April 26, 2025 • 56 mins
Living with a hoarder parent isn't just messy—it's traumatic. In this eye-opening episode, Calissa shares what it was really like growing up with a level 5 hoarder mother who also showed signs of narcissistic personality disorder. From the overwhelming clutter and filth to the shame of never being able to invite anyone over, she reveals the emotional, mental, and physical toll it took on her childhood.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
We were never a happy family.
My mother just wants stuff.
All of it just gets thrown intoa pile.
There's no organization.
It's very, very intense.
It's literally floor to ceilingstuff.
(00:23):
And I was forced to share a roomwith my brother because of her
hoarding.
I graduated college and nevergot that closet.
It's the risk that there's apossibility they could look
inside and they could see whatthe reality of her facade is.
My dad and I will joke about howshe acts like a toddler when you
(00:45):
take her out in public.
It's tied to OCD.
Instead of working with fear,work with confidence.
SPEAKER_00 (00:57):
Kalissa, welcome to Multispective.
I'm super excited to have youhere on air with us.
SPEAKER_01 (01:02):
Thank you so much.
I'm glad to be here.
SPEAKER_00 (01:05):
Why don't you start off by just telling us a little
bit about where it all beginsfor you.
Where are you from, yourbackground?
SPEAKER_01 (01:11):
So I live in Indiana in the United States.
I grew up in a relatively smalltown, super rural.
My parents are actually from NewYork around Buffalo area, and
they moved to Indiana a fewyears before I was born.
So I was very isolated from myextended family, my cousins.
(01:34):
When I was younger, I kind ofimmediately knew that there were
some issues in my family.
We were never a happy family.
We were always arguing, alwayshaving some sort of tension.
And I was a big problem.
I have sensory issues.
And so my mother would force meto wear clothing that she wanted
(01:55):
me to look cute in and that sortof thing.
And I would have meltdownsbecause I would be
overstimulated.
They were uncomfortable.
I would be crying havingmeltdowns.
because my tags and my clothesand I would get spanked or
punished physically for beingoverstimulated and that sort of
thing.
(02:16):
And I think that shaped the waythat I viewed the subsequent
issues that arose in my home.
SPEAKER_00 (02:21):
So was it just you were the only child or do you
have any siblings?
SPEAKER_01 (02:25):
I have a younger brother.
He is two years younger than me.
So I'm 26.
My brother is 24.
Like we don't have a very closerelationship nowadays.
We never really did the way thatmy parents handled him versus
the way that my parents him andmy brother were vastly
different.
And so it led to two completelydifferent experiences.
(02:46):
And it's just, I don't hate him.
I don't wish any harm on him.
It's just, as him being a safeperson for me, he's not going to
ever be able to achieve thatposition,
SPEAKER_00 (02:56):
I don't
SPEAKER_01 (02:57):
believe.
SPEAKER_00 (02:58):
Do you feel like a lot of this is kind of like owed
to your parents for why, youknow, you both don't really get
along, like you were kind ofpitted against each other in a
sense, the way just they treatedthe both of you?
SPEAKER_01 (03:08):
100%.
My...
expectations of my mother weremuch more strict on me.
The way that she is, she's Whenshe was pregnant with my
brother, she had told my dadthat if she was to have another
girl, that she would have anabortion.
(03:28):
She did not want two girls.
She did not want two boys.
And I was the first one, so Iwas fine.
But my brother was the one thatshe wanted, right?
It was the one that she got.
And I think that kind offollowed us through childhood.
And so my brother kind of becamethe golden child, and I became
(03:48):
the scapegoat.
go.
So my brother at a very youngage would take advantage of it.
If he did something wrong, Iwould get blamed for it because
he knew that my mother wouldnever question him.
And so I kind of became, youknow, that person that took the
fall of every action and, youknow, all issues within the
family.
So it was definitely prettydifficult.
(04:10):
And definitely my mom's faultfor the structure that she had
in the family.
SPEAKER_00 (04:16):
What was your dad's role through all of this?
Was he aware of what washappening?
SPEAKER_01 (04:21):
Aware is a relative term because he was being
conditioned to the same thing.
You know, he would go to work.
He was the breadwinner.
My mom was a stay-at-home mom.
And so he would go to work andhe is very successful in what he
does, but he's a workaholic.
So he would get home, you know,six, seven o'clock in the
(04:42):
evening.
and he would immediately bepresented with all of the
problems that my brother and Ihad caused.
So if I was upset aboutsomething, or if I was
questioning something, or if Iwas upset about something, which
was very often for me, because Iwas like, this isn't right.
I know that what's going onisn't right, and so I would
(05:03):
fight back.
And my dad's coming home afterworking for 10 hours a day, and
he's being presented withissues.
If he didn't solve them on myend, my mother would abuse him
so it was like if he didn't comeand say hey Calissa please do
like will you just get over ityou know I'll buy you a
(05:24):
milkshake or you know lesssevere circumstances or you know
like what can I do for you tohave you drop this issue because
if I didn't drop the issue mymother would create a worse one
so his perspective now is adultsand now that we're all out of
the house he understands thatwhat was going on was wrong.
(05:47):
But when you're conditioned tothat much abuse, there is no
ability to understandnecessarily right and wrong.
SPEAKER_00 (05:56):
And growing up, did you feel that your dad also was
not a person that you could feelkind of safe around because of
the way that your mom wouldpresent things?
Or did you feel like, okay, atleast dad is somewhat of a soft
landing for me?
SPEAKER_01 (06:10):
It was kind of both.
There was definitelycircumstances, and if I needed
some...
Him and I are the same person,ironically.
You know, same taste in music,same personality, same
rationality of our brains.
So I would, you know, go to himif I needed to, like, think
through my thoughts.
I would go to him.
(06:30):
But he would not solve myproblems.
I never went to him expectingthat he was going to help me
solve something.
It was more so...
I understood at a young age thatI emotionally had to regulate
myself and by talking my waythrough my own thoughts and kind
of like having him be abackboard.
(06:51):
You know, I'd tell him and he'dbasically just be there to
listen.
That was super helpful.
But as far as, you know,actually getting something and
actually winning something oractually receiving, you know,
basic care as a child, he wasn'tgoing, I wasn't going to get
that.
SPEAKER_00 (07:10):
What effects do you think this kind of had on you
later on and now even?
I
SPEAKER_01 (07:16):
am I'm not a hopeful person.
I'm optimistic.
I see being hopeful is, and Idon't mean, this is going to
sound harsh, but I don't mean itas harshly as it comes across,
but I think it's delusionalbecause you have to, you're
going off of basic things thatyou don't know, too many things
(07:36):
that you don't know.
You have a goal, right?
You can be hopeful to achievethis.
But I think that like for me andthe way that all of my story has
kind of congregated together, Ihave to look at the facts and I
can choose to be optimistic evenif i know there's a negative
outcome i don't hope i don'thave the ability because if i
hope i get my hopes up and youknow every single time
(07:59):
throughout my entire lifethey've been destroyed but it's
making that choice to still bepositive um and and make the
decision and the choice to beoptimistic um but hopefulness i
just i don't have i don't for meand this isn't applicable to
other people but for me it's notrealistic and it leads to really
(08:19):
negative mental issues, dealingwith the consequences if that
thing that you hope for
SPEAKER_00 (08:26):
doesn't work out.
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (08:29):
I also, for me and my experiences, I've kind of
done life alone.
You know, it affected my abilityto have friends as a child.
So I was kind of alone and beinghopeful and, you know, hope
oftentimes relies on a series ofthings happening.
And all of those series ofthings are never not dependent
(08:51):
on other people.
So it's more so a lack of beingable to depend on other people
or have people I can depend on.
SPEAKER_00 (08:58):
Yeah.
Yeah, that makes sense.
So can you talk to me a littlebit more about your situation at
home?
So, you know, you mentioned therelationship aspect of you
between you and your family.
Now, let's talk a little bitmore about the physical home.
UNKNOWN (09:16):
Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00 (09:16):
So
SPEAKER_01 (09:17):
yeah, tell me a little bit.
(09:46):
and outfits that she would pickout, themed outfits.
And she would take pictures inthese outfits.
And that was really the firstsign to me that there was a
massive problem because thoseoutfits would never be worn
again.
We would literally, I wouldstand, I would take pictures.
Sometimes we'd go out to a parkand take pictures.
We would take the pictures andthen it would just get stored in
(10:06):
the house.
Never sold, never gotten rid of,never anything like that.
And when you have the amount ofthings that my mother was
buying, that stuff, Itmultiplies very, very quickly.
(10:46):
We didn't have closets.
My mother had stuff in theclosets.
I threw my, all of the clothesthat I had and I would
intentionally like not ask forclothes because I didn't have
anywhere to put them.
So I probably had like five orsix t-shirts and, you know,
three or four pairs of pantsthat lasted me like all of high
(11:10):
school because I didn't wantanything else because my storage
place was a storage containeroutside of the bathroom i didn't
have anywhere to hang them up ididn't have anywhere to like lay
them down and i was like welli'll just put them here there
wasn't a drawer i could put theminto anything like that um and
that's kind of followed me intoadulthood as well where i'm very
(11:32):
minimalistic um not attached toanything uh not sentimental if i
i'm somebody my motto is that ifit was important i would
remember it if i don't rememberit it wasn't worth remembering,
you know, it
SPEAKER_00 (11:51):
wasn't worth keeping, it wasn't worth
tracking, it wasn't worth takinga picture.
(12:16):
Yeah.
You're saying that this sort ofall started when you were
already around.
So would you say that this wasnot a non-issue before you kind
of came around?
Have you ever spoken to your dadabout it?
How was it before that when theywere living in New York and
stuff?
SPEAKER_01 (12:31):
So my mother, she was kind of an accidental child.
And understanding her childhood,you know, I'll touch on that
real quick, because I think it'simportant.
She was an accidental child.
So she's like 10 years youngerthan her sister and 12 years
younger than her brother.
And her parents didn't want todeal with her.
You know, it was like, I havethis kid, I don't want to deal
(12:52):
with her.
So they would go on vacations.
Her dad was a pastor.
So they would go on, you know,church trips or church related
trips, and they leave her athome.
They basically a abandoned herand i think that she she has
secondary issues that were verynoticeable early on so it was
the fact that they didn't wantanother kid added on to the fact
that now they have a kid thatthey didn't want that has issues
(13:15):
that they don't know how to dealwith because i mean that was the
time back in the you know 80sour understanding of mental
health was not there so even ifthey did go and try to seek help
for her there wouldn't be anyplace to seek help and so they
just kind of abandoned her andwould push her off onto friends
and send her on church campsover the summer.
(13:38):
And to kind of adhere to andmake her happy, they would throw
money at her.
You know, if she neededsomething, they'd throw money.
If she asked for something,they'd throw money.
I remember my dad said that whenshe was in college, they would
give her like three grand everythree or four months just to buy
(14:00):
clothes.
