Children of hoarders. When did your parents go beyond the point of no return?

My grandmother was a hoarder, but only with food. She would buy in bulk and never

throw anything away, even if it was past the expiration date. When we visited, we would very

quietly throw some things away and not tell her. There was a jar of pickles in her fridge

that was older than me. I'm 27. She did it because she grew up

in extreme poverty and neglect. Her mother would just abandon her and her siblings for days,

and they would be reduced to digging through trash to eat. When she grew up, she made sure that

there would always be food available. This is a thing about Children of the Great Depression.

My grandmother was happy as a clam when she found out about big box stores like Castco. So much food, most of it inedible, and way past Jew. I lived with my mum and my grandmother, who were both hoarders. The point of no return began when my grandmother got divorced and moved into a smaller house. That's when the,

there's no room for anything, excuse became a thing. I think it's just because my grandmother

loves shopping. It's her hobby. She will go to places like Kmart and big lots and look at

their sale shelves for the best deals and get basically whatever is on the shelf. She forgets

what she buys too. On multiple occasions, she'll buy me

the same book twice, and for Christmas, she literally gets me whole garbage bags worth of small

dumb stuff that was on sale, women's socks in this case. She even apologises because there were

more presents, but she'd lost them. So decades of losing things results in massive piles of forgotten

crap, and she's afraid to

just have me or some company go through it because her precious items might be in there.

I have a diamond necklace somewhere in there. She hasn't seen that necklace in 20 years.

I noticed my dad was over the edge when every cardboard box that entered the house was not allowed

to leave because I can't

find a use for it.

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