Is anyone else haunted by their childhood home?

[Pinklemons45]

Growing up, my dad was abusive (constantly called me fat, ugly, stupid, told me I would amount to nothing) and was very controlling of us and my mum. He would never redecorate the house or fix things if they broke. My mum hated cleaning and would tidy approximately once a month.

Let me describe the house:
The wallpaper was ripped off the walls (I can’t remember why) but never replaced. The carpet is 60 years old and held together with duct tape. The kitchen is black with grime and only one hob on the cooker works. For a time, the upstairs toilet flush stopped working (an easy fix I imagine) and we had to pour buckets of water down it for years. Everything is caked in dirt and grime, and even if it’s cleaned off, the paint is so old and dirty, it still looks awful. No central heating and it’s freezing in winter.

As a kid, I would scrub and clean and beg my parents to do something about it- but I have long given up. My friends were always asking why they weren’t allowed to come over and I didn’t want them to know I was living in a pig sty. For me, it’s a matter of pride - a deeply personal and embarrassing thing that I would rather package up and keep separate from my life than have to explain/be judged by others (who are well meaning but would definitely never understand).

Fast forward, I am now 34, and long moved out. My dad is dead and my mum really wants to do the house up, but in the 4 years since he died, has done nothing about it and instead wastes her money buying more clutter. I know I should want to help her as she doesn’t know where to start, but selfishly, I want to put my energy and time into my own place instead of that source of shame that caused me such stress growing up.

Although it wasn’t my fault, I still feel like the house will never stop haunting me and is a constant issue in my life. Is anyone else in a similar situation?

I haven't, but it sounds awful and it's natural for children who are abused to take on responsibility, so I think it's natural you feel the need to help clear it, but are right to focus on your own, new home and life.

Homes are often metaphors for our minds/inner lives/souls, so it might be that you could process more of the trauma you experienced as a child, perhaps through therapy, and the thought of the house would nag you less.

My parents were not as abusive as yours Op but there were difficult dynamics when I was a kid. I did feel haunted by my childhood home for years and I think it was due to unresolved issues with my parents. I am no longer haunted after I got therapy. If you feel unable to help your mum, maybe suggest that she gets a cleaner/decorator or even sells up and starts again somewhere else?

She didn't step in when she could have and yes it's not easy and she may have been a victim too, but you don't have to support her now.

I haven't been in this situation as my mother kept a nice home. Why should you want to help her, she's lived in a pigsty for years, just let her get on with it. Put your energy into making a lovely home for yourself, you deserve it.

You had to take on way too much responsibility when you were a child and that shouldn't still be hanging over you now that you're an adult. This is your time to enjoy your own home.

In any case, I strongly suspect that even if you did help your mum did clean, declutter and do up the house, it would very rapidly fall into an awful state again. I strongly doubt she will suddenly change a lifetime's inclination of filling the house with crap and not cleaning anything.

My MIL and FIL were hoarders and it caused my DW a huge amount of stress and upset. She wouldn't allow friends round when she lived at home too. It's sadly very common.

As hoarding is a mental disorder, there's probably not much you can do to help, but you can take care of yourself and your home.

You have your own home now.

Sadly, I think, even if you did help your mother do up her house it wouldn't be long for it to be a mess again. Someone doesn't suddenly start cleaning and become house proud after so many years of not caring.

I'm sorry for your experience growing up, it sounds awful.

The unhelpful comment from @stonebrambleboy aside, I agree - broadly - with other responses but think there's a third way here.

What strikes me is that your mum waited until she was widowed to tackle it, which suggests your dad may have held the control about the state of the house. The fact that she appears stuck is probably because she is utterly overwhelmed & needs help. You escaped but it has been her world for decades, with no change, so she probably struggles to imagine how to can be different or even how to start.

The clutter: I wonder how much of this are nice things or knick-knacks as I suspect? Why is there buying them? Well, because she feels its the one thing she can do & the one thing she can control.

So I think there's an option to support her while she steps up.

