What we commonly know as hoarding is technically and medically known as hoarding disorder. Hoarding disorder is a medically recognized mental health disorder and has been so classified since the earlier years of the 21st century. If you are the adult child of a hoarding parent, it is important for you to understand this basic fact about hoarding disorder.
You may be like a notable number of adult children of hoarders in this day and age and have made the decision to move your mother or father with hoarding disorder into your own home. If that is the case, there are a number of issues that need to be addressed in advance of moving your parent into your home. This includes establishing specific boundaries for your hoarding parent who is moving into your home.
Specific Boundaries for a Hoarding Parent in Your Home
The Center for Hoarding has established certain criteria associated with boundaries that need to be set when dealing with a person with hoarding disorder. This includes a parent diagnosed with hoarding disorder that will be moving into your home. The specific boundaries recommended by the Center for Hoarding are:
- Emotional and physical space between you and another person
- Demarcation of where you end and another begins and where you begin and another ends
- Limit or line over which you will not allow anyone to cross because of the negative impact of its being crossed in the past
- Established set of limits over your physical and emotional well-being which you expect others to respect in their relationship with you
- Emotional and physical space you need in order to be the real you without the pressure from others to be something that you are not
- Emotional and physical perimeter of your life which is or has been violated when you were emotionally, verbally, physically or sexually abused
- Healthy emotional and physical distance you can maintain between you and another so that you do not become overly enmeshed and dependent
- Appropriate amount of emotional and physical closeness you need to maintain so that you and another do not become too detached or overly independent
- Balanced emotional and physical limits set on interacting with another so that you can achieve an interdependent relationship of independent beings who do not lose their personal identity, uniqueness and autonomy in the process
- Clearly defined limits within which you are free to be yourself with no restrictions placed on you by others as to how to think, feel or act
- Set of parameters which make you a unique, autonomous and free individual who has the freedom to be a creative, original, idiosyncratic problem solver
Engage a Therapist or Counselor to Assist With Boundary Setting
If you are like many adult children, even those who do not have a parent with hoarding disorder, establishing suitable, appropriate boundaries with you parent can be a highly challenging endeavor. This objective can be magnified significantly when your parent is afflicted with hoarding disorder. Therefore, if you are intent on establishing appropriate boundaries for your hoarding parent who will be moving into your home – and you must have that as your objective – you need to consider seriously engaging the services of a reputable, experienced therapist or counselor to aid and assist in this area.
A skilled counselor or therapist who has worked with people with hoarding disorder and their families will have the expertise necessary to assist you and your mother or father in establishing suitable boundaries for coexisting in your residence. In addition, a professional of this type can also prove invaluable in aiding in the development of strategies to ensure that established boundaries are honored going forward into the future as well.
Consider a Written Contract With Your Hoarding Parent
When it comes to the creation of boundaries for a parent with hoarding disorder that is going to be moving into your home, make sure that the elements of such an agreement is put into writing. By putting established boundaries into written contract form there is less of a chance for confusion regarding what has and has not been agreed to between you and your mother or father.
Hoarder Property Cleanup and Your Parent’s Home
As part of getting a parent with hoarding disorder ready to move into your home, restoring his or her current residence to a suitable condition is also a task that needs to be tended to as well. Cleaning up a residence occupied by a hoarder can be a highly challenging task. For this reason you are wise to select a reputable hoarder property cleanup company to handle this necessity.
Eco Bear is a leading hoarder property cleanup company that serves a three-state region – California, Nevada, and Arizona. They have the background necessary to cleanup and remediate even the most challenging hoarding situation.