27-minute read time.
Today’s post is the transcript of a lovely interview I had with Emma, a fellow adult child of a hoarder. Some words have been redacted to ensure her privacy.
Thu, Nov 21, 2024 11:26AM • 36:22
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
hoarding definition, emotional weight, family conflict, childhood memories, social life, safe space, TV shows, therapy sessions, Facebook group, external help, family dynamics, minimalism, mental health, genetic traits
SPEAKERS
Emma, Lillian
Lillian 00:00
I’m going to start recording. Cool. I should be recording. Alright. So, I have a bunch of questions written down. We’ll start with you and your name, your pronouns, where you live, where you’re originally from, and anything you’re comfortable sharing with me.
Emma 00:19
Sure. My name is Emma. My pronouns are she/her, and I’m from [REDACTED], where I live currently, [REDACTED].
Lillian 00:29
I’m just going to jot down notes at the same time I’m paying attention. So let’s see. I have a bunch of questions. They’re not in the best order, so just bear with me. You said your dad is the hoarding family member that you have, right? My first question is, how do you define hoarding?
Emma 00:53
An extreme connection to a lot of different objects. And the inability to part with stuff and putting too much emotional weight and connection to things that most people find meaningless. I feel like some people collect one thing or whatever. But (my father), he does it with almost everything.
Lillian 01:23
Are you currently living with your family member?
Emma 01:31
No. I’m living next door, though.
Lillian 01:35
So you’re still in close contact with him. How early do you remember noticing that your home was different from others?
Emma 01:46
Since I was really little, almost as long as I could remember; in my earliest memories my mom had moved out and we lived separately, but then as soon as we moved back into his house, it was since then. So, since I was about six years old.
Lillian 02:09
Gotcha. And, do you mind me asking, how old are you right now?
Emma 02:12
I’m [REDACTED].
Lillian 02:15
Okay, so since you were six years old, you remember noticing that your home was different. How was your social life as a child?
Emma 02:26
It was okay. I had friends, but I was also very self-conscious about it, so I mostly went to other friends’ houses as I got older. When I was young, sometimes I would have friends over, but I would be embarrassed, and it would be a constant fight with my dad. He would want to put stuff on the walls, like art and stuff in my room. At least in my room, I wanted to have my own decorations.
Lillian 02:52
Did you consider your room a safe space you created? Did you keep it clean and only kept your objects in there?
Emma 03:01
Mhm.
Lillian 03:01
Gotcha. Some of these questions, by the way, might cause emotions, and if you would like to cry, feel free to. I know you said you remember noticing your home was different, but was there a specific moment where you were like, “This is hoarding; this is defined as hoarding,” and recognized what was going on?
Emma 03:27
Probably not until I was much older did I realize that there are other people like this. For most of my life, I felt like it was just a problem my dad had, and nobody else. I knew it was wrong, I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t connect it to a larger phenomenon that other people share as well.
Lillian 03:49
Around what age would you estimate? In your teenage years?
Emma 03:55
I hardly remember. I’m sure I’d heard of the TV shows about hoarders and stuff. So I’m sure I’d heard of it at some point, maybe in my teenage years.
Lillian 04:05
How do you feel about those TV shows?
Emma 04:09
Sometimes I’ll be at the gym and it’ll be on one of the TV shows in the background, and it’ll be silent or whatever, but I just kind of watch it with the subtitles on. And I do feel like it’s just like any reality show. It’s a little exploitative of the people, and it’s voyeuristic, but at the same time, I feel like I have such a connection to it that I can’t help but see it as more real, not just like something to make fun of.
Lillian 04:45
As a child or teenager, do you remember trying to find information about your father’s condition, like researching it or going to the library?
Emma 04:56
No, I didn’t. I just thought he could change it by trying.
Lillian 05:02
How did you talk to your dad about it?
Emma 05:08
We would get in fights, mostly. It would be in moments of anger.
Lillian 05:14
As you’ve gotten older, has approaching the conversation changed?
Emma 05:21
I think I recognize that it’s not going to make a difference, and maybe I already knew that, but I try not to start the fights because I feel like it’s very futile lately. Sometimes I’ll make a comment. I feel like maybe he’s mellowed out a little bit. We’re both able to stay away from each other if one of us is mad, and the fights have gotten less frequent, at least.
Lillian 05:55
What emotions or labels did you initially associate with your parent’s behavior before understanding that it’s something that they can’t change easily?
Emma 06:10
Frustration, disappointment, embarrassment, anger. Feeling like he’s being selfish.