And in today's money, this isthis is the 90s.
And today's money, that'sprobably, you know, I don't
know, five, six, seven,$8,000.
That's a lot of money becausethey wanted her to shut up
because she would just and ifshe didn't get what she wanted,
she would just complain evenmore.
And then she would get it.
SPEAKER_00 (14:18):
And
SPEAKER_01 (14:20):
she's still like that today.
SPEAKER_00 (14:23):
So that makes sense.
Now it's all kind of comingtogether.
Why and how?
Maybe she turned tomaterialistic things, clothes
and all of that, just to kind offill in that kind of void of
that lack of support and lovethat she needed as a kid growing
up.
So in terms of with her marriageas well, how did that sort of
manifest?
I know you mentioned that shewas like that with her husband
(14:45):
as well, your father.
Yeah.
Just talk to me a little bit
SPEAKER_01 (14:49):
more.
She was very manipulative.
This is something that my dadhas communicated to me.
She is somebody that if shewants something, she has a
desire for something, that's theonly time that she will ever be
nice to you.
She will never be nice just tobe nice.
It's always that she wantssomething.
And so, you know, gettingmarried and her wanting to get
(15:10):
married and her wanting kids,because she always had those
desires, things weren't reallythat bad.
Now, there were some issues, butthe issues were not, you know,
looking back, you know, 30 yearslater, looking back, it's like,
oh, yeah, there were bigproblems.
But at the time, you're like,oh, this is just normal
relationship stuff.
You know, this was the firstlong-term relationship that my
(15:31):
dad had been in.
So you don't know what it'sgoing to be like.
And, you know, my dad wassomebody who was very insecure,
and my mother took advantage ofthat and exploited that.
My dad didn't want kids.
My mom did.
My dad now has two kids, youknow?
very manipulative she'll giveyou what you want
SPEAKER_00 (15:53):
when she wants something when she wants
something
SPEAKER_01 (15:56):
and so when she had the hoarding there wasn't that
wasn't as bad as when she had meafter she had me it went from
you know very little to oh mygod because there's so many
things that you can buy for ababy right there's clothes and
there's toys and there's all ofthis stuff and I think that she
(16:17):
had this idea of what shewanted, but never took into
account who I actually was.
And that kind of created thisspiraling, unending, you know,
cycle of just hoardingeverything that she possibly
can.
SPEAKER_00 (16:31):
I'm curious.
So like, okay, would this termhoarding, hoarders, can an
individual be diagnosed withthis?
Is this a mental health issue?
So it's
SPEAKER_01 (16:41):
actually OCD.
I think OCD is one of the mostinteresting forms of mental
health issues.
Yeah.
Yeah.
(17:02):
doesn't exist organizationdoesn't exist you know my my
mother the issue with hoardingand my mother is the fact that
there's no organization you knowif you have a collection of
things you display them you knowthey're organized you want to be
able to see your collection mymother just wants stuff so all
(17:22):
of it just gets thrown into apile there's no organization
there's no desire to actuallyknow what you have or display
what you have and Yeah, it's areally interesting thing.
But yes, it is tied to OCD.
SPEAKER_00 (17:37):
And does this form of OCD, can it or does it mostly
manifest for people with alongwith other kinds of, you know,
mental health issues?
But does it generally cometogether with something else?
Or can it just be a standalonething?
SPEAKER_01 (17:52):
I think it can be a standalone thing, depending on
how you look at it.
OCD is just an extreme anxietydisorder.
So if you had if you classifyanxiety separate from OCD, that
those two things would becomorbidities.
SPEAKER_00 (18:07):
What about addiction, like a shopping
addiction or a person who's justunable to control impulse in
terms of with that?
SPEAKER_01 (18:14):
100%.
100%.
My mother is somebody, my dadand I will joke about how she
acts like a toddler when youtake her out in public.
You know, she doesn't payattention to her surroundings.
I mean, the number of times thatyou have to like move her out of
the way because she's She justdoesn't take into account those
(18:35):
things.
She's just very...
Hmm.
Hmm.
SPEAKER_00 (19:04):
I know that there are tiers, there are levels to
being a hoarder.
Can you walk me through those?
SPEAKER_01 (19:10):
Yeah.
So level one is you just havelike, it's cluttered, right?
I would say levels like onethrough three are different
levels of clutter.
And I think everyone has theirown definition of what clutter
is, but it's not anything that'sgoing to impede your life in any
way.
It's not anything that's go,it's just dirty.
You know, it's going to take youan hour or, you know, a couple
(19:31):
of days to clean it up.
Level four is where starts toget pretty severe that is where
you start to have stacks ofstuff you're not storing it in
storage containers you're notyou know you have no place to
display it it's just kind ofevolving on the edges of
pathways and level five isbasically floor to ceiling
(19:58):
There's sometimes pathways.
A lot of times, like in mymother's situation, you step on
stuff.
There's no clear pathway anymoreto get from point A to point B.
You do have to step on stuff.
And my dad and I, one of thethings that we ensure is that
(20:19):
her plumbing, her electricity,all of those things that she
would need to live in thathouse, that they stay relatively
maintained.
because she you can't havesomebody come in and do those
things that it's not accessibleum and i she no person should
have to live in a house if itcan be helped um where they
(20:41):
don't have plumbing or theydon't have water or they don't
have electricity she's a personwith mental illness and you know
she's negatively impacted me butshe's defined by her mental
illness she's not aware of allthe ways in which she's hurt me
she's not aware of all the waysin which she hurt my brother my
dad so we do what we can to justmake sure she has those things
(21:03):
but yeah if not she would itwould be i don't even think
you'd be able to get into thehouse if it wasn't for us just
coming in and doing like yourbasic maintenance
SPEAKER_00 (21:13):
talk to me about hygiene in this situation how
does that work
SPEAKER_01 (21:16):
the showers and toilets and that sort of thing
they don't get cleaned veryoften if at all my mother
because of her narcissism thoughshe presents incredibly well so
unlike a typical hoarder whokind of puts a they kind of put
their hygiene and you knowthat's the second place hers is
(21:40):
still number one um she finds away i don't know how but she
finds a way in her bathroom tolike do her hair her makeup she
naturally has curly hair and shewill not leave the house if her
hair is not straight Dean willnot leave the house if she does
not dye her hair blonde.
She's so meticulous about theway that she looks out in public
SPEAKER_00 (22:04):
and
SPEAKER_01 (22:05):
defends that.
And that's kind of differentfrom other hoarders because a
lot of hoarders are just very,you can see it.
They're not, they have no shameover the condition of their
house.
My mother is very protective ofher house.
SPEAKER_00 (22:21):
So if your mom was to walk out now and go out with
like a group of friends or or ata social event or something, no
one would be able to tell thather condition of her house is
like that.
UNKNOWN (22:33):
No.
SPEAKER_01 (22:35):
Now, she's, you know, my mom, she now works as a
teacher's aide.
So she has a job.
She goes and she spends timewith kids every day.
The kids love her.
You know, I think if they're nother kids, you know, she's a
positive thing, positiveinfluence for them, which I
love.
But yeah, you would never know.
And yeah, she's very protective,very protective of her house.
(22:58):
She doesn't like people comingup to the doors, doesn't like,
you know, that we have a porch.
in the house.
We have a porch and then we havea side door where the driveway
is.
She's blocked off the porch fromdelivery drivers putting them up
there because there's windows.
And like, yes, there's blindsand stuff, but it's the risk
(23:19):
that there's a possibility theycould look inside and they could
see what the reality of herfacade is.
SPEAKER_00 (23:26):
It's really fascinating because she's fully
aware that this is an issuebecause she's obviously covering
the windows and making surepeople are not getting in she
doesn't want anyone to look inso she knows it's an issue yet
she doesn't acknowledge thatit's an issue enough to be able
to do something about it
SPEAKER_01 (23:42):
yep and
SPEAKER_00 (23:43):
yeah and
SPEAKER_01 (23:44):
that's incredibly frustrating like as a child um
and somebody like i was veryaware of it you know i've always
been a question asker so i'd belike do you does your parents do
they make you wear a bunch ofoutfits and take pictures and
they're like no that's crazy andi'm like okay i knew i didn't
like this and i didn't think itwas normal i was very young I
(24:05):
would say...
Probably five or six years oldwhen I was fully aware that the
situation that I was in was 100%wrong.
I didn't ask, oddly, I neverasked about the house.
I never asked about, hey, doesyour parents not allow you to
have your own closets?
It was probably because of herconditioning and manipulation
(24:27):
that I can't remember.
But I knew that the boundary wasthe house.
I knew that there were certainthings that I couldn't talk
about or ask about or anythinglike that.
But I asked, so I was veryaware.
And that led me to being more ofa problematic child because if
you tried to do something, I wasgoing to be like, no, no, that's
not, that's not right.
(24:49):
You know, going back to myclothes and throwing them over
the storage container.
I wanted a closet.
And my parents would not give meone of the closets.
And they were like large closetstoo.
And my mother would not agree.
And my dad was like, well, whatif we got you like one of those,
you know, temporary closets,mobile closets.
(25:10):
And I was like, no, I want thecloset.
I already share a room with mybrother.
I'm just asking for a closet.
Like, I don't even have a roomthat is my own.
I don't even have a space thatis my own.
All I'm asking for is a closet.
That's the only thing in thishouse.
But I'm asking to be mine.
And a temporary closet doesn'tcut it.
(25:31):
I knew that I shouldn't have hadto share a room with my brother.
We had a third bedroom.
I wouldn't care about doing itif it were a money issue or if
it were a size issue.
Maybe we didn't have anotherroom.
But it was the fact that therewas another option.
And I was forced to share a roomwith my brother because of her
hoarding.
(25:51):
And I never got the closet.
I graduated college and went offto college.
And never got
SPEAKER_00 (26:00):
back closets.
(26:25):
Would you kind of like questionit and be like,
SPEAKER_01 (26:31):
oh, that's what it's supposed to be like?
(26:55):
That's what they had.
Those types of experiences earlyon, I became very embarrassed of
the house, probably to the samelevel as my mother.
I played travel soccer when Iwas in high school.
I used to hate that because wewould carpool over to practice
together because it was about anhour away.
And I hated being dropped offbecause I knew that if they
(27:18):
could see when I opened up thedoor, that my mom's stuff was
right there, right there, rightas soon as I opened the door.
I would get dropped off atnight.
So you have the light coming in,it would be illuminated.
It was very embarrassing.
And I would get so much anxiety,like, oh, because they would
make sure I could get into myhouse before they would leave.
(27:40):
And I'm like, please just leave.
Please just drive away.
I hated it.
Of all the experiences I hadwhen I was a kid, that's
probably the experience I hatedthe most.
It was just, it was fear that ifthey saw that and they did
something, what's going tohappen to me?
You know, if they open a CPSinvestigation, what's going to
happen to me?
(28:00):
You know what I mean?
