AGING PARENTS

It's a ways yet for me -- my folks are in their sixties and in good health still. But my dad is starting to slow down a touch -- kinda good that he's retired, officially -- and more than once I've wondered a bit about what the not-so-far-away-now future will mean.

Certainly I salute your patience with this all -- I'm not sure how I would react.

The patience is key, but it's really hard to keep it up. Can other siblings/capable family members come to visit to spell you for a bit?

If by 'graying', you mean 'balding', then yes, to some extent I am such a one.

At the moment the brunt of the responsibility has fallen to an older sister who lives much closer to my 81 year old mother than myself or my other siblings. She takes on the 'dutiful child' role, while the rest of us come in and put in a burst of assistance whenever the tide of troubles rises above a certain level, so my sister doesn't burn out.

My father died two years ago. During his last year and during the year immediately following his death, I drove the 75 mile round trip to see the two of them (later, just my mother) very often. There was so much that needed tending to.

My father, too, suffered from severe short term memory loss toward the end of his life, reducing him to a small shadow of the man he had been - because he became literally unable to encompass any activity that could not be completed within the two minutes or so that he was able to form and hold a single thought. He, too, was inclined to minimize or dismiss the severity of his problems. I finally realized that he understood very well the extent of his diminished capacity, but facing it was too great a threat to his sense of worth and happiness. Denial was how he held depression at bay.

Now that he has passed on, my mother has grasped the nettle of losing her companion and mainstay of 57 years with surprising firmness. I spent 8 months visiting her almost weekly during that transition. It helped a lot, I think, to have family members to talk to and grieve with, and help her form plans and carry them out.

I wish both you and your mother the best, but, as you no doubt know in your bones, even the best possible outcomes available to you and her are still damned difficult to embrace. The cost of love can be pretty steep sometimes, and the bills fall due with increasing frequency at this time. Good luck.

I just moved all of my (paternal) grandfather's stuff in with his, uh, 'friend' because he couldn't afford his truck payment and townhome rent and medicines and everything else at once. And since he's still part of the family cosntruction business I spend much of my day ensuring that he isn't overworking (or just screwing things up - he gets frustrated easily that his muscles and joints don't work like they used to).

My grandmother (maternal) has Alzheimer's (early-mid stage), and drove me kind of nuts before it was full-blown. Neither of my uncles, none of my ten cousins and my brother don't do shit. Anything not handled by my parents falls directly to me. The extent of the agonies here (some her fault, some not, mostly involving my useless uncles and their brood) is too long to list.

With both I'm always on-call to fix something or help out or figure out why the TV isn't working or why this bill didn't get paid. I can't say no, even when I want to, and the occasional feeling of being put-upon hasn't helped my relationship with my grandmother. (And, theoretically, I'd like to move north when my finances are sorted and my degree is finished - but I can't knowing that I'd leave anyone in the lurch.)

Only 20 years 'til my parents are in their late-70s...

It's a tricky situation as for whatever reason, mostly a weird sort of shame or embarassment, she is loathe to talk about her problems with my Dad or myself, or anyone really, my sister whom she is very close to can sometimes get a little discussion about it.

It's terrible because she grieves for her feet as things worsen, quite slowly, though the condition may one day lead to her being in a wheelchair. She grieves yet she never seems to get past the denial stage, she can't accept or discuss the problem.

So she will often cry kind of uncontrollably, it's awful to hear, but worse is that she won't allow you to help or even talk, my Dad sometimes just says to me "I have no idea what to do", which is also quite weird, it all feels kind of dysfunctional.

So I relate to the "denial" thing you mention Beth, my mother is much younger and this is a problem. I can only imagine what she'd think if she knew I was discussing this on a messageboard...I just wish I had some productive advice rather than just empathy...

Good luck Beth, and everyone else posting here. I've been really lucky so far, but the day isn't far off -- my mother will be 74 next month and my dad is 77. But my dad, Jesus, he heals quicker than Wolverine. He planted his garden this year, went in for quintuple bypass surgery, and was recovered enough to bring in the harvest himself.