Lillian 06:24
How about now? Looking back, how do you feel about it now?
Emma 06:29
I think still mostly the same because even though it’s a compulsion, it overlaps with other personality traits he has. He is an angry person sometimes, and he has this bad quality. So it’s hard to tease out what’s what. I feel like I have more of an understanding that it is [a mental health condition]. When I hear about other people having it, it’s easier for me to empathize than when it’s my father because it’s something that has been studied and is very hard to change.
Lillian 07:09
When did you first join the Facebook group we’re a part of?
Emma 07:14
It was about a year ago, or a year and a half ago.
Lillian 07:22
Why did you decide to find a community?
Emma 07:25
I think my dad and I had a really big fight, and that was kind of the last big fight we had. After that, I just kind of searched for it on Facebook or maybe on Google and then joined it just to see. I feel like it was very helpful because I got to read everyone else’s stories and see that it wasn’t just something I was dealing with.
Lillian 07:48
As a child or a teenager, did you ever feel compelled to contact outside help, like Child Protective Services or any government agency?
Emma 08:03
I never did, but I know they were called once for me and my brother. It was mostly for suspicion of neglect because my mom worked, and my dad would watch us, and he wasn’t very good at it. And I think sometimes my brother and I were outside, unsupervised at a young age. But they didn’t really care about the hoarding.
Lillian 08:28
Did your neighbors or external family members know about the hoarding?
Emma 08:35
I think neighbors care in the sense of it looking bad on the outside of the house and them caring about how things appear on the outside and whatnot. Family members, my mom’s family, know about it, but they just kind of don’t really talk about it, at least to me.
Lillian 08:57
What strategies did you use to cope with living in that space?
Emma 09:03
My mom keeps the kitchen area clean and her room clean. It wasn’t as bad when I was a kid because my brother and I lived in the house, but now that we’re gone and it’s just my mom and my dad, he has just taken over more space. So what used to be like the living room is now his space, and he has just encroached. But when I was a kid, it felt like a constant state of war. I always fought with him at every opportunity, really.
Lillian 09:34
What’s the age difference between you and your brother?
Emma 09:42
He’s three years younger than me.
Lillian 09:46
I have a brother who’s three years younger, too. Did you feel a sense of responsibility to take care of him?
Emma 09:55
Maybe not so much, in the sense of our parents. I’m glad to have a brother or a sibling at all because then I feel less alone. Sometimes, we can laugh about it or find some humor now that we’re older. If not, it would feel much more lonely.
Lillian 10:18
Are you still close with your brother?
Emma 10:20
Yeah, yeah.
Lillian 10:23
How often would you say that you enter your father’s home now?
Emma 10:31
Quite a lot. Since I live next door and I don’t have a laundry machine, I use the one over there and I go to see my mom, maybe once every couple days, every three days, or every other day.
Lillian 10:44
Do you feel like it’s hard going back into that environment?
Emma 10:50
Yeah.
Lillian 11:04
How have you approached your living situations now? Do you try to separate yourself from that lifestyle as much as possible in your living situation? Do you feel like you have a lack of attachment to items?
Emma 11:14
Yeah, I feel like I’m a little obsessive about stuff, but I don’t feel like I’m the cleanest person. I’ll make a mess, but then I’m always thinking, “Okay, I need to clean.” And I’m always getting rid of stuff and thinking, “What can I get rid of?” And just not wanting clutter and things like that. I guess I do have an attachment to some [things]. I’ll keep clothes for a long time, but then I’ll get rid of stuff. So I don’t know. I sometimes wonder. Sometimes I feel like I have no attachments because, compared to my dad, I barely have anything, but I see my friends or stuff, get rid of stuff, and I’m like, “Maybe I am more attached to things than some other people.” I don’t know, within a normal range.
Lillian 12:10
Has there ever been a time in your life when you worried that you’d grow up to be like your father?
Emma 12:17
I mean, not in the hoarding sense. Sometimes I think maybe I’m lazy like him or angry like him, or have a short temper or impatient, things like that. But when it comes to the hoarding, it’s not something I worry about like other qualities.
Lillian 12:38
Have you ever sought therapy or talked to other people about your experiences as a child and throughout your life? Did you find it helpful? Did you find that the therapist understood the situation?
Emma 12:47
For the first time last year, around the time I got in the big fight and joined this Facebook group, I started seeing a therapist and probably went about four times. That was the impetus that made me go to therapy. I found it helpful, and I thought it was good. It was just really expensive, and my insurance wasn’t covering it. So, at a certain point, I was like, “Okay, well, I feel better now.” It wasn’t like this crisis mode, so I decided to stop going, but it would have been helpful to keep going.
