146: What if you thought your mother was a robot? 46:31

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I completely lost touch with reality. You can't rely on those around you, and you can't rely on what's within you. That's the most terrifying thing in the world. Welcome to the Permatemp Corporation, a presentation of the audio podcast, This Is Actually Happening. Episode 146, What If You Thought Your Mother Was a Robot?

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And I remember ours were not. And I remember people coming over and bringing us candles to keep our apartment lit. And of course, I didn't think anything of it. But later on, I came to the realization that we were just one of the poorest families in our neighborhood.

My dad was born in Mexico and my mom was born in Crescent City, California. My mother was a housekeeper and my father worked at a bread company plant. So my dad worked at night and my mom worked in the day while we were at school. We would never really see my dad until the weekends. So it was always my mother, my brother and my sister. But it was always a very...

family-oriented household. We were always very close. We were also very Catholic, so we were brought up very traditional, very Catholic Mexican household. As a child, not really noticing how poor we were, it never really bothered me. I always was extremely happy. I would always, at night, my parents tell me that I would always sing songs.

For them to go to sleep, I was always very lively. I always had a very positive outlook. We moved from California to Georgia because we could not afford the standard of living in San Jose, California. And so when I was about 14, we packed up the U-Haul truck and we moved everything cross-country from San Jose, California to Gainesville, Georgia. My immediate family, the five of us, we shared a room

along with two other rooms where my other uncles and aunts were living in. My mom started working. She was cleaning a much bigger house. She spoke Spanish and English, which was rare at that time in the small town in Georgia that I grew up in.

My mom took up the first offer that she could find for cleaning a house. And it happened to be this big house where this couple owned a multi-million dollar corporation where they would go into hospitals and clinics and do their medical records. One day they noticed that my mom was calling home to check up on us in Spanish. And they thought that was really interesting, so they

asked her if she wanted to go into this company. So finally she joined on and after about 10 years of working there, they minimized their company and they wanted to sell the company to my mom.

So I realized where we were this family that came from nothing to this family that all of a sudden could afford a lot more than what we grew up with. And we all of a sudden went from living in a very, very poor neighborhood to a very, very wealthy neighborhood. The town that we moved to was very conservative. It was very, very farm town, very rural. It was very wealthy, white, conservative Georgia.

So it was very difficult to try to establish any identity in this new farm town. I think we were pretty terrified because we were going to a school where all of the kids in our class were very dark skinned. And we moved to a school where I was the only kid in the class that was dark skinned. So that was very odd. I had to, I guess, sort of camouflage myself.

into this new community where I felt like I didn't belong. When I moved to the more rural, wealthy neighborhood, I didn't want to adapt. I was very hesitant. I didn't want to make any friends. I was also intimidated by, I guess, the wealthier families because we had just been thrown into this lifestyle.

And I was not accustomed to that. So I created, I guess, a false identity of what I wanted to be. My brother happened to meet a group of friends who were running cross-country.

So my brother joined the cross-country team and thrived, absolutely thrived. And my parents sort of pushed me to join with my brother. I didn't really want to. I was very punk rock at that time. And that's what I wanted to be. I was very anti-establishment. My parents gave me an ultimatum to join sports or get a job. And I did not want to work at that time. So I decided I would run cross-country.

As much as I hated running, I ended up being the fifth fastest runner on the team. My brother was the fourth. We won regionals. We won the state championship. So I was on this identity crisis of being...

anti-establishment, very punk rock, but I was also very... I became very popular because I was a state champion. So it was also a very weird identity crisis for me in high school. I guess there was this pressure to be sort of everything. I was also...

terrified of people finding out about my sexuality, that I was gay. And that was like really terrifying for me for people to find out, especially coming from a very conservative Hispanic, Mexican, Catholic background. I was struggling to find an identity. And I think that's what I'm still trying to do today.

I realized I was gay from a very, very early age. I want to say about eight to nine. But I would always tell myself that this was a lie. This was fake. And this is not real. This is just a phase. It's going to pass. I had that mindset up until about 14, 15 years old. I think when I fully realized that this was okay, I cannot change this. That's just who I am.

