To be ashamed of my mum

[strawberries98]

I said to my mum that I was ashamed of her. She was angry and upset.

My reasons were:

• she takes piles of paper towels from public bathrooms and uses them as toilet paper because she thinks buying toilet paper is a waste of money. There is no toilet paper in the house, only paper towels from outside. These are hard and uncomfortable. I said it was stealing but she said it wasn't because it was free for everyone to use. She said she was being practical and trying to save money when she can.

• she doesn't want to throw anything away even though it isn't useful anymore, because she 'paid good money for them'. e.g. clothes that she bought but didn't wear, old children's clothes which I outgrew 20 years ago, old pencils and pens etc. Her house has three rooms (living room, and 2 bedrooms) filled with bin bags, old furniture, crates etc. You can't walk through the corridor, due to old stuff and can't use the rooms. I said that she should sort it out and give it to charity, but she flew into a rage. I managed to organise one bedroom in order to stay in it.

• she doesn't eat anything other than cereal and milk, or chocolate, because she can't afford or is too lazy to go out to the supermarket to buy fresh food. She thinks that cereal has enough vitamins.

• I was resentful as well because growing up, my mum didn't bother to cook or buy food, and therefore we either went without dinner or just ate cereal. I wasn't given much money for food at school, only £1, so I usually ate a plate of plain pasta without sauce. We didn't really have healthy food.

-when I was younger, my sister and I only had showers once a week. We changed clothes about 1-2x a week, including uniforms. Nowadays my mum only has showers once a week, or even less and she thinks it's normal.

-when I was younger, we also skipped school for various reasons: mum couldn't be bothered to walk us to school, we missed the bus, we went on roadtrips etc.

• my mum would teach us to be dishonest and she was proud of it, eg. not paying for train fares by hiding in the toilets, telling us kids off if we paid for train fares, not paying bills by hiding in the house when people came to the house to check the meter.

• she said she has no money to pay for my wedding (which is fine) but she says why should she pay for other people to fill their bellies with nice food? can I not get married, or maybe just get married overseas with no guests.

I think it's abnormal behaviour, but my mum thinks I am being a snob, and being ridiculous.

Do you think she would engage with a doctor or something?

My DHs mum was exactly like this. There is a huge back story that I won't go into, but most of the stuff in the OP and lots more. She died a few years ago but when she was alive she just didn't see a problem with her behaviour at all and would never go to the doctor's or anything, she had no idea that she had a mental health problem. We were thinking about social services but again there is just no way she would have engaged.

When she died her house was horrific with stuff she had hoarded (won't go into detail but it was grim). However, she left her house and all of her money to charity (she didn't believe in giving her kids handouts) so it was someone else's problem to sort in the end.

It was really hard for my DH when she was alive as she treated him so badly but he was the only one around so he felt like he had to go and see her. He would tell her to sort things out and offer to help but it was always thrown back in his face. When she died it was a huge relief for him.

I'm really sorry, I don't really have any advice, but I sort of know what you are going through.

Wow, I’m really flabbergasted reading this and wondering if you are my big sister. ? Some of the things are easily similar.

sorry op sounds very difficult for you

yes she is a hoarder and hoarders can very often be mean/tight which she sounds,it goes hand in hand for many like that

phone the council,she is a massive fire risk to herself and the block and with all that happened lately im sure the council will take any fire risk to a block of flats very seriously and so they should imo

do it without giving your name if need be,she is putting other peoples lives at risk living like this

good luck

She seems lazy and tight, but nothing is screaming "serious MH issues" to me. As for the suggestion of going reduced contact

We had baths once a week as a child so do mine sometimes but were still clean. My dc get their uniform changed once a week? They have clean underwear/socks but wear everything else Mon-Fri. Teens have a clean shirt available everyday. Mine eat a lot so take £3 for school lunch but it seems for whatever reason some of their peers only take a small amount.

I also take extra napkins from Costa/Ikea to keep in my bag. Maybe I have serious MH issues.

Wow, that must have been hard growing up with that type of mother! IMO, she may possibly have mental issues and need to see somebody. While this may be the case, if she doesn't believe so or want to, professional help may not do anything.

It's most likely something that she experienced growing up. A fear. Maybe you a start from there. Open up a conversation with her on her past.

Mum definitely has serious MH issues. I'm sorry for your childhood and so glad you've come through. Can you see her GP? I've no idea how it works, seeing a GP about someone else.

She said she was 'too lazy' to get food but I think that she doesn't want to pay full price for healthy food and is also unmotivated to go get food. She is happy eating cereal because it is cheap and fills her stomach. I guess fruit and veg aren't cheap but her health is really important.

It's a massive fire risk, you need to report this to the council for everyone else's safety who lived in the flats.

Another vote for serious mental health issues.

Not that that helps in itself, but might help you come to terms with your mother.

She is a dysfunctional hoarder who thinks that saving money is virtuous when it destroys everyone around her.
Was there a traumatic event which caused the onset of these behaviours? There often is such as parental death.

She needs medical help/counselling and you are not wrong to call her an embarrassment fad she has hurt you deeply .

Show her the tv show ‘call the cleaners’ ... similar stories

Her mental health problems and ingrained behaviour most likely came from her own upbringing.
Did her own parents ever cook proper meals, buy her new clothes etc?

Luckily you have managed to break the cycle.