Lillian 13:32
Did you try to help clean? And how did you balance that with respecting your dad’s attachment?
Emma 13:42
At this point, if he goes out of town or something, I’ll try to take a bunch of stuff to Goodwill, throw a bunch of stuff away, or take old newspapers or random stuff and put it in the recycling. Anything could go under the radar and not be noticed. But he’ll notice things sometimes, or he’ll be like, “Did you take something off the wall?” But he won’t know what it is. Sometimes I just try to do it behind his back because I feel like that’s the easiest way, especially when I know it’s junk.
Lillian 14:16
Has there been a time in your life when you felt like your father hit rock bottom like he had a really bad time with his hoarding?
Emma 14:26
I feel like it’s been equally bad, honestly. Sometimes he’ll clean a little, and I’ll think, “Oh, maybe this is finally going to be an improvement,” but it’s a temporary thing. But the underlying condition, it’s never gotten worse and then gotten better. Sometimes, he’ll clean, but he’ll always bring the stuff back.
Lillian 15:01
How has your relationship with your mom been throughout this?
Emma 15:07
It’s really tricky because we get to this point where I’m almost blaming her. Even though I know it’s not her fault, it’s just me being so frustrated that I am looking for some other place to lay blame. It’s so pointless to be mad at my dad that I’ll just be like, “Why didn’t you leave, or why don’t you put more pressure on him somehow to change?” She’ll make dinner, and he never cooks or does anything but will eat the food. So I’ll ask, “Why don’t you just not cook for him? Don’t let him eat the food you cook and be like, ‘You have to clean the living room.’” I feel like she’s such a giving and generous person. [I know] it’s not very helpful because I’m putting her in a bad spot because she’s fought so much with him that she’s kind of just sees it where she’s at a point where it’s not worth it for her to bring any stress up. She’s just given up on the situation changing and tries to manage it as best she can. It puts a strain on my relationship with my mom because I find myself blaming her, even though I know I shouldn’t sometimes, or just being frustrated that she even ever got into the situation, ever started a relationship with him, or had me, because it was an accident that she got pregnant with me. Sometimes, I feel like her life is a tragedy because of the whole thing.
Lillian 16:43
How would you change your mom’s situation if you had the power to?
Emma 16:48
I would buy her another house so she could go live separately from it. And I tried to push her to do that before, maybe when I was 20. We went to look at houses to see if she could buy a place and move out. But my dad has more than one house; he’s a landlord. There’s the house he lives in, and then he has a couple of other houses he rents out. I’m living in one right now. So is my brother, because it’s become unaffordable where we live, and this is an affordable option. It makes him money now because the property values have gone up, but because of his hoarding, he doesn’t take very good care of the houses. And if someone moves out, he’ll fill it up and be like, “Maybe I’m just going to use this as my art studio or something.” He just uses it to hoard more in the basements of all these houses. When he bought them, they were very cheap, and my parents are married, so my mom has no rights to the property, so she’s kind of stuck there, in that sense, because she can’t afford to buy a house now, so we’re all just kind of living in my dad’s properties. And that makes the situation a little more tense because my brother’s been doing a lot of work trying to fix up the place he’s living in because my dad just hasn’t done any repairs or anything, and they’re really old places. So I would want her to be able to live somewhere else where she has a living room, and she can have people over because I get frustrated because I go over there. The only place to sit is at the kitchen table, and it’s an uncomfortable, hard, wooden chair. In a normal place, you could sit on a couch or in a more comfortable area. I feel like I can’t hang out with her because every time I go over, that’s the only place to sit. It’s not her fault, but it would be nice to hang out in a more comfortable setting. But she also really likes this neighborhood, so that’s another reason she wants to stay.
Lillian 19:18
Do you feel comfortable having your parents enter your space?
Emma 19:22
I do, but with my dad, it’s got to be real quick. Every time I’ve lived in other places, I’ve never let him visit me because I feel like that’s too much. But he’ll come over to help fix something if I need help with the sink or something like that. He can come over for a little bit, but I don’t let him come over to hang out or anything. But with my mom, I feel comfortable with her coming to visit and coming into my space.
Lillian 19:54
Has he ever gotten angry that you won’t let him into his building or his apartment?
