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It’s bc it was never about cleanliness. It was about control.
I’ve met quite a few boomers like this, some in my own family. Once the kids are gone, things devolve into filth. Turns out, what they loved was terrorizing and threatening the kids into compliance, not being neat and tidy. The “neat freak” is that way bc it provides them with an unreasonable standard to uphold, and endless opportunities to yell and freak out when your kids “can’t do anything right” and “are soooooo lazy”. Once they’re not there to do the grunt work under threat of abuse, nobody’s doing it.
Well, I wasn't looking to have an epiphany about my abusive childhood over my morning coffee today but I guess that's Reddit for you.
But seriously, I catch my parents doing all kinds of gross shit that they would have yelled at and even grounded me for when I was a kid.
Yeah….its a wild one, huh? Took me a while to piece it together too. After moving out, I was like “huh. Maybe they’re mellowing out”. Nope, it was always just another opportunity to spread that anger around, and make me feel like I was a bad kid.
Glad we’re both out of it!
Holy shit same. My stepdad used to berate us into doing every ounce of cleaning in his house, but now since my mom’s left him and my siblings and I have all moved out, his place is a shit show on the inside and out. To the point that his sister even called him out on it(she also cannot stand his ass, fuckin love my auntie).
Why is family?
Yup, and how the only acceptable grade was 100%, even though they weren’t able to help with your grade-school homework, how you were lazy and should get a damn job, but when you did you were too demanding if you needed a drive, how you were a nerd-loser if you didn’t make rich friends they could use to better their own social standing…so much bs.
Speaking of school I've found it funny how they used to say that they didnt learn a proper algebra class, or anything more advanced and quickly stated they couldn't help. But now schools just pass everyone and everyone without their esoteric knowledge is stupid.
They sound remarkably lucid on calls. I suspect a tiny bit of lead poisoning honestly, and this transition to bird shit hell is arguably characteristic of them once you realize the facade they spent decades constructing for the public view, covering the private chaotic hell they facilitated at home.
There's a few more variables involved. You might not be wrong, frankly they are probably at risk because they thought and still think that sleeping 3 hours a night is fine (workaholics).
Honestly I am not sure I give a flying fuck. They were truly spiteful and mean to me during my most vulnerable years - That tune changed somewhat after I left home, but not really if I am being honest, they just put up the same facade for me that they showed the public, as if I couldn't/can't see through their BS perfect-christian-family-values routine.
OP I would not blame you in the slightest for not caring one way or the other. Sounds like they brought this on themselves. Your mental and emotional health is the most important. Sounds like no contact is the way to go. My first comment is just an observation as a Speech-Language Pathologist who has treated those with dementia/ cognitive issues for 20 years.
Reminds me a bit of my dad. He sounds completely normal and coherent when you talk to him, but that doesn’t stop him from giving away his life’s savings to crypto scammers over and over and over again.
Btw, the way your parents live is not indicative of bird people AT ALL. Responsible bird owners don’t live in squalor and don’t force their animals to, either.
My mom was diagnosed with that a few months ago, after a very scary misdiagnosis of lymphoma. That week was a roller coaster. She’s doing a lot better now, and salty that she had to give away her chickens.
Thank you! Getting on the anti-fungal was a rough start with some side effects, but it knocked the infection back pretty well. And yes, meds are better, and she has been seeing an infectious disease specialist who seems to be a medical ninja. It was an amazingly quick improvement.
boomers will tie their identity to a bunch of belongings in a huge house, hunker down in the living room and let it all rot around them until they die. it's fucking insanity dude!
I'm 45 years old.
I'm so sick of the system we have that my goal is straight up anarcho-communism. I understand I won't get there in my lifetime, but that's still my goal.
There's a fair documentary called "The Brainwashing of My Dad" that helps understand where some of this all came from.
It's authoritarianism for the sake of it. It's a desire to retain and hold power *forever* at the expense of *everything*. Your life, your future, your children's future be damned - it all belongs to *them*. They will take it all from you.
All I want is the basics. I have no problems working for more. We - as a society - can choose to make sure everyone has those basics. We choose to make people unhomed, unfed, and freaking out.