Solutions:
Recommend counselling to your mum as she will have a lot to work through & doing so effectively can be very liberating & empowering.

Seek out charitable help - there are some charities which help when people's living situations have got dire through adverse circumstances including illness (physical & mental) or domestic abuse. See whether the council can help at all.

Break it down into manageable tasks & an affordable plan.

Do you think you feel you could help her get started? You obviously need to protect your own mental health but it could be healing for both of you.

Be honest that you have limited mental / emotional capacity to deal with it but you could support her to do so.

Pre-judging that she won't take care of it when it's improved is unfair when wider circumstances are considered.

I agree with this you can spend all your time and money making your childhood home look fresh and clean and by Christmas it'll be a dump again. I've done this for both my parents several times and they've had no respect for my time effort and money and they just wrecked the place again.

After everything you've been through OP it is certainly not selfish to want to put all your time and attention into your own home.

I tried to help my own parents in their falling down, hoarded house and it was hopeless. They were ungrateful and critical of me behind my back (e.g. 'she comes over here interfering and we can't find anything when she's gone' or 'I don't know who she thinks she is that she wants to effing interfere in our home') I couldn't win. They're both dead now. There house was a state and hoarded to the very end. I ended up clearing it out after they died and it took months If they'd lived a thousand lifetimes I couldn't have changed things for them.

My aunt said a very wise thing and that it 'You can only lead your own life.' Your mum leads the life she chooses and you have done enough for her and owe it to yourself to invest all your energy into you.

I just want to add

my mum really wants to do the house up, but in the 4 years since he died, has done nothing about it
She's an adult and her own woman. If she wanted to do something about it she would have done so. She's had four years. She wants it as it is.

and instead wastes her money buying more clutter.
That's what she wants to do.

I know I should want to help her as she doesn’t know where to start
My mum and dad said they didn't know where to start with sorting out their house. I said I would help if they just made a list of the things they wanted to change. They never wrote a list despite me reminding them again and again. It was the moaning they wanted to do. They didn't want change.

Very well thought out reply x

Thank you. I think therapy is a good idea

Thank you for this and I’m really pleased to hear that therapy helped you. I’m sorry to hear you had a difficult time too

Thank you so much for this. I love the idea of breaking it down into manageable chunks and seeing if she can manage it that way if I help her to get started. I will be visiting her this weekend so will give it a go

Yes and there was a period of time in my life where I would recurrent dreams of my childhood home and it chills me to think about it. When I have a lot of stress I tend to dream about that house. It was a house with many rooms and on the top floor had extremely unhappy energy.

Yes me op.

My dad was pretty horrible. He wasn't all bad all the time and there were some happy times. But he was an alcoholic and had mental health problems so there were periods where he was abusive. Shouting, insults, violence, controlling everyone and the atmosphere, getting drunk, making threats. He was manic so would have periods of euphoria followed by deep depression.

My mum was just useless and completely downtrodden. She spent most of the time in her pyjamas. The house just seemed to get worse and worse she completely gave up on cleaning and my dad would start DIY projects but never finished anything.

I was so embarrassed to bring friends round and I'd beg my mum to help me clean up. Then for some reason my dad would go mental that we were cleaning 'for me' as my mum was pandering to me. He despised my mum doing anything with me he was jealous.

I have recurring nightmares still about being back there. The garden was full of dog shit, the stairs were in inch thick with dog hair. The hob was always filthy, they smoked and drank and everything was yellow from smoke.

It does haunt you.

It really annoys me on threads where people go on about the good old days and boomer parents and kids today being pampered. Things weren't all rosey years ago.

If you are going to visit and help could you start with some boxes and parcel tape and get her to wrap things she really wants to keep. That way you might get her to start evaluating things and you could both start to see the place more clearly. Next visit get rid of broken, outgrown and unwanted stuff, so you’ve looked at both extremes.

Getting rid of stuff can be very cleansing and liberating, both physically and emotionally.