Without professional help she won't change but is unlikely to accept help when she thinks there is nothing wrong.

The coucil definately won't like the place being a hoard. H+S plus it's likely to attract pests and stink as well as a fire hazard.

The only problem with forcing a hoarder to clear a hoard is they soon fill the space with more crap as the original mental health issue isn't dealt with.

Why should she pay for your wedding?

suki do you feed your children cereal and nothing else then?
Do you obstruct your children from school?

I'm all for grabbing extra napkins from cafes but the OP's situation is completely different from what you're identifying with

She does sound very ill.

I don't get the comment about the wedding as she's not paying!

It's also hardly a radical idea to have a wedding breakfast!

Pathological meanness and hoarding do go hand in hand. People with these tendencies are extremely difficult to help and rarely accept they have a problem at all.

I don't blame you for feeling ashamed. Your feelings are what you feel and you will have spent much of your childhood feeling shamed by her actions. Or rather, inactions.

If at all possible, place distance between you and try to distance your emotions. If she asks for support point her to her GP or relevant agencies. Meet on neutral territory and try not to discuss topics which will inflame the situation. Low contact seems safest for you.

Parenting in this way is very damaging. Well done for growing up with a moral compass and don't feel bad for disliking the way you were raised.

This sounds like mental health issues ?

I think being ashamed is wrong. Your mum obviously has some mental health issues and with your support, could address if she wanted. Unfortunately you can't just contact your local NHS mental health team, they would need a referral from the GP in the first instance and it would need to come from her rather than you. Alternatively, if you feel she is a vulnerable adult you could contact you council safeguarding team and make an alert, which will then pick her up and into the system if they felt it warranted further investigation and the concerns could be substantiated.

Sounds like you've had a hard time with your mum, but I suspect it's her illness rather than anything else that makes her act and do things that we would think were irrational.

Rather than telling her you're ashamed of her, have you told her that you're concerned and you would like to support her. However, she may already be in the system and this is who she is with professional support.

Thank you for all your replies, it's a great help to me to get someone else's perspective. I was feeling like I was the one who was wrong because my mum says I am crazy and not being practical.

I don't usually live at home, but I will go back to my home city and stay with my mum every now and then. I'm now 30 and a working professional. My mum is 55.

It just upsets me to see her live like that. I went out to buy toilet paper (she said I wasted my money because it was going to be flushed away) and I got lots of fresh food delivered to the house. I tidied up one of the bedrooms so that it was liveable. The house has a smell of rubbish too, because she is too cheap to buy bin bags, and then she is too unmotivated to take the rubbish out. I have bought bin bags but she is too cheap to use those!!! She has a cupboard full of bags to 'keep'.

I mentioned that the house was a hazard, fire, vermin etc. She said I was being ridiculous because there were no flies, and why would there be flies in clothes?

She dared me to report her for stealing loo roll, she said 'report me then!' etc. We had arguments and she said I should just tell people that I was an orphan. She said it's nothing to do with you etc. I was being too 'unpractical' by expecting toilet roll.

I think with my mum's background: she was in an unhappy marriage with my dad. They divorced when I was 18, but they constantly rowed when I was little- about money and about how she was too good for him etc. she treated my dad like an idiot, and turned me and my sister against him etc. My dad wasn't a 'normal' dad either as he would only ever think about himself and didn't engage with us kids at all. He didn't know my middle name, he didn't know how old I was etc.

I definitely didn't have a normal childhood as I couldn't tell anyone where I lived, wasn't allowed to open the door incase it was the 'meter man' or 'TV licence man'. Couldn't have any friends at home as our house was dirty and a mess. One of my earliest memories when I got upset to be left alone in the house as a 4 year old at night with my newborn baby sister.

I don't think she will go to her GP as she doesn't feel like it is a problem. She thinks it's normal. She also thinks everything is temporary, and she will lead a fabulous life in the future one day, when she moves overseas and 'finds a rich boyfriend'. I try to gently remind her to prepare for the future in case Plan A doesn't work out.

OP I'm sorry you had to go through this. MH issues or not, there is no justification for not feeding kids properly unless you really do not have the money.

I've had a fair bit of experience with hoarders, and agree with PP's who say even if the house is cleared, it usually goes back to how it was. Most people I met like that had major losses in their lives...e.g children dying, house blown up in the war...that sort of thing...which seemed to make them want to cling on to everything.

It sounds like your mum is a bit anti-social though. Stealing, encouraging fare dodging, not washing, discouraging you from having a wedding party (heck I'm divorcing but at least people say we had a fab party ). Does she do anything positive for you or anyone else at all?

Could it have been money issues she was trying to hide from you? Without the hoarding it sounds as if everything was driven by a need to save money. Maybe you could broach the subject of finances carefully and find out what her situation is.

I am not asking her to pay for my wedding. I don't think that would be fair, as she doesn't want to spend anything on herself anyway! I would feel like I was robbing her.
It's just that I felt she was missing the point of weddings, to celebrate two people and their families getting together. She saw it as a way that other people could get their bellies filled for free. So she thought I would be better off not marrying or if possible go somewhere remote to get married on the cheap with no guests.

I wouldn't ashamed as such but she definitely needs help - how is your relationship outside of these things?

Please report to the council, they will arrange to have the place cleared, even if you can't see it, there will be vermin there and of course the serious fire risk.
It might be worth having a chat with social services as well.