Woman Suffocates Under Piles Of Clutter In Home

[Cypros]

http://www.ocfoundation.org/1005/m500a_001.htm

Cypros, that site seems to have some good info including support groups. Maybe there is something there that might help you with your Mom.

Thanks, Shadow. I will see if I can slip this information to her without her becoming defensive. I know she doesn't recognize herself as compulsive. Just the other day, she was just fretting about her DIL the other day who is compulsive in the excessively neat, can't relax, has to have everything planned and perfectly executed sort of way. I told her that I thought many people have compulsive tendencies and that her DIL reminds me a bit of HER when I was a kid. She baulked at that. LOL! As I said, she is now the opposite so it is hard to remember sometimes.

Ang50, I, too, can understand these people to a certain level because I recognize some of the tendencies in myself, except not so extreme, and I have managed to rid myself of some of the behaviors that I developed as a child when home life was chaotic and unstable (despite my mom's efforts to make the HOUSE look like an image from Home and Gardens).

 

[ehmadpotter]

I had an aunt with this problem, but she didn't collect things she collected stray animals. She lived in a impoverished crime ridden area by choice and took in every stray she found. I must say she did care for them very well, but she went through a rather large fortune doing it. No one in the family liked her ....except me.

LOL...well, I'm not your family, nor do I even know you, but I like you too!

 

[KatherineQ]

I have a fear of ending up like that.

When I see those crazy old ladies in dusters with 50 dogs, on the news, I shudder and think maybe I'll be there someday.

It's funny. Some women fear they'll die alone, some fear being attacked, I fear being very weird in my old age with lots and lots of dogs. ;D Go figure.

 

[LinasK]

My mother-in-law per se., and a friend of my husband's(they're really bad clutterers) are like this and my mother to a lesser extent. It is a form of OCD, but in my mother's case, it may also be Depression Era mentality of the fear of doing without...It's not that they're filthy, it's that these people can't bear to throw anything out. Also my mother-in-law has 22 cats, can't say no to a stray!!!

 

[kato]

I grew up in a household ran by a clean freak and my sister and I are now clean freaks. I know I get on my BF's nerves sometimes because I'm always throwing stuff away. In my house EVERYTHING has its place and when it's not it really throws me off and I get stressed out.

 

[bugs]

You know it is just not right to be killed by your own junk you collect. Sad that this happened. We went to help a lady clean her house that went to our church and when I walked in I started gagging and had to leave. Everyone left, hired a cleaning service and it took them four hours to just clean the refrigerator.

Okay, I am gagging now just thinking of it.