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Journal Entry for October 18, 2007 Mood
Thursday, October 18, 2007

So what's life like when someone who's very close to you has some serious issues that they refuse to deal with? For me it is a day-to-day struggle. My mother has a spending addiction along with a few other problems. Spending addiction may not seem like a real problem to some while others may not really understand what it is. This is not a situation where she goes out shopping too often and gets a little over board with spending money and by no means is this some kind of control issue (or any other kind of issue) on my part. She will go to a store and if it's on sale 50% off or more she feels compelled to buy it no matter what it is.  This has led to out of control debt and ultimately caused her to file bankruptcy. She also has a hoarding problem and with this combination things are really piling up. I have a very hard time going to visit her at home because it is such a mess. She has a beautiful 3 bedroom home with a 2 car garage that is filled to the brim with junk. Every closet is stuffed, the storage shed out back is packed in tight as well and I can't forget to state that she has a large storage space that she pays for monthly that is packed with even more junk. I am not the person that sits around bitching and doing nothing about it. I once lived in the chaos and tried many times to go through the junk and get rid of it. Many times I have cleaned out the garage, well enough to fit the car back in it only to see it filled back up in a couple of months. This is the end result every time I clean and organize any area, destroyed by junk. And when I say junk I don't mean she has trash everywhere, it's the crap she feels some need to buy. My frustration has grown more now that I have become a mom. She buys my kids tons of stuff they don't need and/or can't use. She will show up to my house with a bag of toys, clothes, etc. and give it to the kids without asking me or my husband if it is ok if they have it and when I call her out on it she will then say "well it's up to your mom if you can have it or not" now I'm the bad guy for saying no. What a shitty position to be put in by your own mother. There have even been times when she was watching the kids so that my husband and I could have a night out and she waits until we leave and then sneaks stuff into the house, like I'm not going to notice new toys or clothes in my home. I once went to a counseling session with her and the therapist had the nerve to say that I must be somehow sending her signals that I want her to buy this stuff. I am not one for reverse psychology so when I tell my mother that I don't need her to buy anything and that really I don't WANT her to buy anything that's not some sick way for me to get her to make unnecessary purchases. Recently she opened up to me and explained that she needed help with her spending and hoarding so I began to do some research. I found a therapist, set an appoinment only to have her back out at the last minute saying that this person wasn't specialized in this field. This set me off and caused me to rethink what I was doing. Now here I am a few months later back to my search for a therapist that specializes in compulsive spending and hoarding and I think I have found a couple but again she is finding new reasons not to go. My frustration is growing stronger and my patience is growing thin so here I am on some random website venting and hoping that maybe someone else is going through something similar or has gone through it and can offer some advise. That is enough for me for now but I find this therapeutic so I'm sure I'll be back. Undecided

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