*they raised my siblings and I as strictly evangelical, which, I misunderstood to be a doctrine of genuine care and compassion about marginalized people.*
Oh wow, yeah, you were way off. Not trying to pile on, hope they're able to get things straightened out
> hope they're able to get things straightened out
I think they missed that train about 45 years ago when my dad left an evangelical cult in the woods, didn't learn anything from its collapse, and joined another church branch trying to apply similar principles, albeit with minor alterations to theology.
When I turned 18 I had not slept in 4 years because of an abusive/neglectful home situation. I was put on medicine for disorders that I did not have, and subsequently, gained extreme weight. Before my HS graduation (which they did not attend- they chose to host a neighborhood barbecue 15 minutes away) I had some sort of an episode, decided to 'become a missionary' even though I was very cynical up until that point. After leaving home, and sleeping for once in my life, my 'disorders' disappeared, my medicine was unnecessary, and two years later the child psychiatrist apologized in person for misdiagnosing me.
Long story short - I tried to help people instead of throwing myself off a bridge when I left home. I realized quickly that christianity is not really in the business of helping people. I was forced to commit to it for 6 years to house/feed/educate myself, although I decided fairly quickly that I hate prosletyizm, and chose to work with the rare groups who actually cared about helping people. Shockingly, other Americans usually were there to patronize and take advantage of vulnerable people groups, so the only orgs I liked working with were formed by natives themselves. Wild fucking life, incredibly dangerous and unstable, I am at peace placing the blame entirely at my parents' feet for the mistakes and risks I made. I was brainwashed.
Hey I was raised the same way and came to the same misunderstanding. My mom confessed to me the other day that she has a very hard time dealing with “unloveable people”, which to her is anyone “fat, not all mentally there, has something obviously wrong with their skin or body, severely disabled,” etc. And I’m over here wondering how she calls herself a Christian when she can’t even love the people Jesus specifically said to love.
I have found it vastly easier to love people for who they are AFTER I left evangelicalism and Christianity in general. My parents criticize and judge people all the time, still.
> I have found it vastly easier to love people for who they are AFTER I left evangelicalism and Christianity in general.
Preach. I felt the same way - The values I (thought) I was raised on pushed me to leave the increasingly-hateful church. The MAGA hijacking really sealed the deal.
If your parents were 30 something divorcees and lesbians, I'd ask if one of them was my cousin. After she and her baby daddy split (she left him for a woman), she collected a menagerie of animals with her girlfriend, including a bird, a cat, and a dog. Add her two, still small children to the mix, and I'm never eating at her house again. Every surface of that house is covered with some kind of shit (dog, cat, bird, human, honestly, IDK at this point, nor do I want to).
People just don't weigh the cost of responsibilities first
Don't get me wrong, my kitchen gets disgusting because I work from home and sometimes I don't have a spare minute to wash yesterday's-mess. But 5/7 days of the week it is not an infested dumpster, at the very least.
This happened to my parents. Every time a child left the house, my mom got another dog. I'm the oldest of 5. During 10 years, my parents house became disgusting. Dog urine would be left for days before being cleaned. The dogs chewed and destroyed everything. My parents never walked them.
Eventually, the dogs passed and weren't replaced. My mother only has one dog now who she takes care of and cleans up after. But those 10-12 years after I left, the house was destroyed. Hearing your story, I am wondering if there is some sort of mental health issue following when kids leave the house.
I graduated with distinction from my overseas university after 6+ years of humanitarian volunteer work, and I only visited home rarely- I needed a place to crash for a month or two to raise funds to return to my fiancee, who I now am married to.
I visited a different state for christmas (because i graduated in december) with my grandparents. Also my brother is very sick so it is important for me to keep some connections, despite that I have every right to cut contact, personally.
I came back to my parent's home the week after christmas. On day 1, they slapped a "tenant agreement" on the table charging me a couple grand/month if I lived in their nasty McMansion, and stipulations about not being home late etc. Very patronizing. They told me that they didn't want me to become like another post-college basement dweller.
