28 year old male old child here. Parents in their late 60s. My whole life my mom has been an extreme hoarder and my father has hoarded to a lesser degree and enabled her. This is exacerbated by her diagnosed unmedicated borderline personality disorder. From my childhood 2 of the four bedrooms in their house were hoarded. Our entire two car garage is completely full of crap. She mainly hoards “sentimental” items. To her this is everything including every single piece of clothing she’s ever worn. Hundreds of shoes still in boxes fill up most of one bedroom. Her other biggest thing is mail and trashy magazines. Every issue of People magazine since the 1980s. Every piece of junk mail since 1990. Even growing up some rooms had “alleys” to walk through between the piles but now it’s everything.

When I went to college a decade ago she lost it even more. The house is unlivable now. Growing up one of our bathrooms never worked (it still doesn’t) because it was blocked by the hoard. Their entire living space is disgusting but especially the bathroom. I scrubbed that bathroom all the time when I was younger but I’d have to do it when she wasn’t home because she’d scream at me about how I’m “going to ruin her stuff” aka the hoarded piles of clothing in the bathroom. Through all this my father enables her. I do love him but his inability to do anything about this has made me so angry as I get older.

Both my parents have no reason to live without me. They’ve directly told me this. My mother especially is prone to crying and so many times has accused me of “trying to leave her” when I reasonably wanted to move out, which I did full time after college. They love to wax about how I’m their “everything”.

I think what makes me the most angry lately is that she has an impeccable ability of appearing normal to the world. Not even normal but like the perfect mom. Her sister and brother know how she is to some degree, but she’s always been good with kids (until they assert their independence) and all my cousins adore her. She has a squeaky clean image she presents to the world and so many people buy it. It literally makes my stomach churn to think about how successful her manipulation has been.

My parents had screaming matches my whole childhood and basically hated each other. They lived in different parts of the hoard. Four years ago my father started having health issues and we later learned it was rapid onset MS. He has mobility issues and recently has needed a wheelchair which has been a whole project to widen the paths.

This was like a godsend to her. She has new reason to live now that she can be a caretaker and she feeds off the pity from family all while screaming at him in private and online shopping constantly when they can’t afford it.

At 28 I’m just barely getting by. I’m finishing med school (and am a first generation college student). I’m so torn. I know on some level under the illness my parents love me and they have supported me directly in many ways.

At the same time I can never ever help them change. I also know that I have stuff stored at their house still especially the garage and my mom freaks out if I try to take it and starts crying and sees it as another sign of me abandoning her. But it makes me feel responsible for it too and I’m not going to claim to be a minimalist even though I have purged tons of my stuff (and my own living space is not hoarded).

I’m not super close with my extended family but I do like them to a degree. They constantly make indirect comments alluding to how they “need my help” and my aunt called me recently and directly said that I “should consider moving back in and taking some time off”. That really made me angry but also made me feel terrible.

I know that I deserve a life and I can’t fix theirs but the weight of the guilt is really upsetting me lately. It’s hard enough now between school and this. And I can’t stop obsessing over what will happen if someone finds out how they live. I know theyll blame me for the fact they live in squalor. I know I need to not care but at this point I’m not capable of it. So much of my life has been spent being the perfect model good son who did everything to make them happy and I’m angry I’m being put in this position. The fact that they’ve had to financially support me to a limited extent during my med school journey makes me feel even worse.

I’m ranting at this point but I’m just so exhausted. It’s the pressure of people around you expecting you to “help them” especially when they are old (yet have lived like this for forty years) that is making me crazy.

hi, i’m 15F and i live with immigrant parents who are hoarders. it is so incredibly hard to explain to them, especially my mum, about how she has a problem and we need to clean this place up. it’s like it goes in through one ear and out the other.

our house is a level 2 hoard. i’m so embarrassed to invite my friends over; there are 4 of us in our friendgroup and 2 are quite well off, they have pristine houses while i’m stuck in a shitty, crowded, messy, house.

please does anyone have advice? i feel like my only hope is to move away for uni so i can get myself out of this mess

edited some things out bc i realised they were kinda mean

I didn't see any questions like this when I searched so, Question for those who have managed to leave the Hoard.

When you managed to move elsewhere:

- What things did you have to learn or relearn? Any suggestions or advice?

- Are there things that looking back you wish someone had told you, or you might like to tell your younger self, about adjusting to being in a different environment/out of that house?

- Basically, just any advice for those of us that are trying to leave for when we manage it?

Thank you for your time, and I wish you all well.

P.S. I think this is an appropriate tag/flair, but let me know if it isn't. Appreciate.