Getting rid of family memorabilia

[Jadedjanet]

Hi all, both of my divorced PD parents , mom histrionic and father narcissistic, have given me family memorabilia and I want to throw it away but I'm having a tremendous amount of guilt. I am the oldest child of three siblings and I think my parents are giving me these things to keep as a sort of family Legacy or something? My father gave me family portraits and a charm bracelet that my mother used to wear. I remember the charm bracelet well . my mother always wore it and it has trinkets related to her being a homecoming queen, a mother , a wife of a fighter pilot. My dad has this dramatic and elaborate story about how he went to a garage sale and the charm bracelet was there. He could not figure it out how it got there but he bought it and he gave it to me to keep.I think the most inappropriate thing my mother gave me was her Diaries which I have never read. They were mixed in with a bunch of other stuff like a family tree and dishes.   :doh:My mother frequently gives me old things that she doesn't want any more as gifts. I call it gift vomit. I don't want to keep these things but my parents are still alive and I have the nagging fear that they might someday ask for them. Advice? Insight?

[Fiasco]

I think first choice, assuming you get along well enough with your siblings, is to ask them if they would like any of the items. Be clear in your communication that you just don't have room for them, and anything the siblings don't take will be donated to the less fortunate.

Any and everything they do not want please go ahead and pass them along and/or throw them away. I also suffered HUGE guilt about getting rid of gifts. I even used to organize and save every single greeting card. This is not healthy behavior. Strangely what helped me the most is Marie Kondos book on tidying up. I heard she has a tv series as well. The part that helped me was her assertion that the act of gifting is separate from the gift itself. Once a gift has been given and received it's purpose as a gift has been fulfilled and is finished. Now the gift is just an object that you should keep or not, depending on its usefulness and how it makes you feel. I'm going out on a limb and guessing none of these things brings you joy.

She recommends that when you want to get rid of something you thank it for it's purpose, whatever that was, wish it well, and get it the f@ck out of your house.

Good luck, it sounds like a horrible position to be in. Don't let things invade your home that make you unhappy.

[GettingOOTF]

I have been simplifying and decluttering for years. I had a lot of clutter. I didn’t grow up with much and we never had things when they were needed so I tend to hold on to things. It’s been a process for me.

Last year I finally got rid of the family things you are talking about. It may have been the year before. I posted about it here.

I realized that these things didn’t make me happy and they took up valuable space in my small apartment.

I have not regretted this at all. These are not my burdens to carry.

For me it was simply a matter of being ready. I’d reached the right point of acceptance to let them go.

I was talking to someone the other week about her holding on to gifts incase anyone asked. I asked her if they ever had - she was worried about one relative in particular. She said no.

At the end of the day it’s your space and you get to decide what gets to live in it.

Getting rid of stuff is so hard. What I did with the family stuff was pack it all up in a box until eventually I was ready to let it go. And I didn’t do this all at once. I went through and dealt with things that I didn’t have that much attachment to. In your case this might be the unwanted gifts your mother gives you. Note she probably gives them to you because she feels guilty about throwing them away. If anyone asks her she can say “oh I gave it to Jadedjanet”. You are her daughter so that will be seen as acceptable. See what she does there?

My advice would be “BURN IT ALL”, but I’ve been where you are and I know that’s not how it works. :-))

[practical]

I think first choice, assuming you get along well enough with your siblings, is to ask them if they would like any of the items. Be clear in your communication that you just don't have room for them, and anything the siblings don't take will be donated to the less fortunate.

Yes!

I have gotten rid off lots of stuff and it is incredibly liberating! It totally outweighs any guilt once you start doing it, and not having those reminders around the house is wonderful. Start with something small, see how you feel and then proceed. I ended up taking whole car loads to the dump and Goodwill and felt so much ligther for it! As for your parents asking for things back "I cannot find it" or "I passed it along" will work, and I would certainly trash those diaries, they are totally inappropriate 

[WomanInterrupted]

I agree with Practical - getting rid of that unwanted stuff is *wonderful*!   

I only read a brief excerpt of Marie Kondo's book online, and it was about how the stuff makes us *feel.*  I promptly went upstairs and weeded out all the garish, awful tops and sweaters unBPD Didi had given me, and felt so much *better* about myself. 

I lost the guilt of looking at perfectly good clothing that I'd never wear, freed up some closet space for things I would and could wear (that *I* would choose!), and just felt better looking at the empty closet space, knowing the stuff was gone. 

That carried over into other things we'd been given over the years, and really didn't want - I bought boxes from Uhaul, packaged stuff up, and donated it all to Goodwill. 

What's really telling is that not once have I wished I had any donated item back.   

You've got a lot of different ways you can get rid of stuff - offering it to your sibs is a nice touch, but not necessary, if you don't want to, or it may come with too many problems.