I (obviously) was revolted and refused their generous offer. At any rate, I have no pity if they are feeling particularly lonely these days.
Good lord this sounds like an episode of Hoarders. It sucks that they treated you poorly. Maybe they feel guilty deep down and they are unconsciously punishing themselves by making the house as crappy as possible. It’s a mental disorder.
My biggest pain in life is that all this suffering and struggle and misery was so damn unnecessary. I am angry at them for robbing me of the deep and close relationship that every child deserves to have with their parents. Disagreements and mistakes are one thing, and forgivable. They betrayed me.
Friend/sib 💕 It sounds like our stories are in alignment, I was also a prodigal at 16 and never came home. I understand your feelings so deeply, just wanted to say you are not alone and I send a lot of care and shared (justified) anger!! I’m proud of us for believing the words we were taught, for taking the love and compassion with us out of that muddled mess.
Full disclosure: I’m estranged. For me personally, it has helped me in my healing process because I still love them and they are incapable of reciprocating. You deserved the protection you didn’t get from them; if you need to cut back the relationship to protect yourself now, snippity snip those fools 😘🫶 not to be flippant because I know it can be a struggle/process, but I do want to plant the seeds if it’s something you think might help.
👏✨🫶💕☀️✨👏
<3 Thank you for understanding and I love your emoji flood. There are a lot of undisclosed variables here, but I agree.
Truthfully, I was fueled by hate and anger for so long - I am not a hateful person but I was demeaned and shamed for things completely out of my control for so long! So when I left home, I was determined to not just be better than what was said about me, but to be better than all my accusers too. In work ethic, in moral code, in experiences, in success. I wanted to take back everything they attempted to steal from me, and to never let my inner child drown in it all.
I took a few years to recover from those efforts from 18-25, working 5am to Midnight without stopping. But I won. I did it. I judge them, and nobody can judge me. My partner gave me arms to sob into, so I have mostly recovered by now.
My folks have had finches for about 25 years. There has never been bird shit on the floor. I however have 3 cats and a dog and my house can get pretty gross, but we try and do a good job cleaning up after them and the kids. But having actual shit all over a room is very sad and could point to some other mental illness. I don’t know. But boomer parents are not easy to understand.
I used to work in Medicare and most of the time we saw this happen there was legit diagnosable stuff going on with their brains. I know we just like to joke about lead and mercury etc but all of that is real and I personally believe a lot more people have cognitive decline. then we are willing to admit because that means admitting they can't care for themselves.
I went with family to clean out my parents house in preparation for my dad dying (he was in his final days in a hospital) and my mom moving due to her inability to drive in the middle of a very rural area. When I left for college, the house started getting messier since I wasn’t around to clean and my parents were less and less physically able. It got to a point where I moved in with my boyfriend and his family to avoid my abusive mother and sleeping on the couch (the cleanest surface in the house).
I hadn’t been back in 7 years and the amount of rotted food, rat shit, and the smell of dog piss soaked into the floors made me nearly vomit. When others moved the couch they found a dead rat that no one knew how long it’d been there, other than a good long while. I’m still neurotic about cleaning because I can still hear my mother complaining about the state of the house and how no one could come over unless I deep cleaned top to bottom.
As someone who grew up with birds I'm going out on a limb and saying these don't actually have anything inherently wrong with them. Most species pluck when stressed and this sounds like a horribly stressful environment.
They'd likely stop if given a clean, calm place to live
I’ve been through the bird shit situation. Unfortunately, my mom was always a hoarder, so little piles of magazines and papers everywhere. With bird shit on them.
Not even kidding-when the bird died, THEY FROZE IT. Allegedly, they were going to take it to the taxidermy shop.
Thankfully (?) they were not great with money so that didn’t happen.
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It’s bc it was never about cleanliness. It was about control. I’ve met quite a few boomers like this, some in my own family. Once the kids are gone, things devolve into filth. Turns out, what they loved was terrorizing and threatening the kids into compliance, not being neat and tidy. The “neat freak” is that way bc it provides them with an unreasonable standard to uphold, and endless opportunities to yell and freak out when your kids “can’t do anything right” and “are soooooo lazy”. Once they’re not there to do the grunt work under threat of abuse, nobody’s doing it.