Emma 20:04
He has an understanding that I’m an adult and he stays busy, and if we were going to hang out, it would be outside of this place. But even then, we went on a trip together, my dad, my husband, and me. We went to see the solar eclipse when that happened. We went to this lake area, and my dad took a fish carcass out of the lake, a rotting fish carcass, and tried to tell us everybody wanted it. He fabricates these stories about how it’s valuable even though there are are nasty bones. On the ride back, he threw it in the trunk, no plastic bag or anything. I’m like, “I don’t want that touching my nice suitcase.” His brain doesn’t work like normal. He told his friend, REDACTED, who was there, “Can you believe my daughter is giving me a hard time about this?” And I got really mad because it was very frustrating.
Lillian 21:17
Would you mind if I ask your parents’ names and your brother’s name?
Emma W. 21:22
My dad’s name is REDACTED, my mom’s name is REDACTED, and my brother’s name is REDACTED.
Lillian 21:32
What do you all do for work?
Emma 21:35
REDACTED
Lillian 21:36
It’s interesting because my mom’s a hoarder, and I’m just noticing so many similarities between our parents. This is the reason why I got into the group as well and I noticed it’s really a mental health condition. What do you think are the biggest misconceptions about hoarding, especially from outsiders?
Emma 23:00
I think a misconception that I’ve heard, at least personally, is that [it’s not a mental illness]. I was with a friend around a year ago, having dinner, and I said something about my dad being a hoarder and that it’s a mental illness. She said something like, “That’s not a mental illness,” or something like that. I said, “Okay, I’m pretty sure it is.” I don’t know if it could be categorized under something else, like OCD. But that’s the only one I’ve personally heard.
Lillian 23:38
At what point in your life did you start feeling comfortable telling friends that your parent was a hoarder?
Emma 23:50
Maybe during college. I mean, when I was in high school, people definitely knew it, but they probably didn’t talk about it as much.
Lillian 24:06
In your high school years, did you ever feel like it was a strain on your social life?
Emma 24:17
Maybe, when I was really young, it made me very shy as a kid. And I don’t know if lots of people are just shy, and I don’t know if that affected it, but I’ve always been very shy. That could be something that, from an early age, made it difficult for me to have friends and stuff.
Lillian 24:38
What do you wish more people understood about the emotional and mental toll of hoarding?
Emma 24:48
It has had a pretty extreme mental toll, and I don’t fully even know the total effects it’s had on me, but it’s made me very stressed. Sometimes, when I have distance from it, it’s out of sight, out of mind, and not as big of a deal. But when I’m around it, it makes me extremely stressed. But then there are other ways it’s affected me in terms of my personal relationships, like with my husband. It’s stuff that I’m just not fully aware of, too. Sometimes, if [my husband] buys too much stuff at the grocery store, and I think it won’t fit in the fridge, I’ll get agitated. He does understand why I’m stressed. Sometimes, I feel like I use it as a justification when I’m being kind of neurotic. It probably has to do with my dad.
Lillian 25:44
At what point did you come to terms with the fact that it’s a mental health disorder and not just your dad being selfish?
Emma 25:55
Fully coming to terms with it ? It probably happened just a year ago when I joined this group and saw all the similarities, like you said. Sometimes, it still feels hard for me not to be mad at him, even though I do know that’s what it is. It still feels, in practice, hard for me to accept that he couldn’t just choose to be a hoarder in his room, but at least clean out the common areas. It’s hard for me to differentiate because when we get into fights, he always accuses me of wanting him to be a different person or to change who he is. It’s more like if my mom weren’t living in that situation and he just lived alone in a nasty, disgusting place, I think it would be different. I’m mad that he puts my mom through that.
Lillian 27:02
What advice would you give others experiencing similar challenges with a hoarder?
Emma 27:10
I would advise not to struggle against it so much because you’ll only wear yourself out. The best thing to do would be to just have boundaries and maintain a distance. Don’t live in the house once you’re able to move because trying to change it will be a losing battle.
Lillian 27:34
How has growing up in a hoarder environment shaped your identity or values?
Emma 27:42
I value minimalism and not buying too much stuff. I’ll get things at the thrift store, and if I don’t use clothes for a long time, I’ll get rid of it. And it helps me remember that life is short and temporary. When it comes to my dad, he wants to keep all this stuff, but it’s almost like he doesn’t realize that he’s old, he’s going to die, and he’s going to leave this burden to his family. For me, it’s shaped me by making me remember what kinds of things I want to keep in my house, what’s important to me, and that, really, that list should be pretty small because there’s only so much time in the day. I want to focus my energy on stuff I have and think about what I need to keep.
