's not perfect but up until mum moved in it has had a good feel to it. It gets a bit messy at times but it is a friendly, warm house.

My daughter has started seeing a counsellor to help her cope with mum living with us. I am considering it as well, if I can find one that I haven't worked with or don't know. Somehow I have to try and get rid of all the remaining junk and reclaim my house. I can't just throw things out because Mum has valuable things hidden with rubbish. I found almost $700 in a box kitchen junk.

So this weekend I am trying to have a big effort to sort through more boxes. One of the problems is that I can only do it for so long and then I just feel overwhelmed. I have found photos of my father that I have never seen. Or mementos of him that I never knew about. He left my mother when I was young and although we saw him sometimes at holidays mum never shared any memories or photos of him with me.

So I will be cleaning something and then suddenly I discover pictures or letters. It is like a kick in the guts. I sit and look at them and I wonder about all that I don't know about my childhood. What hurts most is when I show my daughter, and she has seen them before. Apparently mum showed her when she was younger.

And they are not all kept together in one place. A photo or a letter will turn up anywhere, or a memory. It exhausts me.

So Mum was a pack rat and as her dementia progressed she became worse. Now she takes things and hides them in her room from our belongings. I can cope with it but my daughter can't.

Oh well, blogging is such good therapy. Where else can one share this stuff anonymously. So I am trying to brace myself to get a lot done today. I will set Mum up with a video so she is occupied and doesn't try to 'help' me. I have a Fred Astaire one that she loves.

So my goal this weekend is to reclaim some territory!

2 comments:

Gavin said...

We've got rooms full of plastic flowers and stuffed animals!

Mr Mans Wife said...

It must be so exhausting for you, mentally and emotionally. And it sounds like the strain is starting to take its toll on the whole family. My heart goes out to you. Remember to get some "me time" and some "together time" with your husband x