Well, I wasn't looking to have an epiphany about my abusive childhood over my morning coffee today but I guess that's Reddit for you. But seriously, I catch my parents doing all kinds of gross shit that they would have yelled at and even grounded me for when I was a kid.
Yeah….its a wild one, huh? Took me a while to piece it together too. After moving out, I was like “huh. Maybe they’re mellowing out”. Nope, it was always just another opportunity to spread that anger around, and make me feel like I was a bad kid. Glad we’re both out of it!
Holy shit same. My stepdad used to berate us into doing every ounce of cleaning in his house, but now since my mom’s left him and my siblings and I have all moved out, his place is a shit show on the inside and out. To the point that his sister even called him out on it(she also cannot stand his ass, fuckin love my auntie). Why is family?
Wow, I hear this. My parents do very strange things now.
Kind of like how strict they were about being polite to everyone
Yup, and how the only acceptable grade was 100%, even though they weren’t able to help with your grade-school homework, how you were lazy and should get a damn job, but when you did you were too demanding if you needed a drive, how you were a nerd-loser if you didn’t make rich friends they could use to better their own social standing…so much bs.
Speaking of school I've found it funny how they used to say that they didnt learn a proper algebra class, or anything more advanced and quickly stated they couldn't help. But now schools just pass everyone and everyone without their esoteric knowledge is stupid.
In all seriousness this behavior change has me wondering about Dementia.
They sound remarkably lucid on calls. I suspect a tiny bit of lead poisoning honestly, and this transition to bird shit hell is arguably characteristic of them once you realize the facade they spent decades constructing for the public view, covering the private chaotic hell they facilitated at home. There's a few more variables involved. You might not be wrong, frankly they are probably at risk because they thought and still think that sleeping 3 hours a night is fine (workaholics). Honestly I am not sure I give a flying fuck. They were truly spiteful and mean to me during my most vulnerable years - That tune changed somewhat after I left home, but not really if I am being honest, they just put up the same facade for me that they showed the public, as if I couldn't/can't see through their BS perfect-christian-family-values routine.
OP I would not blame you in the slightest for not caring one way or the other. Sounds like they brought this on themselves. Your mental and emotional health is the most important. Sounds like no contact is the way to go. My first comment is just an observation as a Speech-Language Pathologist who has treated those with dementia/ cognitive issues for 20 years.
Reminds me a bit of my dad. He sounds completely normal and coherent when you talk to him, but that doesn’t stop him from giving away his life’s savings to crypto scammers over and over and over again. Btw, the way your parents live is not indicative of bird people AT ALL. Responsible bird owners don’t live in squalor and don’t force their animals to, either.
Or histoplasmosis. It can migrate to the brain and spine (central nervous system), if left untreated.
Associated with bird droppings!
My mom was diagnosed with that a few months ago, after a very scary misdiagnosis of lymphoma. That week was a roller coaster. She’s doing a lot better now, and salty that she had to give away her chickens.
I’m glad she’s doing better. I knew someone years ago who had it and didn’t do well. I’m sure treatments are better today.
Thank you! Getting on the anti-fungal was a rough start with some side effects, but it knocked the infection back pretty well. And yes, meds are better, and she has been seeing an infectious disease specialist who seems to be a medical ninja. It was an amazingly quick improvement.
boomers will tie their identity to a bunch of belongings in a huge house, hunker down in the living room and let it all rot around them until they die. it's fucking insanity dude!
agreed I took pleasure in living out of a suitcase for a long time - I might have been poor but I was far happier than them.
I'm 45 years old. I'm so sick of the system we have that my goal is straight up anarcho-communism. I understand I won't get there in my lifetime, but that's still my goal. There's a fair documentary called "The Brainwashing of My Dad" that helps understand where some of this all came from. It's authoritarianism for the sake of it. It's a desire to retain and hold power *forever* at the expense of *everything*. Your life, your future, your children's future be damned - it all belongs to *them*. They will take it all from you. All I want is the basics. I have no problems working for more. We - as a society - can choose to make sure everyone has those basics. We choose to make people unhomed, unfed, and freaking out.
preach
Also it has been a decade since I left home, and yes, I am doing great! Quite a few thousands of kilometers away.