As for your parents asking for something back, telling them you don't know where it is or another sibling has it might be the way to go, but you could also take the direct approach and remind your parents that a GIFT is just that:  something the recipient now owns, and may do with as they please. 

I'd start with ridding yourself of your mom's diaries - you can offer them back, if you'd like, and if she doesn't want them, I'd dump them in the trash and throw lots of disgusting stuff on top of them:  egg shells, coffee grounds, veggie peels, meat packaging, old cooking oil, etc.

Why?  So they're illegible by the time they get to the landfill.

You'll feel better. 

So...give it a try and see what you think.  Pick a few small items - or some that have been particularly annoying/troubling/triggering/just plain ugly - and either box them up or throw them out and see how you feel.

For me, the feeling wasn't guilt, but, "Hey...it really IS our house, and we choose what goes in it!" 

I hope you feel the same way! 

[Associate of Daniel]

May I add a different perspective on this?
I totally understand you not wanting to keep the items.

But I'm wondering if you have children, or are hoping to have them one day. (You don't have to give an answer.)

If you do have children, do you think one or all of them might appreciate a memento of their grandparents?

If so, perhaps box the items up and put them in the shed in a difficult to see/reach place.

The healing power of time and distance may bring you to a point where you can later peaceably present the items to your children, telling the stories that are attached to them.

The diaries you may want to read first, but wait until you're ready.

This is what I did with my wedding photos. (Different situation, I realise.)  I've kept half a dozen or so of them in a small album to present to my son when he's an adult.

I gave to my uNPD exH the ones of him and his family and burned the rest. It was very cathartic.

AOD

[Fortuna]

Be careful before you put on a duck suit during hunting season.
I blundered into getting rid of family memorabilia and it went sideways. There was a book my mom gave me, one of the compiled history things of a certain place where the authors put absolutely everyone's names in so they can sell it to the relatives that want to pretend to have family member worthy of having a book mention them. My moth had some distant relatives that I'd never met or heard about mentioned in the book. I carried that book, the size of a calculus textbook, around for probably twenty five years or so. When I finally had a good purge of books it did not pass my "would I walk this up a 5th floor walk up apartment so it can take up space there if I moved to New York?" I thought I was being a good daughter by asking if my mom wanted the book back. She tried to get me to keep it but I ended up leaving it and the whiny 'but it's about faaaaaamily' stuff on her kitchen table.
Soon after she started cleaning out her own office and every couple of weeks would come over with stuff she thought I might want. It was always pictures of me from every age from birth to the latest halloween pics, newspaper clippings involving me like my engangement notice and things. I didn't connect the two for a long time and simpy thought the behavior was a bit odd. I was still working out the 'why is my mom difficult' thing.
Years later she told me she thought me giving back the book was me trying to stab her in the back and twisting. Those are exact words.    She had this malicious little smirk on her face as she said "yes, that's what I think." after telling me that. Then I realized the constant giving me things related to myself that didn't have her in it was her form of passive aggressive revenge. This was her delivering the same stab in the back to me, not once but a dozen times. I'm assuming it was meant to teach me some kind of lesson. It did, but not the one she thought it was going to. I realized she must have the upper hand, everything is a slight and I never know how the heck it's going to end up in her mind or what she's going to do about it.

I'm not a big fan of keeping things that bring bad memories and emotions, but the normal actions of checking if other people want them may bring out the bad sides of your parents. Knowing what I know know I would have chucked the book in the trash and never brought it up. Be forewarned so you can be prepared if they start doing what they do when they feel they have been wronged.

[Spring Butterfly]

Some years back I also read Marie Kondo and the idea of gifts having served their purpose. That helped me clean out a lot of things. That might be in the section about sentimental items.

She recommends cleaning out sentimental items and gifts after having practiced with clothes and other items throughout the house. Sentimental items and gifts is the most difficult no matter how detached one is and especially so I believe in our case dealing with all the PD drama connected with the items and their history as well as the current drama and possible repercussions drama.

For years I've been dealing with uPDm and enF trying to pass on heirlooms and my answer with every one of them is "no thank you" including items from my childhood. When they used to drop off bags I'd look through the bag (out of obligation and duty) and hand it back saying no thank you.

As for stuff I already have, gifts and trinkets are gone but heirlooms is a other matter to me. Someone else who's not me might have a different view, might want and appreciate the items so I second the advice to offer to your own children if you have them, your siblings and any neices or nephews, cousins, etc. Simply saying you don't have room for it all.


Keep in mind:

Just because your parents have deemed you the keeper of the family history doesn't mean you need to accept that role.