Like, am I going to go into, youknow, protective care?
So yeah, it was incrediblyterrifying.
Incredibly terrifying.
SPEAKER_00 (28:10):
At that point, did you know that that would be a
possibility, like being calledto CPS and them doing like a
check?
SPEAKER_01 (28:17):
My mother, I do know to a certain extent, she, every
once in a while, she would kindof talk very negatively about
CPS.
a little bit of fear mongeringlike oh like these kids you know
aren't taken care of or thesekids like you won't even be able
to get clothes and my mother wasvery fearful of me calling
(28:37):
because I would be the one to doit you know but she there was
enough doubt where I'm like Idon't know if this would be the
better option
SPEAKER_00 (28:45):
so can you tell me like in terms of like that
concept of cleanliness and thatconcept of you know clearing
things and stuff like how didthat impact you kind of growing
up did you have a concept ofthat for yourself or were you no
SPEAKER_01 (29:02):
there wasn't there was never an ability to because
if it was almost as though if ifound like a cheat if i found
space um it would get taken awayso you know you just kind of you
just kind of accept the reality.
But I could never like acceptthe reality.
(29:22):
I was always somebody who wastrying to find a better option.
So I remember when I was in highschool, I was like, okay, I went
to my mom and I said, what if wemoved like all of the stuff
that's in the house and we movedit into that third bedroom?
Like I'll accept the fact I haveto, you know, this is 10 years
later, but I'm like, I'll acceptthe fact that I share a room
with my brother.
I'll even accept the fact that Idon't have a closet.
(29:44):
Can we make, like, can I have aclean house?
you know, I'll give up my ownpersonal space to like have
people to where I could havefriends over.
So yeah, I was like, can we moveit into the third house?
And that was, that was world warthree.
That was the worst question thatI could have ever asked.
She got, you know, incrediblyupset about it.
So it was like, I was alwaystrying to find ways for things
(30:08):
to work in my favor andpropositioning those things.
And it created more, you know,looking back, it was definitely
creating more problems than itwas worth, but I just, for me
and my sanity, I have to fight.
Because if I don't fight, I'llnever get anything.
SPEAKER_00 (30:23):
How bad was it?
Can you describe this physicallyfor me?
SPEAKER_01 (30:26):
Yeah, so we had...
a family room, a living room, adining room, three bedrooms, one
of which was a master bedroom.
Then there were two bedrooms anda bathroom that was in the
center of them.
My parents' bedroom was filledwith stuff all around the bed.
(30:49):
So basically, you couldn't evenget into the closet that was in
the room.
There was just a mass of stuff.
Our living room was completelyfull.
You can get probably about aquarter of the way through the
room, but you can't even get tothe other side of the room.
There's no pathway.
There's no anything.
(31:10):
It's just stuff everywhere.
Our dining room, there's apathway because it's the cars
and where we park is on theother side of the house.
So the dining room The pathway,outside of the pathway, there's
like a dining room table that Ihaven't seen.
You couldn't see the chairs.
(31:31):
You couldn't see the dining roomtable.
I would kick the legs of thetable a lot because it would
just be a mass of stuff.
And if you're, you know, workingwith a pathway that's, you know,
a foot or so wide at six o'clockin the morning before you've
really been able to wake up, youknow, you kick a few tables.
Our kitchen was relativelyclean, but the sides and the
(31:53):
walls at the the kitchen veryvery you know cluttered it was
like if there was space there'sgoing to be stuff yeah um and
then like i said that thirdbedroom we used that bathroom so
there was a path i mean youcan't see the other side of the
wall like you know because it'sa fairly decently sized bedroom
you can't see the other side ofthe wall because of the the mass
(32:16):
of stuff that she has in betweenthe pathway and the other side
of the room so it's it's veryvery interesting It's literally
floor to ceiling stuff.
SPEAKER_00 (32:26):
Did you guys find rodents, cockroaches, bugs?
SPEAKER_01 (32:32):
Actually, no, we were pretty lucky.
I do know that there was acouple times in which we had a
few mice, which happens.
You know, that's not an abnormalthing.
That's not due to any level ofhoarding.
It just happens.
Sometimes you get a few micethat come in.
But we never had a perpetualissue.
We never had cockroaches.
(32:52):
We never had cockroaches.
We never had bedbugs.
Bedbugs actually kind of becamean epidemic after we were kind
of out of the house.
We never had lice.
My brother and I never had lice,which still to this day, because
if we had it, we would never getrid of it.
I would have lice for the restof the time in which I was
(33:12):
living there, because you can'tclean the way you need to clean.
And we fortunately somehow nevergot it.
So yeah, I mean, from thatperspective, it was kind of
crazy that we never, no.
I know a lot of other kids thatare in this situation, they do
deal with those issues,Thankfully, I never did.
SPEAKER_00 (33:35):
Yeah, that's really lucky.
There's one thing like beingcluttered and messy and one
thing being clean, right?
But if it kind of borderline,like the mess is just beyond,
there's no ability, there's noway that you can even clean,
like wipe a surface becausethere is no surface to wipe.
So naturally there would be dustcollection everywhere and there
would be, you know, issues ofmolding.
SPEAKER_01 (33:57):
Mold, yep, yep, yep.
All super bad.
I think part of it was, is thatmy mom was not like, I don't
throw stuff away like at all.
or like a laziness issue, it'sshe just buys a lot of stuff.
So it's not, you know, if youwatch like the show Porters, a
lot of times you'll see wrappersand food.
My mother's not like that.
(34:18):
She's very meticulous aboutmaking sure that all of those
things are out.
So our house is incrediblycluttered.
I mean, it's a level five out offive, but it's not amassed with
food, which I think probablyhelped to eliminate a What would
SPEAKER_00 (34:47):
happen if you were to just take something from a
pile and chuck it?
SPEAKER_01 (34:51):
It's been done a few times.
When I was young and I would getangry, I've thrown a few things.
I've knocked things over.
I've broken things.
It depends.
I remember like I would knocksomething over and if you knock
something over by accident, itgot treated like you did it
intentionally.
You know, if you, oh, you needto be more careful.
(35:12):
Like you're lying.
There's no way.
Like, it's like I tripped over ashoe that was on the floor and I
fell into this bottle.
It's like, how can I be morecareful It wasn't even my shoe.
But she would notice if I, like,re-sacked the pile.
She would notice.
She would notice if somethingwas out of place.
(35:34):
She also would, like, check thetrash to make sure that no one
was throwing anything away.
You know, she never had trustin, you know, what...
i would do specifically becausei would be the person to be like
yeah i'm gonna throw this awayshe's not even gonna know you
know you you have that muchstuff there's no way you
(35:54):
actually care about it but youwould be surprised with like you
can take more than i probablythink i can but if i take one
thing that's wrong and one thingthat she knows i'm screwed and
she'll figure everything elseout so it's like yeah it's it's
fine until until you get caughtand then you will have to face
(36:18):
the consequences for everythingthat you've done
SPEAKER_00 (36:20):
would you like what would happen if you guys asked
her like why why can't we throwthis like what what's wrong with
okay like why do you want tokeep this what was her reasoning
SPEAKER_01 (36:30):
she that would be an attack on her own insecurity
there is a level of insecuritythat she has about the house um
and whenever her insecuritiesare attacked or threatened in
some way she will do the samething back so oh You're
questioning what I'm doing.
Well, I can question what you'redoing.
(36:51):
I can question like how youtreat me.
I can question what you'redoing.
You know what I mean?
So there was never anyrationality, reasoning, logic.
SPEAKER_00 (37:02):
Would you say like if you went into that house
today, you will still find adress from when you were a
child?
SPEAKER_01 (37:07):
When we changed the water heater, we found baby
books.
And like I said, I'm 26.
I'm almost 27.
And these are probably from whenI was a kid.
There's dresses and, you know,we went to Disney World a few
times when I was growing up andthere's ungodly amounts of
souvenirs.
I mean, my childhood is in thathouse.
(37:29):
Like everything that has everbeen bought for me is in that
house, which is, you know, a lotof people would be like, oh,
like that's got to be so a fondmemory.
And it's like, no, could youimagine like everything that
you've ever had, everythingthat's ever been bought for you,
you've never got rid of any ofit.
And it's just like...
You don't place value in thosethings because there are
(37:50):
memories.
She keeps the grades.
Back in the day beforecomputers, you would have your
grades and your papers.
All of them are still in ourhouse.
She has folders from when I wasin kindergarten.
Just regular homework Can
SPEAKER_00 (38:06):
you walk me through, for example, typically a person
may go home from a day of workor school and they're going to
relax, they're going to faffabout at home, maybe watch a
movie or two, take it easy, sitdown, do their homework.
They have that kind of space tomove around in their house.
What would a day look like foryou going home?
Would you guys as a family beable to do that kind of stuff?
SPEAKER_01 (38:26):
No.
UNKNOWN (38:26):
No.
SPEAKER_01 (38:27):
We had...
We did have a TV, but the TV hada couch, and that couch...
could not, like only one of thelike areas of the couch, you
could have occupancy.
And that was really the onlyplace in which you could see the
TV.
So you couldn't like stand, youknow, in another place in the
(38:47):
room and watch the TV becausethere would be stuff.
There's literally like, youknow, because I went over to
change my mother's water heater,there's literally a pile and
then like a little dip in thepile so she can sit down on the
couch and watch the TV.
But if you were sitting likeright next to her, you wouldn't
be able to see the TV.
And that was really, very muchwhat I grew up with.
(39:08):
So this was like beforesmartphones were really a thing.
I had like an iPod touch, but Icouldn't have it in my room.
The answer was kind of sports.
My brother and I both playedsoccer and I played basketball
as well.
And that was a lifesaver for me,specifically soccer.
It was a place where I could getthat anger out.
(39:28):
You know, all of the things thatI couldn't say to her, I could
get that frustration out withoutactually having to say those
words.
with high school sports, you hadpractice Monday through
Saturday.
So I wasn't in the house veryoften.
As far as doing homework, Iwould do it in my bed.
I didn't have like a desk oranything that I could do, or I
would do it on the bus.
(39:50):
You know, I didn't watch a wholelot of movies because again,
there was no place to watchthem.
No, I lived a very shelteredchildhood because of it, but it
wasn't because it was intendedto be sheltered.
It was just more so a byproductof the capabilities of what I
was able to do.
SPEAKER_00 (40:07):
Yeah.
I mean, I can really imagine itbeing sort of like, I don't
know, 95% of your life is justaround this.
Because I mean, your home isyour haven, right?
It's like the center of like,you, I guess, right?
And so if you can't really feelcomfortable going home, or
you're like, I'm not gonna havespace to do anything, well, then
how much time can you reallyexplore yourself or just do
(40:30):
things that people normallywould do outside of their house?
So...
SPEAKER_01 (40:34):
you, when I went to college, I had no idea who I
was, you know, because I wasalways battling my mother's
expectations, you know, becauseher expectations of me are not
in any way, shape, or form evenclose to how I actually am.