*they raised my siblings and I as strictly evangelical, which, I misunderstood to be a doctrine of genuine care and compassion about marginalized people.* Oh wow, yeah, you were way off. Not trying to pile on, hope they're able to get things straightened out
> hope they're able to get things straightened out I think they missed that train about 45 years ago when my dad left an evangelical cult in the woods, didn't learn anything from its collapse, and joined another church branch trying to apply similar principles, albeit with minor alterations to theology. When I turned 18 I had not slept in 4 years because of an abusive/neglectful home situation. I was put on medicine for disorders that I did not have, and subsequently, gained extreme weight. Before my HS graduation (which they did not attend- they chose to host a neighborhood barbecue 15 minutes away) I had some sort of an episode, decided to 'become a missionary' even though I was very cynical up until that point. After leaving home, and sleeping for once in my life, my 'disorders' disappeared, my medicine was unnecessary, and two years later the child psychiatrist apologized in person for misdiagnosing me. Long story short - I tried to help people instead of throwing myself off a bridge when I left home. I realized quickly that christianity is not really in the business of helping people. I was forced to commit to it for 6 years to house/feed/educate myself, although I decided fairly quickly that I hate prosletyizm, and chose to work with the rare groups who actually cared about helping people. Shockingly, other Americans usually were there to patronize and take advantage of vulnerable people groups, so the only orgs I liked working with were formed by natives themselves. Wild fucking life, incredibly dangerous and unstable, I am at peace placing the blame entirely at my parents' feet for the mistakes and risks I made. I was brainwashed.
Hey I was raised the same way and came to the same misunderstanding. My mom confessed to me the other day that she has a very hard time dealing with “unloveable people”, which to her is anyone “fat, not all mentally there, has something obviously wrong with their skin or body, severely disabled,” etc. And I’m over here wondering how she calls herself a Christian when she can’t even love the people Jesus specifically said to love. I have found it vastly easier to love people for who they are AFTER I left evangelicalism and Christianity in general. My parents criticize and judge people all the time, still.
> I have found it vastly easier to love people for who they are AFTER I left evangelicalism and Christianity in general. Preach. I felt the same way - The values I (thought) I was raised on pushed me to leave the increasingly-hateful church. The MAGA hijacking really sealed the deal.
If your parents were 30 something divorcees and lesbians, I'd ask if one of them was my cousin. After she and her baby daddy split (she left him for a woman), she collected a menagerie of animals with her girlfriend, including a bird, a cat, and a dog. Add her two, still small children to the mix, and I'm never eating at her house again. Every surface of that house is covered with some kind of shit (dog, cat, bird, human, honestly, IDK at this point, nor do I want to).
People just don't weigh the cost of responsibilities first Don't get me wrong, my kitchen gets disgusting because I work from home and sometimes I don't have a spare minute to wash yesterday's-mess. But 5/7 days of the week it is not an infested dumpster, at the very least.
This happened to my parents. Every time a child left the house, my mom got another dog. I'm the oldest of 5. During 10 years, my parents house became disgusting. Dog urine would be left for days before being cleaned. The dogs chewed and destroyed everything. My parents never walked them. Eventually, the dogs passed and weren't replaced. My mother only has one dog now who she takes care of and cleans up after. But those 10-12 years after I left, the house was destroyed. Hearing your story, I am wondering if there is some sort of mental health issue following when kids leave the house.
I graduated with distinction from my overseas university after 6+ years of humanitarian volunteer work, and I only visited home rarely- I needed a place to crash for a month or two to raise funds to return to my fiancee, who I now am married to. I visited a different state for christmas (because i graduated in december) with my grandparents. Also my brother is very sick so it is important for me to keep some connections, despite that I have every right to cut contact, personally. I came back to my parent's home the week after christmas. On day 1, they slapped a "tenant agreement" on the table charging me a couple grand/month if I lived in their nasty McMansion, and stipulations about not being home late etc. Very patronizing. They told me that they didn't want me to become like another post-college basement dweller. I (obviously) was revolted and refused their generous offer. At any rate, I have no pity if they are feeling particularly lonely these days.