The child unable to believe that the parent has lost power?

My mother (89) has had alzheimers for about 8 years. Her body has served her well, but her brain slowly went to bits shortly after my stepfather died. Unable to manage her house anymore, my brother and I moved her to an independent living center that guaranteed access to its nursing home if and when the time came. It came about two years after the move. I live 3 hours away, but my brother lives within walking distance and visits her several times a week and we included her in family events until about a year ago when she just became unable to feel comfortable outside of her nursing home environment.

She's now almost totally deaf and has never used a hearing aid which makes any serious communication impossible. I visited last week and found her doing a crossword puzzle. We did the puzzle together for a while, but her mind kept drifting all over the place.

My wife's father (82) has Parkinson's and fell down the stairs recently. Compression fractures of three vertebrae was the diagnosis. Surgeons injected some kind of cement in his spine and he was getting about with a walker after only a few days. My wife plans to care for him in his home in the near future. He suffers from dimentia, too, but is on so many meds that I think that may be a contributing factor. This guy was an infantryman in world war II, a radio and tv personality and has had a very good life. He is loved by many people and has had countless visitors at the hospital. He is very frail now and has told me, and I'm sure others, that he knows his life is at the very end.

These are two of the coolest people that I have ever known, both with precious little time left. One knows it and one doesn't seem to. They are both receiving the best care available, but y'know sometimes that don't mean a thing. My thoughts are with all of you.

This. Heavy shit, huh?

yep

In darker moments, I look at my folks now (esp. my Pa who is 75 this week) and feel like the wave of their good years is just on the cusp of breaking. Not really ready for it, not at all.

My mothers good years are most definitely past. This has become very evident as she's staying with me for a couple days and it's totally heart breaking. Also, there's some memory loss/disorientation stuff happening that's scaring the crap out of me.

so heavy i can't really talk about it

Yeah. I started trying to talk about it with someone at work and couldn't really hold myself together. This is really tough. :/

Good luck Erica... luckily my parents are still mostly 'together' and my dad's problems are a result of his alcoholism rather than real mental deterioration, but it's still awful to have to deal with this stuff.

yeah i'm going through this too. all the best, E x

and everyone else :/

This took up took up over 10 years of my life (from 1994 - 2008 in fact). Both my parents got ill in their early to mid-seventies, and both had dementia and a pretty terrible end in a nursing home in their late seventies.

I spend most of this period visiting at weekends, and other times - and in that rather mad space where you seem cut off from the concerns of normal life, unable to relax for a minute, and living a kind of nightmare existence that no-one else around you realises. (Nothing like the horrific life of a full-time career - but bad enough).

The only thing you can say about it is that it passes, and you realise that what felt like an endless enduring period was in the end just another temporary era.

Siblings help -- if you're lucky.

I'm an only child. This is the only time I've ever wished I had siblings tbh.

Thanks, guys. Things are OK and we had a really nice evening. She's staying with me until she flys back to FL on Wed. Ian - alcoholism is a factor here too in addition to a lot of other things. I guess I just really feel for my dad and am really saddened by realizing that it's only going to get worse from here and I'm afraid it's going to do so pretty quickly.

I feel for you, ENBB. I'm an only child too; my mom's 84 this year but still drives, takes care of her own stuff, is still sharp as ever (dad died in 2000). But I dread so deeply the coming of the signs. I can't even model it in my mind. Hugs.

my mom's 84 this year but still drives, takes care of her own stuff, is still sharp as ever

That's fantastic, good for her! Mine is 74 this year but she's an old 74 and hasn't driven in at least 5 years. Anyway, like I said, we had a lovely day today. It's just a really difficult process to watch and I worry about what will happen down the line.

pullin for you E - us only children gotta stick together. this terrifies me too - and is a big part of what motivates me to do what I do now - but hopefully there will be a good, long time before anything really happens.