And so I went to college and I'mlike, I have no idea who I am.
I don't even know whatcharacteristics I'm looking for
in a friendship because I feltuncomfortable having friends
(40:58):
because I was scared that if Igot close that they would find
out.
My adult life has been much moretumultuous.
You would feel like oh I'm outof the house like freedom but it
kind of presented with its ownset of additional issues on top
of that
SPEAKER_00 (41:11):
walk me through like leaving this house so how did it
how did that all kind of comeabout for you and your dad also
is not living with your momanymore right
SPEAKER_01 (41:20):
no no
SPEAKER_00 (41:21):
yeah
SPEAKER_01 (41:22):
so when I was 18 I went to college it was very you
know I did very well in schooland so it was very much the
expectation that I go to collegeand so So I would have gone to
community college and saved alittle bit of money, but I could
not live at home anymore.
So I left and I got a dorm formy first year and then my
(41:46):
roommate actually bought ahouse.
So we moved into that house andI was there for several years
until I got an outside job andthat sort of thing.
I would not have survived if Ihad had to stay at that point in
time.
Everyone's getting and findingthemselves in their own way.
(42:06):
I needed to do that.
It was just a miserableexperience.
Because the older you get, themore you realize what you've
been conditioned to.
My brother, like I said, he's acouple years younger than I am.
And he stayed for, I want tosay, a year after he graduated.
And when he left, my dad leftwithin six months later.
(42:26):
It was very, like, because therewas nothing left for him.
You know, it was...
the negativity that my motherand I would have, or the
negativity that would bedirected towards my brother,
those didn't exist anymore.
And so all of that negativityand all of those expectations
got directed onto my dad.
That was the first time where hehad to deal with the full
(42:48):
expanse of how toxic and abusivehe actually is.
SPEAKER_00 (42:53):
How would you describe now your dad's
apartment and your brother'sapartment?
Are they quite like you, veryminimalistic and just don't want
to have any clutter, anything intheir house?
Yeah.
So it's had the same effect onall of you.
SPEAKER_01 (43:05):
My brother is, he's much more, he can get pretty
messy.
He's a typical boy, you know,has, you know, things and, you
know, glasses on the table orthings like that.
But the way that it impacted himwas far different.
But he wasn't affected to theway that it was such an aversion
(43:27):
to him that he can't be likeher, if that makes any sense.
He has to avoid it.
He didn't really have thatbecause he never had problems
making friends.
He was always saying at otherpeople's houses, girls are a lot
different than boys are.
So it's like, if I do somethingfor you, you have to do
something for me.
(43:48):
When guys are like, yeah, I'llI'll help you out, dude.
Catch me later or not.
I'll forget about it.
Girls are not like that.
So just from that aspect, hedidn't have the negative impact.
But my dad, because my dadactually lives with me now.
We live together and it's beenreally good.
He's a very clean, likes to keepthings clean, doesn't like to
(44:11):
have trash everywhere.
Everything has a place.
We both like to collect things.
My dad likes to play guitar andhas a variety of guitars that he
likes to collect.
And then I have a variety of...
I go through phases, right?
Right now it's like Legos.
I like to build Legos and thatsort of thing.
(44:33):
But if I buy a Lego set and Idon't have a place for it, I
sell another one.
I can't just amass too much andI don't ever want to get to that
point.
But I'm not somebody who's likeoh if there's like a glass on
the table then I'm like oh mygosh I have to clean it up so I
(44:54):
found what's best for me is tojust let if I see it I see it
but I don't let the stress ofthat overrun me because it very
much has in my in my past whereI've been so obsessed with doing
anything I could to avoid beinglike her and so as an adult it's
like no I if I make a consciouseffort and I know that I'm going
(45:15):
to take care of everything inone fell swoop I can be stressed
for those two hours or so, youknow, the amount of time it
would take.
I can be stressed during thattime, but I'm not going to be
stressed the entire
SPEAKER_00 (45:25):
week.
SPEAKER_01 (45:26):
So, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (45:27):
That's good.
I mean, it sounds like you'vedone a lot of work on yourself,
even with that.
SPEAKER_01 (45:31):
I think it's different for me because I tried
therapy and stuff.
I have a really great therapistnow, but I tried therapy early
on and it was just so much stuffthat it's so hard to comprehend,
like the expanse of trauma thatI've experienced.
I would get really angry becauseI'm like, you're not listening
to me.
Like you're trying to say tryingto go this direction I need you
to go this direction or I needto address this and it was just
(45:54):
really infuriating so I kind ofthought about myself and I
thought about where I wanted tobe but it also I fully
understand that there arenegative aspects to it um you
know but to be where I'm at andto be in a exist in a world
where I'm happy and I experiencehappiness and um look forward to
(46:16):
each and every day and seeingthe good and finding the good
that's a place that I neverthought that I would be I didn't
think I'd be alive you know sono I'm very proud of myself and
proud of how I've become but
SPEAKER_00 (46:30):
Yeah.
What were some of those littleepiphanies or those moments,
those realizations that you hadthat kind of helped you steer
yourself out of that kind ofpain of the trauma and move into
a more healthier headspace?
SPEAKER_01 (46:43):
I realized that when I was chasing or not chasing it,
when I was running away from it,I was going directly into what I
was avoiding.
So like with the cleaning andlike being obsessed with
cleaning.
If you're so stressed, you can'tpay attention to the big
picture.
You're seeing all of these smalllittle things.
And so So you end up doing areally terrible job picking up
(47:04):
everything because you're sostressed.
Like if I don't miss somethingand you're going back and forth
instead of just stepping backand being like, okay, this is
everything.
You don't have the ability to dothat in that state.
And because you run from it,that's your instinct is to run
away and to seek that freedomand to not do anything.
(47:24):
And I think for me, the pivotalhealing point was realizing that
can't run from it.
This is trauma that I have.
This is something that I wentthrough.
These are experiences that Ihave had.
This has shaped the way that andwho I am as a person.
You know, it's so you want tothink that no part of you is is
(47:47):
Mm-hmm.
(48:17):
how that really affected meinstead of, I don't ever want to
feel that way again, or I don'twant to be anything like that.
It's no, there's, I know, I, Iknow I don't, I'm not going to
be like that because I, I, youknow, in the back of my mind,
I'm like that, but how did thatsituation affect me in a good
(48:37):
way or a bad way?
How did that, it's okay if it'sbad there, you know, that was
such a bad situation.
It's expected that there's goingto be bad things.
And understanding that thosenegative consequences aren't
always as negative as thatsituation.
Like my mother would say, oh,like that's selfish or oh,
that's, and you realize in yourlife that isn't, I'm not selfish
(48:57):
or, you know, like I'm notselfish in that situation.
Like, yes, it is selfishness,but when I apply it to the rest
of the world and not theenvironment I came from, that's
actually a really good qualityto have.
Not running away, you know,finding and figuring out how I
was affected and learning tolove those parts and find them
as the most because those arethe things that define my unique
(49:19):
experience and my unique personI mean you know that's what
makes me unique and um you knowI always say that no person is
being better than you than youno person is better than being
me than me and those are thethings that define me yeah so
why not love them you know whynot appreciate them not why not
(49:40):
respect them why not you know
SPEAKER_00 (49:42):
yeah I love that would you also say like
celebrating those first times aswell can be really big like the
first time you actually had yourown closet space the first time
you invited someone over to yourhouse the first time you made a
friend and shared the story withsomeone or
SPEAKER_01 (49:55):
well I think what's really interesting is that was
one of the issues that I've hadwas I'm somebody who likes my
space you know what I mean likeI'm very particular about my
space I don't like you know Iit's funny I like going out to
spending time with friends andstuff or like going out to the
bar but I want to sleep in myown bed I'm very particular that
if I go out drinking I will findfind a way to make it back to my
(50:18):
bed to sleep.
You know, I realized that that'ssomething that's very important
and I don't have to like,necessarily meet societal
expectations.
My experiences are definitelynot what I thought they were
five or six years ago when Ifirst got out.
You know, it was like, I have tobe social because I don't have
any friends, you know?
(50:38):
And so you go and I hatedrinking.
I personally like now, I don'tlike drinking.
I don't like being drunk.
I don't like the hangover.
I don't like going to a bar.
And I've realized that like, Idon't need to go to a bar
because I need friends, right?
You know, I'll go to a bar if Iwant to, not because I need to.
SPEAKER_00 (50:56):
And
SPEAKER_01 (50:57):
deciphering those wants versus those needs was the
keystone piece.
It's like, yes, I will findfriends that don't want to go
out to the bar.
You know, those people I canhave fun with, but they're not
going to be friends because Idon't want to do that every
weekend.
You know, and it's not, I don'tneed, if that's what I need to
do to have, I don't need thosefriends.
(51:18):
You know, I'll find other ones.
SPEAKER_00 (51:19):
Final plugins, final message, because before we end
the episode, what would you liketo say to our listeners today?
SPEAKER_01 (51:26):
I would just say that, you know, like I said
earlier, if you are running awayfrom a version of yourself that
you're scared of, you are goingto end up being that person that
you're scared of.
You will end up being the personthat you don't want to be.
And instead of running away,instead of working with fear,
(51:49):
work with confidence, work toovercome that fear.
Don't think about the end goals,right?
Don't think about the thing thatyou're avoiding.
Think about the feeling of yourfear and come to terms with
that.
The end goal will change.
That will change naturally.
The cause is the fear.
So if you happen to, you know,get your fear under control,
(52:11):
your outcome will naturally bedifferent and it'll be better
because if that's your biggestfear, your outcome will be
better.
Naturally, it will be betterthan what your worst fear is.
Don't think about the fear andkeep reminding yourself of the
fear.
Because you'll draw your mind tomaking comparisons or analogies
(52:34):
to that situation, which drownsyour mental health.
It really drowns your progressbecause you're like, oh, well,
this happened.
That reminds me of this.
Don't think back.
When you're focusing onyourself, when you have that
freedom, You have that abilityto figure out who you are.
Work on yourself.
(52:54):
Those things, they're not goingto change.
Those are your experiences.
Figure out how they shaped you.
And those ways in which theyshaped you, I can 100% guarantee
are positive things if you'reaware of them.
They're only not positive ifyou're not aware of how those
situations affected you.
SPEAKER_00 (53:12):
Alyssa, thank you so much for being on Multispective.
I really appreciate yourvulnerability on air and the
insights that you've shared withus today.
SPEAKER_01 (53:18):
Thank you.
so much I hope this helps people
SPEAKER_00 (53:25):
if you enjoyed the episode and would like to help
support the show please followand subscribe you can rate and
review your feedback on any ofour platforms listed in the
description I'd like torecognize our guests who are
vulnerable and open to sharetheir life experiences with us
thank you for showing us we'rehuman also a thank you to our
team who worked so hard behindthe scenes to make it happen
(53:46):
Stefan Menzel Lucas Piri Theshow would be nothing without
you.
