An Intervention

I asked Laura from the senior center to meet me at my mother's condo to see the condition of her place. Then I called my mother's driver to bring her home from shopping, so that we could make a plan on cleaning her house over the next few months. Her house cleaners, Nancy and Phil, are willing to do anything necessary to make the place safe and healthy, but my mother is unwilling to let them touch the huge piles of junk mail that fill her kitchen. She is also unwilling to let them go through her refrigerator to remove the rotten and spoiled food or to remove the vegetables and fruit rotting on the floors of her kitchen and hallway. The rest of her home is also filled with mail, magazines and clothing. Her en suite bathroom is unusable because it is filled with piles of clothing.

For 15 years I have tried to work with my mother on her compulsive shopping and hoarding habits, but to no avail. She will be 93 years old next month and I am 72. If this latest intervention does not have a modest success I will give up. We will be selling our condo and moving out of state permanently. My husband's mental health and physical well-being must take priority.

Having a narcissistic mother is the worst curse I could wish upon a person and I have had to live with this all my life. How a person can be so charming with other people and yet so vindictive to her only daughter is beyond my understanding. My mother did not attend my college graduation, did not come to my wedding, did not help me after the births of my children, and would not hold her grandchildren or great-grandchildren in her arms. I know that this is incomprehensible to people who have had loving mothers, but that was my life. My faith in God is the only solace that has helped me be a functional human being.

My mother's hoarding is the most recent manifestation of her personality disorder. It began most profoundly with my father's death. Before that he was able to keep some control over her, even though she subjected him to extreme verbal and emotional abuse while he lay dying from Lou Gehrig's disease.

If anyone believes they can help my mother they have my blessing. She will not allow me to help her, so I give her up to God. If she will ever change it will be through his grace.


           

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