Lillian 28:42
Have you thought about what’s going to happen after your father does pass?
Emma 28:50
Yeah. I use that to try to guilt him into cleaning, but it does not affect him. He seems not to care or thinks that I would be lucky to have all of his stuff or something like that. But, from what I read on the Facebook group, it’s expensive if you hire people to clean it out and also very possible and unhealthy, because of mold. Whenever I go into his space or try to take stuff and clean, I get congested, and I just know it’s not healthy. It would have to be a group effort between me and my brother and my husband and whoever could help just to get everything tossed out.
Lillian 29:41
Do you wish there were more free resources and more of a community in your city or state?
Emma 29:55
I do. My dad’s really resistant to being labeled as a hoarder or being told he has any kind of problem. He believes the problem is everyone else. So I don’t know how helpful it would be because I feel like without him choosing to access any resources [it wouldn’t help]. I think it would still be helpful [in some ways], but not in terms of addressing the problem with him, maybe just in terms of addressing his family and how to deal with the like emotional effects.
Lillian 30:31
I’m out of questions and time, but I don’t want to end this without you having the chance to speak freely about whatever you want to, so the floor is yours if there’s anything you want to say.
Emma 30:51
One other thing I guess I’ve read about in the Facebook group is that people seem to say that some kind of trauma causes it in a lot of cases, and it seems like it’s more towards women being hoarders than men, although it seems to be both. I guess my dad’s just always had it. I don’t know what kind of trauma caused it, so that’s always going to be a mystery to me.
Lillian 31:20
Does he refuse to talk about his childhood?
Emma 31:23
He says his dad was violent and hit him. So I think it’s possible that it could be that.
Lillian 31:36
I did some minor research on it, and it looks like it is genetic. Do you think your brother shows signs?
Emma 31:54
I don’t think he does. He lives with his girlfriend, and she’s extremely demanding in terms of the high standards of their house. So he’s always doing things I would never even think of redoing, like the boards that go between the floor and the wall, making it super high-end, and anything that she doesn’t want, he gets rid of. I don’t see that my brother exhibits any signs of that that I know, or at least it doesn’t seem to have any effect if he does. I know sometimes we disagree. He was mad the other day because my dad said, “Should I get rid of my quilt collection?” And my brother was mad and telling me, “Why would you get rid of one valuable collection when you have all this junk?” I was surprised because, to me, getting rid of anything is a good thing. It’s progress. But my brother was upset about that. He seems to think that the art and quilts that my dad has is valuable, and so that was worrisome to me because I’m like, “Why would you want him to keep anything?” I guess he just took a couple of quilts [in the end]. It doesn’t seem like either [of us] inherited that. And my dad has a sister, and she doesn’t seem to have it either, and I never met his parents.
Lillian 33:35
Gotcha. In the last five minutes, I’ll discuss where this information is going. At this point, it is just going to my class and potentially to my unpublished thesis because my thesis is a compilation of my work. If there is a chance to publish, I will only publish with outright permission from you and anyone else involved in the story. At this point, I don’t perceive that. If I can publish, and I do ask you about it, I can always use other names and other places. And I could keep your identity private. I also wanted to let you know that I’m always available. I think I gave you my phone number, and you have my Facebook, of course. So if there’s any information that you’re like, “I don’t want in there,” or want to add, you can always text it to me, and I can redact certain things and add certain things. There’s also no real need to do this, but it would be a nice touch if you could submit if you’re comfortable, a picture of you in your childhood. It doesn’t have to be with your father. It could just be a picture of you if you’re comfortable. I know it’s really hard to show people what you lived through, but if you have a picture of your father’s hoarding and you’re comfortable sharing it, please do, but there’s there’s no pressure. I know it’s extremely hard to show people. It’s easier to say it than it is to show it. That’s about it. If I have any other questions, I’ll just text them to you. You can send me a voice recording or something. Do you have any questions for me or anything else to say?
Emma 35:40
Nope. I appreciate you, and good luck with your project, and thanks for including me.
Lillian 35:47
Thank you so much. It was really lovely talking to you and connecting. And if you ever want to talk outside of professional [circumstances] and have someone to chat with in person rather than on Facebook, I’m available. And I know I didn’t talk about my experience as much, but I will say my mom is very similar to your dad, so if you want to chat, I’m always here.
Emma 36:13
Sounds good. Thank you so much.
Lillian 36:15
Of course. Thank you! Have a good rest of your night. Bye. Bye.
