Natalie
NatalieIt would also involve moving my sister up here too, which is a long story for another day.
NatalieAnyways! Fast forward to early March 2024.
My partner and I are starting a much-needed vacation with my BFF from high school and her partner. A very much needed break for all of us—from work stuff and family stuff. It started off very refreshing.
NatalieAnyways. Given my improved financial situation since working at $former_employer, over the past 18 months I started to strategize various potential options to pursue to help improve my parents living situation. Most of which would involve moving them up here to this side of the state since we’ve my partner’s immediate family & his extended family here as extra support. Oh, and my mom grew up in this area too and her older sister moved here a couple of yrs ago.
NatalieIt would also involve moving my sister up here too, which is a long story for another day.
NatalieIt doesn’t help much that my partner and I live on the other side of the state. If we were in closer proximity, it would probably be much easier for us to help them.
Sure, there’s my older brother & sister nearby them, but my brother had kind of given up at that point, and my sister is in no condition to help my parents due to her health.
NatalieAnyways. Given my improved financial situation since working at $former_employer, over the past 18 months I started to strategize various potential options to pursue to help improve my parents living situation. Most of which would involve moving them up here to this side of the state since we’ve my partner’s immediate family & his extended family here as extra support. Oh, and my mom grew up in this area too and her older sister moved here a couple of yrs ago.
NatalieMy dad intended it to be their “starter home” but, here we are ~37 years later. That is another long story for another day.
Anyways. Eventually my dad decided to run his surveying business from the house. Which, early on, was fine!
But, after many, many years later, there’s a lot of equipment. Plus, so many filing cabinets of surveys he legally has to keep for XYZ amount of time.
Plus, everything else…
NatalieIt doesn’t help much that my partner and I live on the other side of the state. If we were in closer proximity, it would probably be much easier for us to help them.
Sure, there’s my older brother & sister nearby them, but my brother had kind of given up at that point, and my sister is in no condition to help my parents due to her health.
NatalieMy parents have lived in the same house for the past ~37 years. My dad bought it directly from a former coworker. There was no home inspection. The house was built sometime in the late 1800s.
So, uh. Yeah. A lot of things that were red flags weren’t discovered until years after they moved in.
Such as some bad foundational issues—such as the broken beam that has been there as long as I have been alive apparently 🙃
And the house is quite small.
NatalieMy dad intended it to be their “starter home” but, here we are ~37 years later. That is another long story for another day.
Anyways. Eventually my dad decided to run his surveying business from the house. Which, early on, was fine!
But, after many, many years later, there’s a lot of equipment. Plus, so many filing cabinets of surveys he legally has to keep for XYZ amount of time.
Plus, everything else…
NatalieA bit of background: my dad has always had issues with hoarding—likely tied to some trauma he went through earlier in his life with his parents (long story for another day, but both of his parents had terrible PTSD from what they endured during WWII, and some of that trauma eventually manifested into abuse from his dad, instability from his mom, etc.)
My mom tries to keep the hoarding at bay. But, it is tough and it has definitely gotten worse over the past 8-9 years.
NatalieMy parents have lived in the same house for the past ~37 years. My dad bought it directly from a former coworker. There was no home inspection. The house was built sometime in the late 1800s.
So, uh. Yeah. A lot of things that were red flags weren’t discovered until years after they moved in.
Such as some bad foundational issues—such as the broken beam that has been there as long as I have been alive apparently 🙃
And the house is quite small.
NatalieDisclaimer: I love my parents dearly. The things I am about to say should in no way be interpreted as me saying that they are bad or anything like that. There is just some generational trauma that stems from all the way back in WWII, and a “perfect storm” of ADHD, depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety, etc. that affect my parents.
*The purpose of me being open about this is to help remove stigma from discussions regarding mental health and things like hoarding.*
NatalieA bit of background: my dad has always had issues with hoarding—likely tied to some trauma he went through earlier in his life with his parents (long story for another day, but both of his parents had terrible PTSD from what they endured during WWII, and some of that trauma eventually manifested into abuse from his dad, instability from his mom, etc.)
My mom tries to keep the hoarding at bay. But, it is tough and it has definitely gotten worse over the past 8-9 years.
NatalieThere was also another “avalanche of weird 💩
” that happened much earlier in 2024 that went on for months (or, as my brother aptly described it at the time—“a Comedy of Errors”)
And, of course, that all exploded almost all-at-once during a vacation my partner and I took back in March 2024—a vacation we took to spend time with friends, and with a couple of the goals being “getting away from work stress”, “rejuvenation to keep burnout at bay”, and “getting away from family stress”.
NatalieDisclaimer: I love my parents dearly. The things I am about to say should in no way be interpreted as me saying that they are bad or anything like that. There is just some generational trauma that stems from all the way back in WWII, and a “perfect storm” of ADHD, depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety, etc. that affect my parents.
*The purpose of me being open about this is to help remove stigma from discussions regarding mental health and things like hoarding.*
NatalieOh, and another backdrop amongst this “avalanche of 💩”: the past year or so my dad has been going through some pretty severe depression himself. The day before my birthday we found out he has chronic micro vascular ischemia 😞
NatalieThere was also another “avalanche of weird 💩” that happened much earlier in 2024 that went on for months (or, as my brother aptly described it at the time—“a Comedy of Errors”)
And, of course, that all exploded almost all-at-once during a vacation my partner and I took back in March 2024—a vacation we took to spend time with friends, and with a couple of the goals being “getting away from work stress”, “rejuvenation to keep burnout at bay”, and “getting away from family stress”.
NatalieAnyways, so the “avalanche of weird 💩” in our lives of the final third of 2024 continued onward.
It just felt like everything around us was breaking down—the miscarriage, our alma mater deciding to “kinda-sorta” outsource the IT department in a roundabout way & thus leading to chaos in my partner’s work, chaos in my own work, etc.—and how these breakdowns were destabilizing various plans we had set in motion or were on the verge of setting in motion.
NatalieOh, and another backdrop amongst this “avalanche of 💩”: the past year or so my dad has been going through some pretty severe depression himself. The day before my birthday we found out he has chronic micro vascular ischemia 😞