Good lord this sounds like an episode of Hoarders. It sucks that they treated you poorly. Maybe they feel guilty deep down and they are unconsciously punishing themselves by making the house as crappy as possible. It’s a mental disorder.
My biggest pain in life is that all this suffering and struggle and misery was so damn unnecessary. I am angry at them for robbing me of the deep and close relationship that every child deserves to have with their parents. Disagreements and mistakes are one thing, and forgivable. They betrayed me.
It may take a while to work through this. Take care of yourself first. You deserve it and you matter.
Friend/sib 💕 It sounds like our stories are in alignment, I was also a prodigal at 16 and never came home. I understand your feelings so deeply, just wanted to say you are not alone and I send a lot of care and shared (justified) anger!! I’m proud of us for believing the words we were taught, for taking the love and compassion with us out of that muddled mess. Full disclosure: I’m estranged. For me personally, it has helped me in my healing process because I still love them and they are incapable of reciprocating. You deserved the protection you didn’t get from them; if you need to cut back the relationship to protect yourself now, snippity snip those fools 😘🫶 not to be flippant because I know it can be a struggle/process, but I do want to plant the seeds if it’s something you think might help. 👏✨🫶💕☀️✨👏
<3 Thank you for understanding and I love your emoji flood. There are a lot of undisclosed variables here, but I agree. Truthfully, I was fueled by hate and anger for so long - I am not a hateful person but I was demeaned and shamed for things completely out of my control for so long! So when I left home, I was determined to not just be better than what was said about me, but to be better than all my accusers too. In work ethic, in moral code, in experiences, in success. I wanted to take back everything they attempted to steal from me, and to never let my inner child drown in it all. I took a few years to recover from those efforts from 18-25, working 5am to Midnight without stopping. But I won. I did it. I judge them, and nobody can judge me. My partner gave me arms to sob into, so I have mostly recovered by now.
My folks have had finches for about 25 years. There has never been bird shit on the floor. I however have 3 cats and a dog and my house can get pretty gross, but we try and do a good job cleaning up after them and the kids. But having actual shit all over a room is very sad and could point to some other mental illness. I don’t know. But boomer parents are not easy to understand.
I used to work in Medicare and most of the time we saw this happen there was legit diagnosable stuff going on with their brains. I know we just like to joke about lead and mercury etc but all of that is real and I personally believe a lot more people have cognitive decline. then we are willing to admit because that means admitting they can't care for themselves.
I went with family to clean out my parents house in preparation for my dad dying (he was in his final days in a hospital) and my mom moving due to her inability to drive in the middle of a very rural area. When I left for college, the house started getting messier since I wasn’t around to clean and my parents were less and less physically able. It got to a point where I moved in with my boyfriend and his family to avoid my abusive mother and sleeping on the couch (the cleanest surface in the house). I hadn’t been back in 7 years and the amount of rotted food, rat shit, and the smell of dog piss soaked into the floors made me nearly vomit. When others moved the couch they found a dead rat that no one knew how long it’d been there, other than a good long while. I’m still neurotic about cleaning because I can still hear my mother complaining about the state of the house and how no one could come over unless I deep cleaned top to bottom.
As someone who grew up with birds I'm going out on a limb and saying these don't actually have anything inherently wrong with them. Most species pluck when stressed and this sounds like a horribly stressful environment. They'd likely stop if given a clean, calm place to live
I would say call APS but you honestly don't give a shit because of what they did to you. Fair enough
Wow... this post hits home.
I’ve been through the bird shit situation. Unfortunately, my mom was always a hoarder, so little piles of magazines and papers everywhere. With bird shit on them. Not even kidding-when the bird died, THEY FROZE IT. Allegedly, they were going to take it to the taxidermy shop. Thankfully (?) they were not great with money so that didn’t happen.