For those who had their parents live with them: How do you deal with all the memories in the house after they pass?

My advice to you is to go through their things and get them out of the house as soon as possible. I understand from experience that it will feel like you're "throwing away" your parents, but none of it will bring them back and holding onto their things only delays your grieving.

Then treat the house as if you had just moved in and now want to make it yours. Renovate, paint, freshen, change it up to reflect you.

I know it's hard to let go. I've cleaned out 3 houses. The most difficult was my twin brother's home. But I forced myself to donate his belongings that were in good shape and resist setting up a shrine. It took awhile - mainly in 2-3 hour increments because at first it was so devastating to go over there, but eventually it got easier.

Life is for the living.

Prolonged grief disorder was actually fairly recently added to the DSM-5 as a psychiatric disorder. At 3 years you fall into this category. Our minds form habits around grieving, around pain, and it requires at that point professional evaluation and help.

Please seek help now. The house is not the problem here. You can stay in the place you love, and you can have beautiful memories that sustain you with the proper help. My heart goes out to you in your pain. But you are responsible now to yourself and your family to deal with this prolonged grieving.

I found a Griefshare program to be quite helpful; you can find one near you at griefshare.org

Be kind to yourself, give yourself time. I found going through my mother's belongings triggered memories and grief, but it was easier to do it in spurts. I wasn't super efficient, but I gave myself space to "feel and deal". It was tough to get rid of somethings (sometimes things you would think should just be tossed) so I handled them several times before final determination to toss or give away etc. I sorted into boxes or bags ...toss now and review again later. All of this was part of being gentle with myself and the memories as I processed everything (feelings etc).
I also slowly replaced some of the furniture.
Eventually, my grief morphed and the memories became comforting and sweet.
Blessings

Nickie, it sounds as though you would like to stay in the house eventually, as long as you can shake the recent memories and their sadness. Perhaps it would help if you and DH worked out how to ‘update’ the room you spend most time in. Furniture and the ‘things’ could be kept but moved out of that room, and you could get some new memories about the changes you do in making it more ‘you’. As long as you have room to move, the 'things' can wait a while. My personal experience suggests that you wash everything washable, and make it smell different.

My suggestion would be that it’s worth trying how to cope, as you have always liked the house, but you need to stop the memories being just about the depressing past.