I'm Jenica, host and writer ofthe show, and you're listening
to Multispective.
We were never a happy family.
My mother just wants stuff.
All of it just gets thrown intoa pile.
There's no organization.
It's very, very intense.
It's literally floor to ceilingstuff.
(00:23):
And I was forced to share a roomwith my brother because of her
hoarding.
I graduated college and nevergot that closet.
It's the risk that there's apossibility they could look
inside and they could see whatthe reality of her facade is.
My dad and I will joke about howshe acts like a toddler when you
(00:45):
take her out in public.
It's tied to OCD.
Instead of working with fear,work with confidence.
SPEAKER_00 (00:57):
Kalissa, welcome to Multispective.
I'm super excited to have youhere on air with us.
SPEAKER_01 (01:02):
Thank you so much.
I'm glad to be here.
SPEAKER_00 (01:05):
Why don't you start off by just telling us a little
bit about where it all beginsfor you.
Where are you from, yourbackground?
SPEAKER_01 (01:11):
So I live in Indiana in the United States.
I grew up in a relatively smalltown, super rural.
My parents are actually from NewYork around Buffalo area, and
they moved to Indiana a fewyears before I was born.
So I was very isolated from myextended family, my cousins.
(01:34):
When I was younger, I kind ofimmediately knew that there were
some issues in my family.
We were never a happy family.
We were always arguing, alwayshaving some sort of tension.
And I was a big problem.
I have sensory issues.
And so my mother would force meto wear clothing that she wanted
(01:55):
me to look cute in and that sortof thing.
And I would have meltdownsbecause I would be
overstimulated.
They were uncomfortable.
I would be crying havingmeltdowns.
because my tags and my clothesand I would get spanked or
punished physically for beingoverstimulated and that sort of
thing.
(02:16):
And I think that shaped the waythat I viewed the subsequent
issues that arose in my home.
SPEAKER_00 (02:21):
So was it just you were the only child or do you
have any siblings?
SPEAKER_01 (02:25):
I have a younger brother.
He is two years younger than me.
So I'm 26.
My brother is 24.
Like we don't have a very closerelationship nowadays.
We never really did the way thatmy parents handled him versus
the way that my parents him andmy brother were vastly
different.
And so it led to two completelydifferent experiences.
(02:46):
And it's just, I don't hate him.
I don't wish any harm on him.
It's just, as him being a safeperson for me, he's not going to
ever be able to achieve thatposition,
SPEAKER_00 (02:56):
I don't
SPEAKER_01 (02:57):
believe.
SPEAKER_00 (02:58):
Do you feel like a lot of this is kind of like owed
to your parents for why, youknow, you both don't really get
along, like you were kind ofpitted against each other in a
sense, the way just they treatedthe both of you?
SPEAKER_01 (03:08):
100%.
My...
expectations of my mother weremuch more strict on me.
The way that she is, she's Whenshe was pregnant with my
brother, she had told my dadthat if she was to have another
girl, that she would have anabortion.
(03:28):
She did not want two girls.
She did not want two boys.
And I was the first one, so Iwas fine.
But my brother was the one thatshe wanted, right?
It was the one that she got.
And I think that kind offollowed us through childhood.
And so my brother kind of becamethe golden child, and I became
(03:48):
the scapegoat.
go.
So my brother at a very youngage would take advantage of it.
If he did something wrong, Iwould get blamed for it because
he knew that my mother wouldnever question him.
And so I kind of became, youknow, that person that took the
fall of every action and, youknow, all issues within the
family.
So it was definitely prettydifficult.
(04:10):
And definitely my mom's faultfor the structure that she had
in the family.
SPEAKER_00 (04:16):
What was your dad's role through all of this?
Was he aware of what washappening?
SPEAKER_01 (04:21):
Aware is a relative term because he was being
conditioned to the same thing.
You know, he would go to work.
He was the breadwinner.
My mom was a stay-at-home mom.
And so he would go to work andhe is very successful in what he
does, but he's a workaholic.
So he would get home, you know,six, seven o'clock in the
(04:42):
evening.
and he would immediately bepresented with all of the
problems that my brother and Ihad caused.
So if I was upset aboutsomething, or if I was
questioning something, or if Iwas upset about something, which
was very often for me, because Iwas like, this isn't right.
I know that what's going onisn't right, and so I would
(05:03):
fight back.
And my dad's coming home afterworking for 10 hours a day, and
he's being presented withissues.
If he didn't solve them on myend, my mother would abuse him
so it was like if he didn't comeand say hey Calissa please do
like will you just get over ityou know I'll buy you a
(05:24):
milkshake or you know lesssevere circumstances or you know
like what can I do for you tohave you drop this issue because
if I didn't drop the issue mymother would create a worse one
so his perspective now is adultsand now that we're all out of
the house he understands thatwhat was going on was wrong.
(05:47):
But when you're conditioned tothat much abuse, there is no
ability to understandnecessarily right and wrong.
SPEAKER_00 (05:56):
And growing up, did you feel that your dad also was
not a person that you could feelkind of safe around because of
the way that your mom wouldpresent things?
Or did you feel like, okay, atleast dad is somewhat of a soft
landing for me?
SPEAKER_01 (06:10):
It was kind of both.
There was definitelycircumstances, and if I needed
some...
Him and I are the same person,ironically.
You know, same taste in music,same personality, same
rationality of our brains.
So I would, you know, go to himif I needed to, like, think
through my thoughts.
I would go to him.
(06:30):
But he would not solve myproblems.
I never went to him expectingthat he was going to help me
solve something.
It was more so...
I understood at a young age thatI emotionally had to regulate
myself and by talking my waythrough my own thoughts and kind
of like having him be abackboard.
(06:51):
You know, I'd tell him and he'dbasically just be there to
listen.
That was super helpful.
But as far as, you know,actually getting something and
actually winning something oractually receiving, you know,
basic care as a child, he wasn'tgoing, I wasn't going to get
that.
SPEAKER_00 (07:10):
What effects do you think this kind of had on you
later on and now even?
I
SPEAKER_01 (07:16):
am I'm not a hopeful person.
I'm optimistic.
I see being hopeful is, and Idon't mean, this is going to
sound harsh, but I don't mean itas harshly as it comes across,
but I think it's delusionalbecause you have to, you're
going off of basic things thatyou don't know, too many things
(07:36):
that you don't know.
You have a goal, right?
You can be hopeful to achievethis.
But I think that like for me andthe way that all of my story has
kind of congregated together, Ihave to look at the facts and I
can choose to be optimistic evenif i know there's a negative
outcome i don't hope i don'thave the ability because if i
hope i get my hopes up and youknow every single time
(07:59):
throughout my entire lifethey've been destroyed but it's
making that choice to still bepositive um and and make the
decision and the choice to beoptimistic um but hopefulness i
just i don't have i don't for meand this isn't applicable to
other people but for me it's notrealistic and it leads to really
(08:19):
negative mental issues, dealingwith the consequences if that
thing that you hope for
SPEAKER_00 (08:26):
doesn't work out.
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (08:29):
I also, for me and my experiences, I've kind of
done life alone.
You know, it affected my abilityto have friends as a child.
So I was kind of alone and beinghopeful and, you know, hope
oftentimes relies on a series ofthings happening.
And all of those series ofthings are never not dependent
(08:51):
on other people.
So it's more so a lack of beingable to depend on other people
or have people I can depend on.
SPEAKER_00 (08:58):
Yeah.
Yeah, that makes sense.
So can you talk to me a littlebit more about your situation at
home?
So, you know, you mentioned therelationship aspect of you
between you and your family.
Now, let's talk a little bitmore about the physical home.
UNKNOWN (09:16):
Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00 (09:16):
So
SPEAKER_01 (09:17):
yeah, tell me a little bit.
(09:46):
and outfits that she would pickout, themed outfits.
And she would take pictures inthese outfits.
And that was really the firstsign to me that there was a
massive problem because thoseoutfits would never be worn
again.
We would literally, I wouldstand, I would take pictures.
Sometimes we'd go out to a parkand take pictures.
We would take the pictures andthen it would just get stored in
(10:06):
the house.
Never sold, never gotten rid of,never anything like that.
And when you have the amount ofthings that my mother was
buying, that stuff, Itmultiplies very, very quickly.
(10:46):
We didn't have closets.
My mother had stuff in theclosets.
I threw my, all of the clothesthat I had and I would
intentionally like not ask forclothes because I didn't have
anywhere to put them.
So I probably had like five orsix t-shirts and, you know,
three or four pairs of pantsthat lasted me like all of high
(11:10):
school because I didn't wantanything else because my storage
place was a storage containeroutside of the bathroom i didn't
have anywhere to hang them up ididn't have anywhere to like lay
them down and i was like welli'll just put them here there
wasn't a drawer i could put theminto anything like that um and
that's kind of followed me intoadulthood as well where i'm very
(11:32):
minimalistic um not attached toanything uh not sentimental if i
i'm somebody my motto is that ifit was important i would
remember it if i don't rememberit it wasn't worth remembering,
you know, it
SPEAKER_00 (11:51):
wasn't worth keeping, it wasn't worth
tracking, it wasn't worth takinga picture.
(12:16):
Yeah.
You're saying that this sort ofall started when you were
already around.
So would you say that this wasnot a non-issue before you kind
of came around?
Have you ever spoken to your dadabout it?
How was it before that when theywere living in New York and
stuff?
SPEAKER_01 (12:31):
So my mother, she was kind of an accidental child.
And understanding her childhood,you know, I'll touch on that
real quick, because I think it'simportant.
She was an accidental child.
So she's like 10 years youngerthan her sister and 12 years
younger than her brother.
And her parents didn't want todeal with her.
You know, it was like, I havethis kid, I don't want to deal
(12:52):
with her.
So they would go on vacations.
Her dad was a pastor.
So they would go on, you know,church trips or church related
trips, and they leave her athome.
They basically a abandoned herand i think that she she has
secondary issues that were verynoticeable early on so it was
the fact that they didn't wantanother kid added on to the fact
that now they have a kid thatthey didn't want that has issues
(13:15):
that they don't know how to dealwith because i mean that was the
time back in the you know 80sour understanding of mental
health was not there so even ifthey did go and try to seek help
for her there wouldn't be anyplace to seek help and so they
just kind of abandoned her andwould push her off onto friends
and send her on church campsover the summer.
(13:38):
And to kind of adhere to andmake her happy, they would throw
money at her.
You know, if she neededsomething, they'd throw money.
If she asked for something,they'd throw money.
I remember my dad said that whenshe was in college, they would
give her like three grand everythree or four months just to buy
(14:00):
clothes.
And in today's money, this isthis is the 90s.
And today's money, that'sprobably, you know, I don't
know, five, six, seven,$8,000.