You know you have my support as another only, but I'm too much of a weakling to talk about this stuff
In earnest
In public
Beyond this

But you know where to find me offboard if you wanna talk!!

i will say that my mom is pretty damn sharp in mind, but whenever i visit, i insist on driving EVERYWHERE. her driving scares the bejesus out of me, don't understand how she hasn't had her license taken away. and it only gets worse as she gets older.

yeah driving is often the "tipping point" of aging parents decline. really hard to give up.

my heart goes out to enbb,la lechera, ian and everybody facing this. all my middle-aged friends have ailing/aging parents right now, you guys are confronting it early like i did. these days my father in law is essentially dying, i was going to post this on the fuck cancer thread but it fits here too. he's 84, until a couple years ago was robust mentally and physically, the picture of how you'd hope to age. so it's shocking to see his rapid decline not just bodily but he's become very confused and withdrawn, barely a shell of his former self. chemotherapy is keeping him alive but at what cost? we just had our annual visit and my wife, her mom (who's a rock) and her two siblings are stressed out and struggling. not much else to say. but it's good to talk about it, in fact it's important for your - our - own mental health to let it out.

My dad had the driving decision taken out of his hands as he went blind in one eye at the start of the year, but he was getting to be quite a dangerous driver before than (he's 80) so we're really quite glad about it.

even though she knows she needs them, my mom refuses to get glasses because she thinks that they make her face look weird
she lives in fear of having her driver's license taken away from her because she is a very independent person and likes her alone time
:(

My mother-in-law has had quite serious dementia for the past six years or so. This started when she was in her early-to-mid 60s - one of the first events that really got us thinking that something was up was when she drove her car the wrong way round a large roundabout into oncoming traffic. At the moment she lives in a nursing home as is pretty much just a shell of her former self - she doesn't even know who her children are any more when they come to visit, but thankfully she does still appreciate the company which at least is one small positive that you can take away. Totally depressing though, so for anyone out there who is dealing with this right now, I can totally sympathise.

My mom, turning 80 next month, has been fighting the decline, bless her. Joined the hospital wellness center, has been selling and giving away decades' worth of my dad's accumulated packratcrap, still gets out there and mows her own lawn, etc. Next week she, my daughter and probably my wife are heading off to Biloxi to the casinos. But the decline is there...bad knees, bad feet, diabetes... My sympathies to everyone having a tough go of it these days.

My mum (68) has been dealing with my gran (88) for a long time; my gran has alzheimers. About six months ago she finally got her moved to a nursing home in the same town (200 miles from where my gran was before). Only now is she at the point where she can see any humour in the situation, which results in Facebook messages like this from my mum:

Today's visit to your gran!

G. (after a bit of mumbling and searching for words) Are you my daughter?

Me. Yes.

Gr. Are you really my daughter?

Me. Yes.

Gr. I can't remember. Am I your mother?

Me. Yes.

Gr. Where did we live?

So I started giving her a potted history of our life.

GR. How do you know you're my daughter?

A bit later on....

Gr, Haven't I got nice legs!

She thought it was quite funny that she couldn't remember things; seemed very happy and settled. The staff bore this out.

My mom and grandma live together with mom's "girlfriend", and I moved to be closer to them and my terminally ill Dad (they were separated). Grandma is sharp as a tack and well into her 90s. Of course I love Grandma, but mom is making seeing Grandma a miserable experience.

Like I said elsewhere she is getting into that old people thing of being passive-aggressive. I know I called her a "fascist" I didn't mean it, it's that her emotional state is kind of fascist.

It's her stupid family. She wasn't raised by her own mother, she was raised by her abusive and creepy grandmother and aunt and it really shows in how she deals with stuff like death and adult responsibilities.

If anything difficult happens in her life - death or whatever - she just escapes mentally. Her mom's family had a lot of money and stuff was handled for her all her life!! She doesn't understand why other people don't have it as easy. Because of her family, she feels she has a lot of power and I can't ever suspect her of having mental problems EVER.

My mom gave up driving last month. Kinda shocked, but pleased that she came to the decision herself. She's 88 and is in reasonably good health for her age - despite the piles of crap that she's hoarded (ongoing issue for her entire life). Sister is gone for several weeks so I'm on mom duty... it's extra frustrating because her hearing is so bad that she leaves the televisions on with the sound maxed-out and she can't hear the phone.

