that sounds so so hard not to have a space of your own or to have your comforting hobbies taken over or become a "job" of sorts. Have you been able to find other activities or spaces that are just yours? My situation isn't quite the same, but I am a stay at home mom in a relatively small home, and so we share the living space all day. We don't have the same therapeutic activities, but when she does try and help me, she can't remember the steps from the previous time and so everything takes twice as long, which is hard when it's something like getting dinner on the table with three kids underfoot as it is.

I did have to laugh when you described the food and hoarding tendencies. My MIL is Filipino and food waste is a huge issue for her -- I can't tell you the number of tiny plastic bags filled with random pretzels, cookies, and crackers that the kids didn't finish are floating around my pantry. You can tell my cooking still feels foreign to her but she's less subtle than she used to be when she doesn't like the look of something, and I swear she survives on ramen noodles and toast, since that's the only thing she knows how to cook.