Hoarding has become part of modern conversation thanks to shows like TLC’s “Hoarding: Buried Alive.” But few people have experienced the crippling behavior firsthand. Chelsea resident Judy Batalion, 38, tells The Post’s Dana Schuster about how growing up with a hoarder for a mother led to a messy childhood and perfection-seeking adulthood, which she explores in her new memoir, “White Walls: A Memoir About Motherhood, Daughterhood, and the Mess In Between” (New American Library, out now).

Everyone thinks her family is weird when she’s a child. But most people don’t grow up with a mother who’s a hoarder.

I did. My brother, Eli, father, mother and I all lived together in Montreal, in a 1960s white rectangular house stuffed top to bottom with piles of junk: stacks of moldy tuna cans, a wall of VHS tapes, a library’s worth of secondhand books and, ironically, every piece of organizational material — from binders to filing systems — your heart could desire.

The thing about hoarding is, it’s not like I woke up one morning and, all of a sudden, there were 600 suitcases in my parents’ living room. My mother’s habits and behaviors developed over time.

So excited to announce the birth of my 3rd baby. 0 lbs, 9 oz. Mom &book are well despite brutal 5 year labor. pic.twitter.com/jqsDT4nXlc — Judy Batalion (@JudyBatalion) January 5, 2016

My mom, now 70, was the daughter of Holocaust survivors. She was born in 1945 in Kirghizia (now called Kyrgyzstan), on the way to war-ravaged Poland in a makeshift hospital staffed only by a janitor. She always talks about how she only had one doll growing up and gave it away to a girl, hoping to make a friend. She bought me hundreds of Barbies when I was little to make up for it. I was the Barbie queen! But even then, I knew it was too many.

When I was a child, I wrote off her excessive collections of crochet and old newspapers as bohemian peccadilloes. She and my father would still have friends over, and I’d hear them laughing over strawberry cheesecake.

But by the time I was in middle school, the shame of living in such a dirty, unkempt space began to weigh on me. I projected my home life onto my body: I felt messy and ugly. I just wanted a normal — and reliable — mother.

Early on, my father tried to throw things out, but it was endless and he eventually gave up — and I could see why. Sometimes I would try to vacuum and I’d get in trouble. “Don’t touch anything,” she’d say. “It’s not your job.”

One time in high school, while my parents were out of the house (a true rarity), I had friends over, and spent hours stuffing the messes into closets. The next morning, my mother freaked. She couldn’t find the papers I had moved. “Here are your useless things,” I said.

“You have no idea what’s useful,” she responded, her voice hardening.

I projected my home life onto my body: I felt messy and ugly.

I got a reprieve when I went to Harvard for college (you learn to find refuge in studying when your home life is out of control). It was glorious to have my own freshly painted space. No one knew my secret, which I guarded closely throughout the years.

While away at school, my grandmother, Bubbie Zelda, who also suffered from hoarding, passed away. It was then that my mother’s behavior turned pathological. She refused to leave the house, convinced she was being spied on. “They’re after me,” she’d say. “They’re going to take the houses, everything.” Her body turned larger, grayer, sweatier. And then, there were the suicide threats.

“I can’t live anymore,” she said on the phone one time. “I’m going to kill myself.”

I told her I’d get her help.

“For you, I’ll live,” she whispered. “I love you so much.”

She’s been on and off medications for years (various doctors have given us diagnoses ranging from severe anxiety to obsessive-compulsive disorder), but nothing’s stuck. One time, in 2010 during a particularly bad episode, we managed to get her admitted to a psych ward.

“Do you know what you’ve done?” she yelled. “I will die here and it is your fault!”

“I’m just trying to help you,” I said quietly, firmly.

After a few weeks of hospitalization, she managed to obtain a copy of the Quebec civil code and argued in court that she was being held against her will. She won.

“Dad was there,” Eli told me. “He said she gave a beautiful defense.” We couldn’t help but be proud of her momentary lucidity.

By this point, I had moved to NYC after having lived in London for nine years, getting a Ph.D. in art history.

It was across the pond that I met my now-husband, Jon, 44, a consultant. He understood my mother, because his mother is a hoarder, too — but a high-end one, with multiple Volvos parked in the driveway and rooms overflowing with antique decanters.

Back in the States, we settled into a two-bedroom apartment in Chelsea that I kept pristine — until we had our first child, a girl named Zelda, now 4, and another girl, Billie, last year. When Jon once came home with a trove of new toys for baby Zelda, I nearly had a panic attack.

“How could you do this to me?” I screamed. “It’s taken me years to accumulate all this nothing.”

When Jon once came home with a trove of new toys for baby Zelda, I nearly had a panic attack. “How could you do this to me?” I screamed. “It’s taken me years to accumulate all this nothing.”

My mother loves having grandchildren — when she calls threatening to hang herself, I mention the girls and her mood changes instantaneously. But it’s not enough. She suffers from very profound depressive episodes and barely leaves the house nowadays. (My mother asked not to be photographed, and I decided not to name her in my book.)

While she made it to my wedding, she missed the birth of both of my daughters. To this day, my 79-year-old father, who’s been married to my mother for 43 years, lives in the basement playroom because my parents’ bed is covered in junk.

Being a parent has helped me empathize with my mother a little bit more. I now understand how a simple object — even a silly paper-towel roll made into a telescope in preschool — can be filled with so much meaning. But I still struggle with the messes that children — and life — bring.

I try to carve out spaces for myself, separate from the family chaos, and I saw a therapist for many years. In the same way my mother’s hoarding encroached on my space growing up, I don’t want my minimalistic tendencies to encroach on my daughters.

After all, a bit of clutter is a small price to pay for family.