Vexing problem of the moment... Her sense of time and calendar dates are slipping, so making plans becomes a comedy of errors ("stop by this week" *does so* "what are you doing here, I said to come by next week") ad infinitum ad nauseum

wow, that sounds like a serious challenge. i'm sorry. i have this thread bookmarked and it popped up just as my parents arrived yesterday for their first visit in 3 years. they are aging. my mom is in great shape (in spite of some health issues this year) but my dad keeps looking and acting less like himself, which is thrown into stark relief when we look at old pictures together.

hmph.

I am going to visit my parents this weekend and I think that I'm actually going to have to ask them point blank what they want me to do for them if they ever get dementia or need care etc. My mom is in bad shape and her memory is already slipping and my biggest fear is that my dad dies first (though this is prob unlikely you never know) and I'm left to make decisions for/about her. I want to know now and while I know she's not going to want to talk about this I'm going to make them because I'm an only child and they have no other relatives here to help and I can't handle the stress and weight of this alone without knowing what they want.

Just to share my own personal woes on this thread --

My father nearly died last week; he collapsed on his way to the bathroom in the middle of the night. The ambulance came and got him to a hospital and it turned out he had two massive ulcers in his stomach and large intestine. This comes about 6 weeks after a surgery to biopsy a growth in his spinal cord.

Yesterday morning, recovering from the emergency surgery to stitch up the ulcers, he had a major heart attack and is in the hospital with a breathing tube, heavily sedated etc. On our way up to Rhode Island yesterday our van broke down on the Triboro Bridge -- shocks gave out and started to rub against the front tires, causing lots of burnt rubber smoke. We got it towed back to your neighborhood (luckily we weren't halfway through connecticut) and it's going to be repaired this afternoon, $800 later. I'm incredibly worried about my dad. The doctors are not sure how to treat him; they can't give him the usual blood thinners and medications because of the ulcers and recent surgery. I wish so badly I was there. And now I'm worried about the drive up, even though the car is getting fixed, I have a strong distrust of automobiles... Just don't know what to do. It's bad when my aunt is telling me to go straight to the hospital and bring his 'paperwork' (read: living will.)

So scared :\

I'm sorry to hear all of that.

me too. suerte, ian.

why is my biological father texting me (which i hate, because fuck typing on a phone) about how i should be on zoom calls (which i also hate, because fuck having to supply an image when there are so many other ways to communicate)

https://gifdb.com/images/thumbnail/heathers-winona-ryder-funny-idiot-tdf05zgdoz0b58dh.gif

oh, yeah

He used to gruffly say "if I ever go senile or end up in a home just effing shoot me".

I can easily understand the source of that sentiment, but at the same time it is asking your loved ones for something that is totally beyond their ability to grant. Your mom's decision to place him in the care of others was absolutely correct, in spite of his declared wishes, because they were based in the fantasy of an easy solution to one of life's most painful dilemmas. He can't help his feelings, but your mom and you are not in a position to assuage his feelings. As matttkkkk said, you are not to blame. This is a matter of necessity far more than it is a matter of choice.

My mom said the same as your dad, Trayce. Almost verbatim.And now she’s in a home and happy as a clam. Some regrets in my part, but mostly that I didn’t get her to assisted living sooner.

My mom, the person who advocated for being effing shot, was a chanfing person projecting herself into a quality of life she didn’t know and was frightened of. My decision to send her to a facility in the present, is based on a person she is now. And I believe the same is likely true for your father.

Thanks for the good thoughts, tipsy and LL! Sorry to hear that, Trayce... it's difficult, you can't settle down because you don't know how to feel or move forward.

My father isn't the gruffest guy around but after a lifetime of having him be able to handle pretty much anything life has thrown at him without ever needing to lean on me that hard, suddenly having to be the one looking after him is like an earthquake... it reverberates all through every aspect of your own life. Familiar lines are all askew, the animals are unsettled, and my compass needle is pointing towards a black void instead of north.

He's improving a little bit day by day, and as noted he has the means for quality care, but whatever the new normal is, it doesn't feel normal at all yet.

