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Growing Up With a Hoarder
Here is the journey I had growing up with a hoarder, and the negative impact it had on me, and the insights I gained along the way.
When I was around 15 years old, I felt I could not stand my mother’s clutter anymore. My mother was out of the country for several weeks, so I set to work. My dad was out most of the time and did not care about what I was doing.
I went through piles of papers and discarded garbage bags of paper (this is before the days of recycling) and useless junk. I tackled the musty basement, where boxes had been rotting for years with costume materials, fabric, and old photos. Some were postcards of European movie stars. Many had been on the damp basement floor for years and were black with rot.
To my surprise, I found some of my paper garbage bags with stuff I had thrown out several years ago stashed out of sight. It seemed that my mother had taken the bags so that she could go through them and make sure that I was not throwing out anything “valuable.” The bags only contained discarded paper, non-perishable garbage, and magazines. I had a delightful afternoon going down memory lane as I went through the papers. I wish I had kept the teen fan magazines and rock ‘n roll memorabilia because they would be worth a fortune now.
My mom came home while I was at school. She was out when I came home. She left me a…