That's a lot of money becausethey wanted her to shut up
because she would just and ifshe didn't get what she wanted,
she would just complain evenmore.
And then she would get it.
SPEAKER_00 (14:18):
And
SPEAKER_01 (14:20):
she's still like that today.
SPEAKER_00 (14:23):
So that makes sense.
Now it's all kind of comingtogether.
Why and how?
Maybe she turned tomaterialistic things, clothes
and all of that, just to kind offill in that kind of void of
that lack of support and lovethat she needed as a kid growing
up.
So in terms of with her marriageas well, how did that sort of
manifest?
I know you mentioned that shewas like that with her husband
(14:45):
as well, your father.
Yeah.
Just talk to me a little bit
SPEAKER_01 (14:49):
more.
She was very manipulative.
This is something that my dadhas communicated to me.
She is somebody that if shewants something, she has a
desire for something, that's theonly time that she will ever be
nice to you.
She will never be nice just tobe nice.
It's always that she wantssomething.
And so, you know, gettingmarried and her wanting to get
(15:10):
married and her wanting kids,because she always had those
desires, things weren't reallythat bad.
Now, there were some issues, butthe issues were not, you know,
looking back, you know, 30 yearslater, looking back, it's like,
oh, yeah, there were bigproblems.
But at the time, you're like,oh, this is just normal
relationship stuff.
You know, this was the firstlong-term relationship that my
(15:31):
dad had been in.
So you don't know what it'sgoing to be like.
And, you know, my dad wassomebody who was very insecure,
and my mother took advantage ofthat and exploited that.
My dad didn't want kids.
My mom did.
My dad now has two kids, youknow?
very manipulative she'll giveyou what you want
SPEAKER_00 (15:53):
when she wants something when she wants
something
SPEAKER_01 (15:56):
and so when she had the hoarding there wasn't that
wasn't as bad as when she had meafter she had me it went from
you know very little to oh mygod because there's so many
things that you can buy for ababy right there's clothes and
there's toys and there's all ofthis stuff and I think that she
(16:17):
had this idea of what shewanted, but never took into
account who I actually was.
And that kind of created thisspiraling, unending, you know,
cycle of just hoardingeverything that she possibly
can.
SPEAKER_00 (16:31):
I'm curious.
So like, okay, would this termhoarding, hoarders, can an
individual be diagnosed withthis?
Is this a mental health issue?
So it's
SPEAKER_01 (16:41):
actually OCD.
I think OCD is one of the mostinteresting forms of mental
health issues.
Yeah.
Yeah.
(17:02):
doesn't exist organizationdoesn't exist you know my my
mother the issue with hoardingand my mother is the fact that
there's no organization you knowif you have a collection of
things you display them you knowthey're organized you want to be
able to see your collection mymother just wants stuff so all
(17:22):
of it just gets thrown into apile there's no organization
there's no desire to actuallyknow what you have or display
what you have and Yeah, it's areally interesting thing.
But yes, it is tied to OCD.
SPEAKER_00 (17:37):
And does this form of OCD, can it or does it mostly
manifest for people with alongwith other kinds of, you know,
mental health issues?
But does it generally cometogether with something else?
Or can it just be a standalonething?
SPEAKER_01 (17:52):
I think it can be a standalone thing, depending on
how you look at it.
OCD is just an extreme anxietydisorder.
So if you had if you classifyanxiety separate from OCD, that
those two things would becomorbidities.
SPEAKER_00 (18:07):
What about addiction, like a shopping
addiction or a person who's justunable to control impulse in
terms of with that?
SPEAKER_01 (18:14):
100%.
100%.
My mother is somebody, my dadand I will joke about how she
acts like a toddler when youtake her out in public.
You know, she doesn't payattention to her surroundings.
I mean, the number of times thatyou have to like move her out of
the way because she's She justdoesn't take into account those
(18:35):
things.
She's just very...
Hmm.
Hmm.
SPEAKER_00 (19:04):
I know that there are tiers, there are levels to
being a hoarder.
Can you walk me through those?
SPEAKER_01 (19:10):
Yeah.
So level one is you just havelike, it's cluttered, right?
I would say levels like onethrough three are different
levels of clutter.
And I think everyone has theirown definition of what clutter
is, but it's not anything that'sgoing to impede your life in any
way.
It's not anything that's go,it's just dirty.
You know, it's going to take youan hour or, you know, a couple
(19:31):
of days to clean it up.
Level four is where starts toget pretty severe that is where
you start to have stacks ofstuff you're not storing it in
storage containers you're notyou know you have no place to
display it it's just kind ofevolving on the edges of
pathways and level five isbasically floor to ceiling
(19:58):
There's sometimes pathways.
A lot of times, like in mymother's situation, you step on
stuff.
There's no clear pathway anymoreto get from point A to point B.
You do have to step on stuff.
And my dad and I, one of thethings that we ensure is that
(20:19):
her plumbing, her electricity,all of those things that she
would need to live in thathouse, that they stay relatively
maintained.
because she you can't havesomebody come in and do those
things that it's not accessibleum and i she no person should
have to live in a house if itcan be helped um where they
(20:41):
don't have plumbing or theydon't have water or they don't
have electricity she's a personwith mental illness and you know
she's negatively impacted me butshe's defined by her mental
illness she's not aware of allthe ways in which she's hurt me
she's not aware of all the waysin which she hurt my brother my
dad so we do what we can to justmake sure she has those things
(21:03):
but yeah if not she would itwould be i don't even think
you'd be able to get into thehouse if it wasn't for us just
coming in and doing like yourbasic maintenance
SPEAKER_00 (21:13):
talk to me about hygiene in this situation how
does that work
SPEAKER_01 (21:16):
the showers and toilets and that sort of thing
they don't get cleaned veryoften if at all my mother
because of her narcissism thoughshe presents incredibly well so
unlike a typical hoarder whokind of puts a they kind of put
their hygiene and you knowthat's the second place hers is
(21:40):
still number one um she finds away i don't know how but she
finds a way in her bathroom tolike do her hair her makeup she
naturally has curly hair and shewill not leave the house if her
hair is not straight Dean willnot leave the house if she does
not dye her hair blonde.
She's so meticulous about theway that she looks out in public
SPEAKER_00 (22:04):
and
SPEAKER_01 (22:05):
defends that.
And that's kind of differentfrom other hoarders because a
lot of hoarders are just very,you can see it.
They're not, they have no shameover the condition of their
house.
My mother is very protective ofher house.
SPEAKER_00 (22:21):
So if your mom was to walk out now and go out with
like a group of friends or or ata social event or something, no
one would be able to tell thather condition of her house is
like that.
UNKNOWN (22:33):
No.
SPEAKER_01 (22:35):
Now, she's, you know, my mom, she now works as a
teacher's aide.
So she has a job.
She goes and she spends timewith kids every day.
The kids love her.
You know, I think if they're nother kids, you know, she's a
positive thing, positiveinfluence for them, which I
love.
But yeah, you would never know.
And yeah, she's very protective,very protective of her house.
(22:58):
She doesn't like people comingup to the doors, doesn't like,
you know, that we have a porch.
in the house.
We have a porch and then we havea side door where the driveway
is.
She's blocked off the porch fromdelivery drivers putting them up
there because there's windows.
And like, yes, there's blindsand stuff, but it's the risk
(23:19):
that there's a possibility theycould look inside and they could
see what the reality of herfacade is.
SPEAKER_00 (23:26):
It's really fascinating because she's fully
aware that this is an issuebecause she's obviously covering
the windows and making surepeople are not getting in she
doesn't want anyone to look inso she knows it's an issue yet
she doesn't acknowledge thatit's an issue enough to be able
to do something about it
SPEAKER_01 (23:42):
yep and
SPEAKER_00 (23:43):
yeah and
SPEAKER_01 (23:44):
that's incredibly frustrating like as a child um
and somebody like i was veryaware of it you know i've always
been a question asker so i'd belike do you does your parents do
they make you wear a bunch ofoutfits and take pictures and
they're like no that's crazy andi'm like okay i knew i didn't
like this and i didn't think itwas normal i was very young I
(24:05):
would say...
Probably five or six years oldwhen I was fully aware that the
situation that I was in was 100%wrong.
I didn't ask, oddly, I neverasked about the house.
I never asked about, hey, doesyour parents not allow you to
have your own closets?
It was probably because of herconditioning and manipulation
(24:27):
that I can't remember.
But I knew that the boundary wasthe house.
I knew that there were certainthings that I couldn't talk
about or ask about or anythinglike that.
But I asked, so I was veryaware.
And that led me to being more ofa problematic child because if
you tried to do something, I wasgoing to be like, no, no, that's
not, that's not right.
(24:49):
You know, going back to myclothes and throwing them over
the storage container.
I wanted a closet.
And my parents would not give meone of the closets.
And they were like large closetstoo.
And my mother would not agree.
And my dad was like, well, whatif we got you like one of those,
you know, temporary closets,mobile closets.
(25:10):
And I was like, no, I want thecloset.
I already share a room with mybrother.
I'm just asking for a closet.
Like, I don't even have a roomthat is my own.
I don't even have a space thatis my own.
All I'm asking for is a closet.
That's the only thing in thishouse.
But I'm asking to be mine.
And a temporary closet doesn'tcut it.
(25:31):
I knew that I shouldn't have hadto share a room with my brother.
We had a third bedroom.
I wouldn't care about doing itif it were a money issue or if
it were a size issue.
Maybe we didn't have anotherroom.
But it was the fact that therewas another option.
And I was forced to share a roomwith my brother because of her
hoarding.
(25:51):
And I never got the closet.
I graduated college and went offto college.
And never got
SPEAKER_00 (26:00):
back closets.
(26:25):
Would you kind of like questionit and be like,
SPEAKER_01 (26:31):
oh, that's what it's supposed to be like?
(26:55):
That's what they had.
Those types of experiences earlyon, I became very embarrassed of
the house, probably to the samelevel as my mother.
I played travel soccer when Iwas in high school.
I used to hate that because wewould carpool over to practice
together because it was about anhour away.
And I hated being dropped offbecause I knew that if they
(27:18):
could see when I opened up thedoor, that my mom's stuff was
right there, right there, rightas soon as I opened the door.
I would get dropped off atnight.
So you have the light coming in,it would be illuminated.
It was very embarrassing.
And I would get so much anxiety,like, oh, because they would
make sure I could get into myhouse before they would leave.
(27:40):
And I'm like, please just leave.
Please just drive away.
I hated it.
Of all the experiences I hadwhen I was a kid, that's
probably the experience I hatedthe most.
It was just, it was fear that ifthey saw that and they did
something, what's going tohappen to me?
You know, if they open a CPSinvestigation, what's going to
happen to me?
(28:00):
You know what I mean?
Like, am I going to go into, youknow, protective care?
So yeah, it was incrediblyterrifying.
Incredibly terrifying.
SPEAKER_00 (28:10):
At that point, did you know that that would be a
possibility, like being calledto CPS and them doing like a
check?