(also thanks to matttkkkk!)

I don't speak about it much but my dad's physical state has been getting worse these past few years -- he can walk very slowly but steadily with a cane, with a deep stoop, while neuropathy means he's almost having to will his feet and legs forward. He's still 'here' in essence, though my mom says there have been some moments of late. I predict nothing beyond hoping this is where he stays at for as long as possible -- can't unwind the past, not at this point. He's long outlived how long his dad was around in comparison, and we're coming up on ten years since his only sibling -- his younger brother, even -- passed on. We can't predict, we just have to see.

My sis and a good friend of hers and I are all going with my dad on a trip to Yosemite in a couple of weeks -- the four of us did this trip five years back pre-pandemic, right around this time of year, and we were all happily able to hike some pretty notable and sometimes steep trails, my dad using hiking poles but still able to keep on a good pace. It won't happen now, so he'll stay at the hotel as we do similar, I guess, and just enjoy being there, though I'm sure we'll do plenty of visits around to spots he can get to as well. He's being going to Yosemite one way or another for many years, ever since he was a small boy, and also hiked, over the course of a few years, the full John Muir Trail in the Sierra Nevada, and all this not that long ago even. This will, I'm guessing, be his final trip there. It'll be good to be part of that.

The other weekend, when I was visiting home, he surprised me in a lovely way. "Ned, do you know what I'm most proud about you?" I couldn't guess, nor did I guess what prompted it. His answer: "That you're a good human being." Frankly, inside, I demurred. I'm well aware of my faults and mistakes, I try to keep them in check. But I am glad of those words, and as I told him and my mom, any good qualities I exhibit, as I do, all came from them. Whatever the future holds next, that happened and he said that. I am grateful.

I'm pretty sure "well aware of my faults and mistakes, I try to keep them in check" is the gold standard for "a good human being".

I'm well aware of my faults and mistakes, I try to keep them in check.

This is practically the definition of how to be a good human being, Ned!

Well, thank you kindly. I view it a little differently but that’s another conversation.

Not knowing your your family history, that was a well handled situation. Take their best and plant some hardier roots.

That's a good story, Ned. Having lived (ehh, sorta) through the implosion of my parents' lives, I feel quite differently about aging than I did before.

It's had to puzzle out all the dimensions of the perceptual change, since it's sort of a wobbly ball of slow-processing emotion, but the gist of it is that I'm now more attuned to letting people die on their own terms. I don't think that's a sad or dark thought, even, but I definitely would have felt that way a few years ago.

When I look back on photos of the year before my father's life ended, I can barely recognize him. He was a pale shell. He was tired and ready to go, and he was only holding on because it was habit, and he loved us, and his body hadn't given out. We gifted him strength, and in our minds improved his appearance and cognition, and didn't see what he really was, at that moment. We made excuses for him, and he didn't necessarily want excuses. We talked about little plans, and acted like he'd be around forever. How tedious it must've been for him to live through our phony optimism! He absolutely knew that he was dying!

I wish – like you're writing about – we'd just taken him for one nice weekend somewhere, and then said to him something like 'We always want you here. And we'll be okay without you, eventually, because you made us into the people that could do this, and the kind of people that can take of each other. But you don't have to stay." I wish we'd done that, because he was ready to go.

When my mom was still verbal and mostly articulate, before the Alzheimers really set in, she said "Just drive me into the ocean when I can't play tennis or walk with my dog." At the time, I thought "that's good, at least she knows what she wants." But looking back, it occurs to me how arrogant those thoughts were on both our parts. Billions of people can't play tennis and walk their dog and they're just fucking peachy. I was ablist, classist, and narrow, and a whole host of other privileges we didn't know we were perpetuating. And while that's who she was (and I was) back then, it's not who we are now. She's actually got a good life in a memory care facility, and (although she's no longer verbal) she's got friends and activities and three meals, lots of Lawrence Welk on YouTube, and family to visit every week. In an inversion of the way that I regret trying to prolong my father's suffering, I am proud to have extended my mother's happiness – even over her expressed wishes. I am glad I didn't drive her into the ocean.

