Thank you!!!!!

[Max]

Same here! Having just watched the programme (I recorded it to watch when I was sober and able to take it in!) I also want to express my gratitude and heartfelt sympathy to Jasmine and everyone else in her position. Spookily (or not?) I am also one of five children of a hoarding mum, who herself also lost a parent as a child, and had to move home and carers several times as a child/teenager – :shock: a pattern is emerging. I find it very interesting, as well as somehow reassuring.
I hope this forum will help to raise awareness and lead towards medical recognition. I will watch with interest…

[DoHParticipant]

Hi Chocs,
I feel your pain! My Dad is an extreme hoarder and I’m pretty much at a loss about what to do! At least you have the support of your siblings, which is something to be grateful for.
Maybe you have some leverage as she is now living in your flat? Surely she can’t be offended if you ask her to let you clear a room back at her place, so that she can live back there? Although I know how difficult it can be when they are in denial!
Maybe ask your GP to refer you to someone who can do a family therapy session? (At your mums house – so they can really see what it is like)
I think the crucial thing to focus on for now, is gently trying to help your mum realise that there is a problem, then you can maybe progress with it?
Good luck!

[Nat79]

I would also like to say a huge thank you to Jasmin, her family and her lovely mum for taking part in this programme.

Both me and my sister went through a range of emotions watching it – we laughed and we cried. Jasmin’s family are just the same as mine and we have gone through exactly the same processes with our mum as she had done. Hoarding seems to be an addiction and you never truly cure an addiction.

My mum won’t ever let go of anything. Any possession that enters the house very rarely leaves! She even keeps old plastic bottles and tin cans ready for recycling on the side for days before she eventually decides that it is best to put it in the bin! It’s like the mess and chaos around her – is her – and without it she wouldn’t be able to live.

I am one of 5 and now I’m older and no longer live at home, I dread even stepping in the front door of her house. My son who is now nearly three hasn’t been to ‘Grandma’s house’ since he was a small baby. Her house is filled with ‘crap’! Everywhere you look there is mess and clutter and as we’ve had to grow up with it I feel like I can’t subject my children to it too.

My mum watched the programme last night and when I spoke to her today she was laughing about her situation – like she didn’t even think she had a problem! So, if it’s not a problem for her and she wants to live like that in her own house shouldn’t we just let her? After all none of us live at home anymore so why should it matter? But it does matter and it is still so upsetting after all these years that she still continues to live in a house where sometimes the rabbits outside have better living conditions than she does inside!

The programme and now coming on to this website has just shown me that I am not the only one that has had to live with the embarrassment of growing up with a hoarder. It is a relief to know that there are other people in the same situation desperate to help someone with this problem but sometimes fighting a losing battle.

I am very glad that there are others like me, but then I am very sad that we’ve had to live with it.

Whatever we say or do won’t change our mums ways. She has to do it for herself.

[jpflower]

Thank you so much Jasmin and your family for sharing your experience. I cried throughout the show as never in my life have I known anyone to be in the same situation. My parent’s house is the same as how Jasmin’s mum’s house was shown on the doc (in fact worse) and I always thought I was alone. And never have I spoken to anyone about it until now. My parents still live in terrible conditions and I think by showing them this documentary they’ll see they’re not on their own and that when they’re ready, that the support will be there from me and my brother.

I can’t thank you enough for this documentary. It’s such a relief to know other people are going though the same and I feel encouraged not to give up hope.

Jen

xxx

[Author]

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