SPEAKER_01 (28:17):
My mother, I do know to a certain extent, she, every
once in a while, she would kindof talk very negatively about
CPS.
a little bit of fear mongeringlike oh like these kids you know
aren't taken care of or thesekids like you won't even be able
to get clothes and my mother wasvery fearful of me calling
(28:37):
because I would be the one to doit you know but she there was
enough doubt where I'm like Idon't know if this would be the
better option
SPEAKER_00 (28:45):
so can you tell me like in terms of like that
concept of cleanliness and thatconcept of you know clearing
things and stuff like how didthat impact you kind of growing
up did you have a concept ofthat for yourself or were you no
SPEAKER_01 (29:02):
there wasn't there was never an ability to because
if it was almost as though if ifound like a cheat if i found
space um it would get taken awayso you know you just kind of you
just kind of accept the reality.
But I could never like acceptthe reality.
(29:22):
I was always somebody who wastrying to find a better option.
So I remember when I was in highschool, I was like, okay, I went
to my mom and I said, what if wemoved like all of the stuff
that's in the house and we movedit into that third bedroom?
Like I'll accept the fact I haveto, you know, this is 10 years
later, but I'm like, I'll acceptthe fact that I share a room
with my brother.
I'll even accept the fact that Idon't have a closet.
(29:44):
Can we make, like, can I have aclean house?
you know, I'll give up my ownpersonal space to like have
people to where I could havefriends over.
So yeah, I was like, can we moveit into the third house?
And that was, that was world warthree.
That was the worst question thatI could have ever asked.
She got, you know, incrediblyupset about it.
So it was like, I was alwaystrying to find ways for things
(30:08):
to work in my favor andpropositioning those things.
And it created more, you know,looking back, it was definitely
creating more problems than itwas worth, but I just, for me
and my sanity, I have to fight.
Because if I don't fight, I'llnever get anything.
SPEAKER_00 (30:23):
How bad was it?
Can you describe this physicallyfor me?
SPEAKER_01 (30:26):
Yeah, so we had...
a family room, a living room, adining room, three bedrooms, one
of which was a master bedroom.
Then there were two bedrooms anda bathroom that was in the
center of them.
My parents' bedroom was filledwith stuff all around the bed.
(30:49):
So basically, you couldn't evenget into the closet that was in
the room.
There was just a mass of stuff.
Our living room was completelyfull.
You can get probably about aquarter of the way through the
room, but you can't even get tothe other side of the room.
There's no pathway.
There's no anything.
(31:10):
It's just stuff everywhere.
Our dining room, there's apathway because it's the cars
and where we park is on theother side of the house.
So the dining room The pathway,outside of the pathway, there's
like a dining room table that Ihaven't seen.
You couldn't see the chairs.
(31:31):
You couldn't see the dining roomtable.
I would kick the legs of thetable a lot because it would
just be a mass of stuff.
And if you're, you know, workingwith a pathway that's, you know,
a foot or so wide at six o'clockin the morning before you've
really been able to wake up, youknow, you kick a few tables.
Our kitchen was relativelyclean, but the sides and the
(31:53):
walls at the the kitchen veryvery you know cluttered it was
like if there was space there'sgoing to be stuff yeah um and
then like i said that thirdbedroom we used that bathroom so
there was a path i mean youcan't see the other side of the
wall like you know because it'sa fairly decently sized bedroom
you can't see the other side ofthe wall because of the the mass
(32:16):
of stuff that she has in betweenthe pathway and the other side
of the room so it's it's veryvery interesting It's literally
floor to ceiling stuff.
SPEAKER_00 (32:26):
Did you guys find rodents, cockroaches, bugs?
SPEAKER_01 (32:32):
Actually, no, we were pretty lucky.
I do know that there was acouple times in which we had a
few mice, which happens.
You know, that's not an abnormalthing.
That's not due to any level ofhoarding.
It just happens.
Sometimes you get a few micethat come in.
But we never had a perpetualissue.
We never had cockroaches.
(32:52):
We never had cockroaches.
We never had bedbugs.
Bedbugs actually kind of becamean epidemic after we were kind
of out of the house.
We never had lice.
My brother and I never had lice,which still to this day, because
if we had it, we would never getrid of it.
I would have lice for the restof the time in which I was
(33:12):
living there, because you can'tclean the way you need to clean.
And we fortunately somehow nevergot it.
So yeah, I mean, from thatperspective, it was kind of
crazy that we never, no.
I know a lot of other kids thatare in this situation, they do
deal with those issues,Thankfully, I never did.
SPEAKER_00 (33:35):
Yeah, that's really lucky.
There's one thing like beingcluttered and messy and one
thing being clean, right?
But if it kind of borderline,like the mess is just beyond,
there's no ability, there's noway that you can even clean,
like wipe a surface becausethere is no surface to wipe.
So naturally there would be dustcollection everywhere and there
would be, you know, issues ofmolding.
SPEAKER_01 (33:57):
Mold, yep, yep, yep.
All super bad.
I think part of it was, is thatmy mom was not like, I don't
throw stuff away like at all.
or like a laziness issue, it'sshe just buys a lot of stuff.
So it's not, you know, if youwatch like the show Porters, a
lot of times you'll see wrappersand food.
My mother's not like that.
(34:18):
She's very meticulous aboutmaking sure that all of those
things are out.
So our house is incrediblycluttered.
I mean, it's a level five out offive, but it's not amassed with
food, which I think probablyhelped to eliminate a What would
SPEAKER_00 (34:47):
happen if you were to just take something from a
pile and chuck it?
SPEAKER_01 (34:51):
It's been done a few times.
When I was young and I would getangry, I've thrown a few things.
I've knocked things over.
I've broken things.
It depends.
I remember like I would knocksomething over and if you knock
something over by accident, itgot treated like you did it
intentionally.
You know, if you, oh, you needto be more careful.
(35:12):
Like you're lying.
There's no way.
Like, it's like I tripped over ashoe that was on the floor and I
fell into this bottle.
It's like, how can I be morecareful It wasn't even my shoe.
But she would notice if I, like,re-sacked the pile.
She would notice.
She would notice if somethingwas out of place.
(35:34):
She also would, like, check thetrash to make sure that no one
was throwing anything away.
You know, she never had trustin, you know, what...
i would do specifically becausei would be the person to be like
yeah i'm gonna throw this awayshe's not even gonna know you
know you you have that muchstuff there's no way you
(35:54):
actually care about it but youwould be surprised with like you
can take more than i probablythink i can but if i take one
thing that's wrong and one thingthat she knows i'm screwed and
she'll figure everything elseout so it's like yeah it's it's
fine until until you get caughtand then you will have to face
(36:18):
the consequences for everythingthat you've done
SPEAKER_00 (36:20):
would you like what would happen if you guys asked
her like why why can't we throwthis like what what's wrong with
okay like why do you want tokeep this what was her reasoning
SPEAKER_01 (36:30):
she that would be an attack on her own insecurity
there is a level of insecuritythat she has about the house um
and whenever her insecuritiesare attacked or threatened in
some way she will do the samething back so oh You're
questioning what I'm doing.
Well, I can question what you'redoing.
(36:51):
I can question like how youtreat me.
I can question what you'redoing.
You know what I mean?
So there was never anyrationality, reasoning, logic.
SPEAKER_00 (37:02):
Would you say like if you went into that house
today, you will still find adress from when you were a
child?
SPEAKER_01 (37:07):
When we changed the water heater, we found baby
books.
And like I said, I'm 26.
I'm almost 27.
And these are probably from whenI was a kid.
There's dresses and, you know,we went to Disney World a few
times when I was growing up andthere's ungodly amounts of
souvenirs.
I mean, my childhood is in thathouse.
(37:29):
Like everything that has everbeen bought for me is in that
house, which is, you know, a lotof people would be like, oh,
like that's got to be so a fondmemory.
And it's like, no, could youimagine like everything that
you've ever had, everythingthat's ever been bought for you,
you've never got rid of any ofit.
And it's just like...
You don't place value in thosethings because there are
(37:50):
memories.
She keeps the grades.
Back in the day beforecomputers, you would have your
grades and your papers.
All of them are still in ourhouse.
She has folders from when I wasin kindergarten.
Just regular homework Can
SPEAKER_00 (38:06):
you walk me through, for example, typically a person
may go home from a day of workor school and they're going to
relax, they're going to faffabout at home, maybe watch a
movie or two, take it easy, sitdown, do their homework.
They have that kind of space tomove around in their house.
What would a day look like foryou going home?
Would you guys as a family beable to do that kind of stuff?
SPEAKER_01 (38:26):
No.
UNKNOWN (38:26):
No.
SPEAKER_01 (38:27):
We had...
We did have a TV, but the TV hada couch, and that couch...
could not, like only one of thelike areas of the couch, you
could have occupancy.
And that was really the onlyplace in which you could see the
TV.
So you couldn't like stand, youknow, in another place in the
(38:47):
room and watch the TV becausethere would be stuff.
There's literally like, youknow, because I went over to
change my mother's water heater,there's literally a pile and
then like a little dip in thepile so she can sit down on the
couch and watch the TV.
But if you were sitting likeright next to her, you wouldn't
be able to see the TV.
And that was really, very muchwhat I grew up with.
(39:08):
So this was like beforesmartphones were really a thing.
I had like an iPod touch, but Icouldn't have it in my room.
The answer was kind of sports.
My brother and I both playedsoccer and I played basketball
as well.
And that was a lifesaver for me,specifically soccer.
It was a place where I could getthat anger out.
(39:28):
You know, all of the things thatI couldn't say to her, I could
get that frustration out withoutactually having to say those
words.
with high school sports, you hadpractice Monday through
Saturday.
So I wasn't in the house veryoften.
As far as doing homework, Iwould do it in my bed.
I didn't have like a desk oranything that I could do, or I
would do it on the bus.
(39:50):
You know, I didn't watch a wholelot of movies because again,
there was no place to watchthem.
No, I lived a very shelteredchildhood because of it, but it
wasn't because it was intendedto be sheltered.
It was just more so a byproductof the capabilities of what I
was able to do.
SPEAKER_00 (40:07):
Yeah.
I mean, I can really imagine itbeing sort of like, I don't
know, 95% of your life is justaround this.
Because I mean, your home isyour haven, right?
It's like the center of like,you, I guess, right?
And so if you can't really feelcomfortable going home, or
you're like, I'm not gonna havespace to do anything, well, then
how much time can you reallyexplore yourself or just do
(40:30):
things that people normallywould do outside of their house?
So...
SPEAKER_01 (40:34):
you, when I went to college, I had no idea who I
was, you know, because I wasalways battling my mother's
expectations, you know, becauseher expectations of me are not
in any way, shape, or form evenclose to how I actually am.
And so I went to college and I'mlike, I have no idea who I am.