I'm glad for you indeed. And for her.

spent the day at a memorial for my 88-year-old uncle with my 89-year-old father. here he is with his two 80-something little sisters. it was a full house in westport, new york. it was a very mortality-heavy day. but also very nice in a lot of ways. living with an oldster gives you a lot to think about.

https://scontent-bos5-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/461570424_10162229082967137_6718198183618362164_n.jpg?stp=cp6_dst-jpg&_nc_cat=102&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=127cfc&_nc_ohc=w48Y9cS12a4Q7kNvgGLqV7e&_nc_ht=scontent-bos5-1.xx&_nc_gid=ATWyzwzprqL9vBg7wLqHLYt&oh=00_AYArRtpahaq5Z0EnSgTG80WTtyTlh1eMm1FQjPE2UuEWSg&oe=66FE9FCF

hail the elders

my parents got married 50 years ago this evening. it is my earliest memory.

i wore a clip-on bow tie and at dinner was seated between my two grandmothers (neither of whom, in retrospect, was too happy about the proceedings). my wee cousin eric was in a basket on the table.

i did not remind my mom of this lest she become sad : /

xxp that's a great pic!

My mother must have accidentally clicked on "try the new Outlook" and it replaced her Windows Mail - this was apparently the end of her public life and her contact with everyone just because the layout is a little bit different (I really don't see the difference that much: menu on the left, list of mails in the middle, opened mail on the right) and my conviction that it was easily explained by just showing her how to use it was WRONG and INSENSITIVE. I was still able to uninstall outlook & return to her familiar Windows Mail but I won't be able to do that forever, Microsoft is going to replace Mail with Outlook this year definitively. Sigh.

feel u on the intensity of parental stubbornness and refusal to learn how to use or do basically anything new to them. we had a whole thing that involved my dad accepting hand delivered food to his home in his f'ing bathrobe and yelling at me on the delivery girl's phone. his phone wasn't working and he couldn't figure out why (reader: it was the power cord)

part of that could have been parkinson's but not all people with parkinson's behave like he did. after this incident i basically washed my hands of trying to help with technology in particular because i do (did, in this case) not need to be yelled at.

having to reckon with modern user interfaces through my dad's new stroke-impaired mindset just makes me despair. just endless amounts of irrelevant pop-ups and "helpful" nonsense that instantly overwhelms and defeats him. like StanM notes, one aspect of this is every single tech companies' refusal to ever just pick an interface and stick with it. Apple being by far the worst.

that said, while it makes my dad withdraw in depression he doesn't yell at me. I feel like I have to stick with it since the iPhone is just too valuable a tool for him not to learn... we can see where he is, he can keep in touch with me and my sister overseas, etc. he was sad his grandkids wouldn't write him letters (lol) or reply to his emails but they'll happily message with him all day long on WhatsApp, which makes him want to keep the phone close by.

Argh @ trying to convince my folks to have their house decluttered/dehoarded before the house literally kills them

v. familiar : /

RELATABLE

i tried literally everything

I don't have this with my parents, I'm so lucky for that. But my neighbor friend has a house so full of things they don't use most of the rooms, and she laughs when she says that her son can throw it out on his own time. :( It's not GARBAGE so I guess things could be a lot worse.

A little while ago, she told me that she cleaned all the stuff off her counters once but it made her so upset that they were empty, she had to fill them back up again. O_____o

it's different when it's your parents and your childhood home and all of the memories contained therein
i can't even go inside anymore without having a panic attack :(

For sure. The last time I went inside I felt like I had to leave as soon as possible, it was so upsetting.

I have a really nice green compassionate junk cleanout place all picked out and ready to call for an estimate appointment…

I just don’t think my dad is fully grasping the reality of the situation.

I should read the rest of this thread.

iirc Elvis Telecom has some stories upthread about being in the hoarder trenches

This stuff is no joke, to clean out my in-laws home required many years of sneaking items out of the house and out to the garbage and then when they passed away, it required a junk removal service taking away three truckloads. My mom’s house is in a pretty grim state too, during the pandemic something took a turn there. And unfortunately, I’m 2000 miles away and can’t help. I really really worry about the next few years with that.