I’m really sorry you had that kind of upbringing and home background, I hope you’re able to move forward.

I'm so sorry OP, that sounds so upsetting for you! And what a lot to put on your plate!

I actually get a bit like this with mess and cleaning. My home isn't dirty or stained or smelly or anything but it's very small and constantly feels cluttered. Tidying is just moving something from 1 place in the way to another place.. that's also in the way!

Every few months I decide to sort it out but I get blind to it and blind to the issues and get overwhelmed either knowing where to start or how to go about fixing it! Do you feel you could bring yourself to go to the house and help your mum make a to do list? I think laying it out for her from an outside perspective would be really helpful! Maybe help her research a skip or help her behind the scenes by finding a good local carpet layer or decorator so you don't have to keep going in there?

It must have taken a lot for your mum to decide enough is enough and I think that should be supported but not at the expense of your mental health.

OP, you could have described my childhood home. It was almost exactly as you describe, with the addition of rotting floorboards and holes in the roof. We could not bring friends there, and when two of my schoolfriends did visit, unannounced, I was teased mercilessly at school. We also went to school in dirty, ill-fitting clothes and were ostracised and bullied for that.

It took many years to realise that what we experienced as children was a form of neglect. We had plenty of food, and plenty of love (although my father was critical and not demonstrative), but we were often cold, dirty and subject to teasing.

My mother still lives in the old house. She is in her nineties now. She lives with my brother, who is her primary carer. I tried to tidy and clean the house, especially as my mother got older, but it was a losing battle. No sooner was it tidier, than it was all filth and squalor again (I do not use those words lightly). Friends from my mother and brothers' church have also been on blitzes to tidy and clean, but have experienced the same complete regression.

Now, I visit my mother regularly and she has carers three times a day. However, the home is just as it was in my childhood, if not worse. My mother is kept clean and healthy, but there are definite hazards throughout the environment.

Yet, I have lived my life through the clouded lens of my childhood. I always feel 'scruffy', I always fear my home is 'dirty', I always feel judged even though there is no reason to feel this. I also struggled for years to see 'mess' and clutter, because I had lived among it all my life. I think this is how my mother and brother are now.

So, please do not feel obliged to help your mother unless she really wants to change. Change is also very hard when you have lived in such environments for so long.

There is some tactic of just getting up during the ads of a TV show and doing tiny bits then. It's obviously not going to change anything overnight but it's a start that's potentially not overwhelming. And sometimes, once a start is made, it takes the fear away iyswim. They might even enjoy it! I used to wait til the apartment was empty, put on some good music and sing while I was cleaning. And singing always make you feel better 😁

I think @DoIdriveaVauxhallZafira has given good advice.
I'd also add, be really honest with yourself and her how much you want to help physically. You may find giving practical but 'hands off' support ie arranging for professional declutterers to come in, is better for you than actually rolling your selves up.
Don't end up in the position of feeling obliged and doing more than you really want to grudgingly. That won't help your relationship with your Mum.

I’m sorry you had to go through that - it’s such a weird type of shame isn’t it because you have to lie and make excuses because it’s so visible, but it’s not your fault.

i completely agree about the “good old days” - for me it’s seeing people having “a village” of people around them etc when I feel I’ve had to forge a life for myself and i don’t have that warm happy family home others do.

That’s a really good idea - and will put the onus onto her. Thank you so much.

Thank you for your kind message. Yes, I agree it would be a good idea to start with a to do list. I’m going to try that this week.

This post nearly made me cry - the way you put into words living life through the clouded lens of your childhood. This is exactly how I feel! I’m also always worried about being judged, I frantically panic whenever people visit in case they think I’m a disgusting slob, and I still think there’s something wrong with me after all these years. I’m so sorry it happened to you too.

You captured perfectly the torn feeling: the neglect on one hand but also love/care being provided in other ways which kind of makes you feel ungrateful or “spoilt” for wanting a tidy home.

thank you for sharing your experience, it has given me a lot to think about