Brace yourself, as always, for PD backlash. You're dealing with a "brutal set of conditions" that's not easy:
https://www.outofthefog.net/forum/index.php?topic=50497.0

[Jadedjanet]

Thank you for the responses and validation! I did throw some things away yesterday and it felt awesome. I didn't want to offer anything to my sister because she has gone no contact and my brother is currently in therapy due to our family.......... So not right now or maybe ever. I'll keep the family tree and maybe the charm bracelet for my kids if they want them some day.   My husband moved the box with my mom's diaries to a shed on our property while muttering about how f@cking crazy my mom is. It feels better to have that stuff at a distance and if mice get into it, oh well. I also might have a ceremonial burning at some point. Thanks again. I used to talk to my sister about issues like this but I want to respect her wish not to have to think about any of it anymore.  I grateful for this board.

[Fiasco]

Sounds like there's definitely no reason to bother the siblings about it, good call!

[Adria]

My dad used to buy us girls jewelry from the local jewelry store for Christmas so the jeweler would buy advertising from him during the year.  I received a couple nice rings, a sapphire necklace, etc. Over the years my dad treated me so badly that I never wore the jewelry.  I gave it all to my daughter. She loved it. One day she called me and said, "Mom, I wore all the jewelry grandpa gave you over to his house for dinner last night. You should have seen the look on his face." 
That was awesome that my daughter dared to do that. Her idea. It let him know, I was done and didn't want anything from him anymore. It meant nothing to me.  Did I feel guilty? Nope. Not one minute.  Those pieces were really a business transaction for him. They weren't to be given sentimentally to me at all. It's all about him. Every time.

[KD5FUL]

Many people have already mentioned Marie Kondo's Konmari Method.

I wanted to post a link to her book in pdf form.  It was a game-changer for me and I hope it will be for you, as well.  I wish you a home full of things that make you happy!

You can download it here:  http://library.deep-blue-sea.net/Home%20Organising/Marie_Kondo-Spark_Joy_An_Illustrated_Master_Class_.pdf

[sandpiper]

I stuffed everything I didn't want into a packing box, neatly organised so that it would survive breakage, and I decided to leave it in a dark corner in a back closet just in case someone might want it one day. My own father burned all of the family photos (for complicated reasons including the need to hide his racial ancestry from my mother's family who would have used it against him) and when it was time to sell his mother's house he turned the job over to an auctioneer and left them to it.
Decades later I found out we  had really nice cousins that I didn't know about and they would have valued that stuff. There was a 20 year age gap between Dad and his first cousins and he left his home town when he was a little tacker and never returned and lost touch with his cousins.
So I kind of get it - reaching out to them would have been awkward.
I have trouble chucking stuff because I know there are things in there that other family members might want, but I don't want to open the Pandora's Box of risking inviting them back into my life while I'm still feeling vulnerable.
So that box is in limbo.
It doesn't bother me and if ever the situation arises where I feel like I can donate it, I will.
Mostly it is stuff that was wedding presents and I don't feel like I have the right to throw it away as my sisters or their children may value it one day.
I never think about that box. It's labelled so that if I go under a bus, it does to my sisters.
That's my compromise on the stuff that I think has value to others.
Stuff that was just junk has long since gone in the bin.
I do regret parting with some things, though, because at the time that I gave them away I didn't realise that they'd been made by our Aboriginal great-grandmother.
That was a huge family secret and it made me think twice about what I chucked in the bin.
I have a big house and there's a few packing boxes in the store room.
Maybe I'd feel lighter without them, but Marie Kwondo didn't help me.
Her suggestion that you get everything out of your closet and throw it on the floor and then force yourself to sift through it all was just too overwhelming.
I've gone with a different technique for decluttering and it's to do one drawer at a time, when I'm feeling resilient enough to deal with it.
I am not sure that her declutter strategies are useful for someone who has survived the maelstrom of a PD family. There are emotional time bombs attached to some items and I don't want all of them on the floor of my bedroom, ticking madly and going off on the same day.
I prefer the pomodoro method of, set a realistic goal - a drawer, a shelf in the closet etc, then set the kitchen timer for 25 minutes and go for it.
If I get to the end and I feel like I'm up to doing another 25 minutes then I take 10 minutes off for a cup of tea and I do it again.
It's been a good way to gradually sift through stuff and not get overwhelmed by it.

[Blueberry Pancakes]

Great replies here. I believe items can still hold residual energy of those who owned them. So if having  family items is uncomfortable, does not bring you joy, or is not useful to you in some manner you are under no obligation to keep them. Once a gift is given, the recipient is free to do with the "gift" as they chose. 
I like the idea of gathering the items together, thank them for their service, bless them, and then send them on their way. You could also take a picture and keep it for a while in case anyone asks they can still see it. It might make you feel better too, and eventually you can delete the image.  You do not need to tell anyone what you actually did with these things.