I don't even know whatcharacteristics I'm looking for
in a friendship because I feltuncomfortable having friends
(40:58):
because I was scared that if Igot close that they would find
out.
My adult life has been much moretumultuous.
You would feel like oh I'm outof the house like freedom but it
kind of presented with its ownset of additional issues on top
of that
SPEAKER_00 (41:11):
walk me through like leaving this house so how did it
how did that all kind of comeabout for you and your dad also
is not living with your momanymore right
SPEAKER_01 (41:20):
no no
SPEAKER_00 (41:21):
yeah
SPEAKER_01 (41:22):
so when I was 18 I went to college it was very you
know I did very well in schooland so it was very much the
expectation that I go to collegeand so So I would have gone to
community college and saved alittle bit of money, but I could
not live at home anymore.
So I left and I got a dorm formy first year and then my
(41:46):
roommate actually bought ahouse.
So we moved into that house andI was there for several years
until I got an outside job andthat sort of thing.
I would not have survived if Ihad had to stay at that point in
time.
Everyone's getting and findingthemselves in their own way.
(42:06):
I needed to do that.
It was just a miserableexperience.
Because the older you get, themore you realize what you've
been conditioned to.
My brother, like I said, he's acouple years younger than I am.
And he stayed for, I want tosay, a year after he graduated.
And when he left, my dad leftwithin six months later.
(42:26):
It was very, like, because therewas nothing left for him.
You know, it was...
the negativity that my motherand I would have, or the
negativity that would bedirected towards my brother,
those didn't exist anymore.
And so all of that negativityand all of those expectations
got directed onto my dad.
That was the first time where hehad to deal with the full
(42:48):
expanse of how toxic and abusivehe actually is.
SPEAKER_00 (42:53):
How would you describe now your dad's
apartment and your brother'sapartment?
Are they quite like you, veryminimalistic and just don't want
to have any clutter, anything intheir house?
Yeah.
So it's had the same effect onall of you.
SPEAKER_01 (43:05):
My brother is, he's much more, he can get pretty
messy.
He's a typical boy, you know,has, you know, things and, you
know, glasses on the table orthings like that.
But the way that it impacted himwas far different.
But he wasn't affected to theway that it was such an aversion
(43:27):
to him that he can't be likeher, if that makes any sense.
He has to avoid it.
He didn't really have thatbecause he never had problems
making friends.
He was always saying at otherpeople's houses, girls are a lot
different than boys are.
So it's like, if I do somethingfor you, you have to do
something for me.
(43:48):
When guys are like, yeah, I'llI'll help you out, dude.
Catch me later or not.
I'll forget about it.
Girls are not like that.
So just from that aspect, hedidn't have the negative impact.
But my dad, because my dadactually lives with me now.
We live together and it's beenreally good.
He's a very clean, likes to keepthings clean, doesn't like to
(44:11):
have trash everywhere.
Everything has a place.
We both like to collect things.
My dad likes to play guitar andhas a variety of guitars that he
likes to collect.
And then I have a variety of...
I go through phases, right?
Right now it's like Legos.
I like to build Legos and thatsort of thing.
(44:33):
But if I buy a Lego set and Idon't have a place for it, I
sell another one.
I can't just amass too much andI don't ever want to get to that
point.
But I'm not somebody who's likeoh if there's like a glass on
the table then I'm like oh mygosh I have to clean it up so I
(44:54):
found what's best for me is tojust let if I see it I see it
but I don't let the stress ofthat overrun me because it very
much has in my in my past whereI've been so obsessed with doing
anything I could to avoid beinglike her and so as an adult it's
like no I if I make a consciouseffort and I know that I'm going
(45:15):
to take care of everything inone fell swoop I can be stressed
for those two hours or so, youknow, the amount of time it
would take.
I can be stressed during thattime, but I'm not going to be
stressed the entire
SPEAKER_00 (45:25):
week.
SPEAKER_01 (45:26):
So, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (45:27):
That's good.
I mean, it sounds like you'vedone a lot of work on yourself,
even with that.
SPEAKER_01 (45:31):
I think it's different for me because I tried
therapy and stuff.
I have a really great therapistnow, but I tried therapy early
on and it was just so much stuffthat it's so hard to comprehend,
like the expanse of trauma thatI've experienced.
I would get really angry becauseI'm like, you're not listening
to me.
Like you're trying to say tryingto go this direction I need you
to go this direction or I needto address this and it was just
(45:54):
really infuriating so I kind ofthought about myself and I
thought about where I wanted tobe but it also I fully
understand that there arenegative aspects to it um you
know but to be where I'm at andto be in a exist in a world
where I'm happy and I experiencehappiness and um look forward to
(46:16):
each and every day and seeingthe good and finding the good
that's a place that I neverthought that I would be I didn't
think I'd be alive you know sono I'm very proud of myself and
proud of how I've become but
SPEAKER_00 (46:30):
Yeah.
What were some of those littleepiphanies or those moments,
those realizations that you hadthat kind of helped you steer
yourself out of that kind ofpain of the trauma and move into
a more healthier headspace?
SPEAKER_01 (46:43):
I realized that when I was chasing or not chasing it,
when I was running away from it,I was going directly into what I
was avoiding.
So like with the cleaning andlike being obsessed with
cleaning.
If you're so stressed, you can'tpay attention to the big
picture.
You're seeing all of these smalllittle things.
And so So you end up doing areally terrible job picking up
(47:04):
everything because you're sostressed.
Like if I don't miss somethingand you're going back and forth
instead of just stepping backand being like, okay, this is
everything.
You don't have the ability to dothat in that state.
And because you run from it,that's your instinct is to run
away and to seek that freedomand to not do anything.
(47:24):
And I think for me, the pivotalhealing point was realizing that
can't run from it.
This is trauma that I have.
This is something that I wentthrough.
These are experiences that Ihave had.
This has shaped the way that andwho I am as a person.
You know, it's so you want tothink that no part of you is is
(47:47):
Mm-hmm.
(48:17):
how that really affected meinstead of, I don't ever want to
feel that way again, or I don'twant to be anything like that.
It's no, there's, I know, I, Iknow I don't, I'm not going to
be like that because I, I, youknow, in the back of my mind,
I'm like that, but how did thatsituation affect me in a good
(48:37):
way or a bad way?
How did that, it's okay if it'sbad there, you know, that was
such a bad situation.
It's expected that there's goingto be bad things.
And understanding that thosenegative consequences aren't
always as negative as thatsituation.
Like my mother would say, oh,like that's selfish or oh,
that's, and you realize in yourlife that isn't, I'm not selfish
(48:57):
or, you know, like I'm notselfish in that situation.
Like, yes, it is selfishness,but when I apply it to the rest
of the world and not theenvironment I came from, that's
actually a really good qualityto have.
Not running away, you know,finding and figuring out how I
was affected and learning tolove those parts and find them
as the most because those arethe things that define my unique
(49:19):
experience and my unique personI mean you know that's what
makes me unique and um you knowI always say that no person is
being better than you than youno person is better than being
me than me and those are thethings that define me yeah so
why not love them you know whynot appreciate them not why not
(49:40):
respect them why not you know
SPEAKER_00 (49:42):
yeah I love that would you also say like
celebrating those first times aswell can be really big like the
first time you actually had yourown closet space the first time
you invited someone over to yourhouse the first time you made a
friend and shared the story withsomeone or
SPEAKER_01 (49:55):
well I think what's really interesting is that was
one of the issues that I've hadwas I'm somebody who likes my
space you know what I mean likeI'm very particular about my
space I don't like you know Iit's funny I like going out to
spending time with friends andstuff or like going out to the
bar but I want to sleep in myown bed I'm very particular that
if I go out drinking I will findfind a way to make it back to my
(50:18):
bed to sleep.
You know, I realized that that'ssomething that's very important
and I don't have to like,necessarily meet societal
expectations.
My experiences are definitelynot what I thought they were
five or six years ago when Ifirst got out.
You know, it was like, I have tobe social because I don't have
any friends, you know?
(50:38):
And so you go and I hatedrinking.
I personally like now, I don'tlike drinking.
I don't like being drunk.
I don't like the hangover.
I don't like going to a bar.
And I've realized that like, Idon't need to go to a bar
because I need friends, right?
You know, I'll go to a bar if Iwant to, not because I need to.
SPEAKER_00 (50:56):
And
SPEAKER_01 (50:57):
deciphering those wants versus those needs was the
keystone piece.
It's like, yes, I will findfriends that don't want to go
out to the bar.
You know, those people I canhave fun with, but they're not
going to be friends because Idon't want to do that every
weekend.
You know, and it's not, I don'tneed, if that's what I need to
do to have, I don't need thosefriends.
(51:18):
You know, I'll find other ones.
SPEAKER_00 (51:19):
Final plugins, final message, because before we end
the episode, what would you liketo say to our listeners today?
SPEAKER_01 (51:26):
I would just say that, you know, like I said
earlier, if you are running awayfrom a version of yourself that
you're scared of, you are goingto end up being that person that
you're scared of.
You will end up being the personthat you don't want to be.
And instead of running away,instead of working with fear,
(51:49):
work with confidence, work toovercome that fear.
Don't think about the end goals,right?
Don't think about the thing thatyou're avoiding.
Think about the feeling of yourfear and come to terms with
that.
The end goal will change.
That will change naturally.
The cause is the fear.
So if you happen to, you know,get your fear under control,
(52:11):
your outcome will naturally bedifferent and it'll be better
because if that's your biggestfear, your outcome will be
better.
Naturally, it will be betterthan what your worst fear is.
Don't think about the fear andkeep reminding yourself of the
fear.
Because you'll draw your mind tomaking comparisons or analogies
(52:34):
to that situation, which drownsyour mental health.
It really drowns your progressbecause you're like, oh, well,
this happened.
That reminds me of this.
Don't think back.
When you're focusing onyourself, when you have that
freedom, You have that abilityto figure out who you are.
Work on yourself.
(52:54):
Those things, they're not goingto change.
Those are your experiences.
Figure out how they shaped you.
And those ways in which theyshaped you, I can 100% guarantee
are positive things if you'reaware of them.
They're only not positive ifyou're not aware of how those
situations affected you.
SPEAKER_00 (53:12):
Alyssa, thank you so much for being on Multispective.
I really appreciate yourvulnerability on air and the
insights that you've shared withus today.
SPEAKER_01 (53:18):
Thank you.
so much I hope this helps people
SPEAKER_00 (53:25):
if you enjoyed the episode and would like to help
support the show please followand subscribe you can rate and
review your feedback on any ofour platforms listed in the
description I'd like torecognize our guests who are
vulnerable and open to sharetheir life experiences with us
thank you for showing us we'rehuman also a thank you to our
team who worked so hard behindthe scenes to make it happen
(53:46):
Stefan Menzel Lucas Piri Theshow would be nothing without
you.
I'm Jenica, host and writer ofthe show, and you're listening
to Multispective.
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