I've been getting rid of tons of stuff in my own house as a displacement activity for all the stuff my dad won't part with (but hasn't touched in 30 years)

There’s nothing that’s made me more enthusiastic about becoming a minimalist who can travel light as needed than dealing with multiple hoarder houses

my belongings would fit in a car at the moment. i love it.

ok the desk wouldn't but other than that

I’ve got 2000 records and my goal is to cut that down to 500. I really have no idea how I’m going to do that.

it's different when it's your parents and your childhood home and all of the memories contained therein

this aspect of clearing out stuff can be pretty intense, I have boxes and boxes of childhood stuff and while you know it's not worth keeping, it's like fused with your skin and you can only tear away so much at a time before you need a break

Yes it’s like seeing little pieces of oneself rotting on the floor or in a bag and knowing it’s trash but still having a hard time seeing it as such. Really painful stuff.

xxp feeling u omar, I'd like to go from 6K to 2K without basically throwing money away on a bulk store sale

I don't have this with my parents, I'm so lucky for that.

Agreed. Mine realized this when they were cleaning out my dad's mom's place after her passing -- a genial hoarder, of the sort that always had to 'buy a little something' whenever she went out on an errand. It was a big house and the whole process took months. Afterwards, my folks dedicated themselves to stripping things down to certain key and necessary things, a good but not crazy book, music and movie collection and some very nice art. I don't look forward to when my sis and I will have those duties they once did, but I rest assured on this and other points.

Yes, sleeve, the money thing is what’s holding me back for now. eBay and discogs work for selling a few at a time but at this level it’s pretty daunting. Thought about having a garage sale pop-up record shop but that also seems daunting. I don’t wanna deal with too many record guys at once, I feel like Bernard from Black books.

The difficult part with cleaning out the in-laws home for us was there was no logic to the mess, we found the label from my mother-in-law‘s crib in the hospital from the 1940s mixed in with dozens of receipts from Robinsons May dating back to the 1990s

yeah I remember Elvis talking about that upthread

like, finding the house deed in the middle of some old newspapers or something

There never is a logic to the mess. It didn’t get to be a mess because of a strong organizing principle.

grateful that my parents have moderate collections of pretty much everything, but continue to do years culls of their possessions.

“yearly”

Yeah exactly re: the mish mash. My dad just leaves his tools around and then piles of paper and shit accumulate around them. Trying to be assertive about it with my dad is hard. My mom is too far gone right now to really be involved. Feel extremely guilty for letting things get to this point. It’s not like Collier Brothers level but.. it’s really bad.

I think there were probably 50 pounds of store receipts in that house we cleaned out. And a shocking number of bags from CVS with the receipt still in them, dating back decades, with the exact amount of change still in the bags.

Yikes!

People I’m going to speak my mind on this so please exit if you don’t want to hear it:
It’s not your responsibility to make sure your parents don’t hoard — that’s not fair at all to yourself nor to anyone else in this situation. Honestly, being related to a hoarder is a form of trauma and I won’t sit here while anyone blames themselves.

I’ve dealt with it myself for many years and watched many episodes of Hoarders therapeutically in order to see that I am not alone. Ngl it’s already very isolating and very difficult to deal with loving a hoarder, or more than one. Please do not feel guilty.

To be more clear: feel what you feel (most likely very sad if my feelings are a good barometer) but guilt — nah. Guilt implies there’s something YOU could have done. And you can’t wish a mental illness/extreme form of OCD out of someone.

Thank you, that is helpful to hear.

glad to help. six years of therapy this month. i have learned at least to stop banging my head against the wall trying to help bc my head was taking a severe beating and...nothing i did was helping.

to the degree that; i found and spoke at length with a local personal organizer (who had actually worked on the show!!) who had MSW credentials as well and understood the nature of why people do this and STILL no significant change bc my parent did not follow through on meeting up with this person. this cannot be my fault and it's not yours or anyone else's either.