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.

Strawberries98, I am sorry you and your sister went though this. My mum is a hoarder too, but never neglected my brother or myself, or was mean with her love or money.

You won't change her now, unless she really wants to, which, frankly she won't ( that is my experience any way)
You can feel sad and angry about her way of life, but it is definitely not your fault or your problem, she has mental health issues, which only professionals will be able to help her with, but she needs to agree.

Be kind to yourself, you are strong , look after yourself and your fiancé.
Make your life together a new start and congratulations!
( There is a thread on MN called Stately Homes about toxic families which might help you to see that you are certainly not alone)

Hoarders are generally selfish people

I don't know enough about hoarding to know if that is true, but I know that with many compulsions the behaviours stem from intense fear. I would not call you selfish if you failed to consider my needs when you were in a state of intense fear and felt for example, that something you were doing that damaged me was a matter of life and death. In many people with compulsive behaviour, the things they do that may look pointless and trivial to you (and in one sense are pointless of course), feel to them intensely necessary and involve parts of the brain activated in situations of dire stress and fear.

It is complicated. I hesitate before describing the mentally disordered as selfish, although they can be and often consideration for others can be a motivator for change, it is much much more complex than that.

strawberries

I don't think you can help her. Clearly, she has MH issues. I feel sad for you in your adult form and desperately sad for the little girl you were

I think she's obviously not ready to accept she has serious issues, and probably not ever ready to admit it to you. I gather she lives on her own? Does she have any friends or other relatives that visit?

I think, given the circumstances, it's entirely reasonable to say to her "Look. You HAVE got issues and when and if you're ready, I will help and support you. Until then, I'm not going to offer the help anymore. I'll call/visit etc but won't be staying here. And inbetween visits, I'm at the end of the phone should you need help"

And leave it at that. You are, as you say, a professional adult and should be immensely proud of what you've achieved despite your neglectful start in life. I also had a fractured/neglectful upbringing and am proud. I pity the child I was. And that's ok.

Hoarding is bad news in a flat especially. If she has a fire she could put the whole block at risk.

Maybe you should ring the council to see if they can help. They’ll support her and may get through to her more than you can?

OP, did she have a difficult childhood herself? I'm wondering whether her parents might have had money issues which have led to having these issues with hoarding and extreme scrimping? Although of course I'm sure it's more complicated than that.
This sounds like a tough situation for you. I echo what others have said about trying to recruit some professional help.

I would give the council a ring and tell them about your concerns. Your mum sounds an absolute nightmare to be honest, and I feel so sorry that you've had such a hard time with her. Hoarding is a mental health disorder, and one that is incredibly hard to tackle. I'd try getting her help in as far as the safety of her home is concerned, but you can't make her "better" as such and will only send yourself mad trying. You have to keep a certain distant for your own mental health too .

This may sound a bit convoluted , but I'm sure there is a Tv programme about Jasmine (who presents one of the houses abroad type programmes )
Jasmines mum was also a hoarder and there was a fascinating programme about how Jasmine coped with the hoarding whilst supporting her mum .

Yes... the programme with Jasmine Harman was good... a bit about it here

YANBU. It’s a bit taboo to admit you’re not your mum’s BFF sometimes.

My mum is so cantankerous now. She’s not even 60! When she visits we’ll walk down the street and she’ll say “look at that fat child! Why are children so fat now?”. She louder than she thinks. I get angry because I live here and she doesn’t and because it’s so rude. It’s always about people’s weight as well. My mother is very overweight. I once had enough and pointed this out after a woman with a newborn heard her comment on her stomach. Then Mum got pissy with me 🙄

It’s other things as well, I don’t live in a naice town and sometimes the locals are a bit...rough round the edges. Last time she was here we were in a soft play and a family screamed at their DD “Chardonnay get your backside hear NOW!”. She did a melodramatic gasp and shot them a filthy look. So embarrassing, and she doesn’t even care

It sounds like you were badly neglected as a child. Well done for now living your life as a functioning and useful adult. That's not easy when your example of how to live was so skewed.

I'm not sure what you can do with your mum. She sounds like she has mental health issues and needs professional help, but it sounds unlikely that she will seek that out. You could speak to the council about the hoarding, from a safety point of view. Having an outsider speak to her may make her realise her behaviour is abnormal. Likewise with the toilet tissue substitute. You could speak to her GP too, although they may not discuss her with you, but it could be worth a go. Ultimately, there's not a lot you can do until she seeks help for herself, or decides that she can change without the help. If you feel it's too upsetting seeing her like this, or too stressful etc, then the only thing really is to take a step away and reduce contact.

OP, please read the book "The Glass Castle", or watch the film - with Brie Larson and Woody Harrelson. (I can't vouch for the film though.) It's a true story, a childhood memoir.
Seriously, this is your life. The parents who refuse to spend money. The grand plans that will never come to fruition (the castle of the title). The hoarding. Children being left to fend for themselves, as you were. The book opens with the author (who grows up to be a successful journalist) age 4, inflicting severe burns on herself because she's left alone to make her own food.
When she first reached adulthood, the author distances herself from her parents, who are by now living as homeless itinerants. It's eventually revealed that her "impoverished" mother owns land worth seven figures. In the end the author takes her mother in to live with her. She is still hoarding and living in squalor.
I guess there won't be any answers in there for you, but the similarities are so striking.

This is so sad. Her comment about the wedding is very telling, I think: she can’t see it as anything other than ‘free food’. It sounds like she’s just existing as cheaply as possible and not getting any joy out of life. Does she ever do anything for fun?

I’m in no way an expert or any kind of mental health professional but from what you’ve said it sounds like your dad was financially abusive. Would you say that’s a fair comment? If so then I wonder if she learned to be as frugal as possible in order to avoid having to ever ask him for money?

Do you have any idea what her finances look like now? It sounds to me like she is ‘tight’ out of habit rather than a genuine financial need to live only on cereal and never buy toilet paper. But of course I could be wrong, and I hope that if she really is struggling that badly for money then there are places she can go for help (not always that simple, I know). For some people though I think it becomes less about what they actually can or can’t afford to spend, and more like a challenge where they try to see how little they can manage to live on.

I don’t think ‘ashamed’ is the most helpful word to use but I don’t blame you. It must be very upsetting to see her living like this especially having been brought up like that yourself.

I don't think you're unreasonable at all. Unfortunately I don't think you can change her strawberries, but you probably knew that.

If the hoarding gets so bad that you're worried about her safety (fire hazard, mice/pests, mould, etc) then you could report her to the council - might be cowardly but personally if I was to do that I'd not tell her I was doing it and do it anonymously.

I think the only thing that would really help her would be to get some form of counselling, but ultimately if she doesn't change you might have to decide between contact with her and your own well being.

You can't change her but you can change how you respond to her and you can change yourself. Do you live with her? If so I'd try and move out as soon as possible.

Good luck, it must be so hard to live with that.

Yes to DeadGood The Glass Castle is an excellent book. You really aren't alone Stawberries.