I had a fear that people would find out. So I acted in very different ways that did not really express who I was. It kept me hidden. It kept me safe in an environment that was very dangerous at that time for me. I would establish these crushes and I would fall in love or break.

at that age, whatever we believe love is, I would always crush or fall in love with these guys and these students or my teammates and you're just kind of stuck while you watch all of your other classmates and your other friends and your other teammates forming like these relationships and you're just kind of wishing that you could do that but you can't and it sucks. I mean, it really sucks. I paid the community college

And I thought that I would go to school for a couple years. And after that, I would decide what I wanted to do. And I ended up graduating with about a 3.6 GPA. After two years, I transferred to a university. I met a girl who liked the same things I did, who liked the same bands, who liked the same artists, who liked the same movies. And I felt really comfortable with her. So...

I decided one night after a couple drinks that I would tell her. And I felt almost ashamed, but I felt this relief that I was finally free after so long of hiding this secret because at that moment I had never verbally said it. I had never said, "I'm gay."

So, when the moment I told her, it was almost like this huge relief that it finally came out of my mouth and someone else on this earth knew what I was. I still think about that moment to this day. It's been about 10 years and I still am reminded of that moment almost every other day. I was still trying to figure out how to tell my family I was gay and that was the most difficult thing

At the back of my mind that I kept pushing off. And I knew that I had to confront this eventually. That, hey, I am gay. I am your gay son. I graduated college around summer, fall of 2014, I believe. Around this time, I was confused. I was scared. I didn't really know what I wanted to do post-college. I knew that I wanted to move abroad. But...

I was terrified of applying and I was terrified of actually getting into that job field. So I think I gravitated towards what was most comfortable for me, which was still the college life. So I moved in with my college friends that had still not graduated. And I think I was still grasping for that leeway, that freedom, that's that college life. So I moved back to my college town.

It was a four-bedroom apartment. I lived with two girls and another guy. And the guy I did not know, the two girls I was friends with in college. So the two girls decided to take a trip away for break because they were still students. So they had that leeway. And I was working full-time. At this point, I was working full-time for my mom and her company. So I had to stay. And the guy that I had just moved in with,

He asked me one afternoon while our entire campus was away if I wanted to smoke with him. And I said, yes, of course. We were sitting across an empty campus. It was a really, really nice afternoon. The weather was perfect. I remember we smoked and within five minutes, I knew that something was wrong.

I'm sitting on my porch and I notice this intense rush of anxiety and I'm trying to act cool. I'm trying to act relaxed, but I know that I want to absolutely freak out. I excuse myself to my room where I close the door and I start to hyperventilate. I start to sit on my bed. I start to pace back and forth.

I have already had a history of smoking pot, and this has never happened to me before. Prior to this, I had done a lot of stuff. I used to go to a lot of music festivals. I did shrooms. I did molly. I've done ecstasy. I've done acid. And none of that ever really troubled me. I was always really good with psychedelics. I was always really good with smoking pot.

So I don't know what's going on. I don't know what's happening. I just freak out. I don't know how to describe it. I'm rolling around in my bed. I'm rolling around on the floor. And this lasts for about, I want to say, three hours.

Around that time, I am thinking, "Oh my god, what is happening?" I can't feel the back of my head, which was a really weird thought. I remember touching the back, the base of my skull, and I remember thinking, "I can't feel that. I don't know why. That's really bizarre to me." I jumped in the shower thinking that the water against my skin would change something, and it just made it worse.

I tried to call my mom. She did not answer, which made it worse. It made me extremely paranoid. I felt like everyone was watching me. I felt like reality knew what was happening. It's a really, really bizarre description. I felt like I was on this pedestal and everything around me was watching me freak out. After it wraps up, I remember trying to watch Netflix. I'm thinking, oh my God, it's over.

Okay, like time to breathe, time to collect yourself. So I opened my door and my roommate who smoked with me is in the kitchen. He's trying to cook something and he turns around and says, did you just experience something really bizarre? And I said, yes. What did we just smoke? And he said, I have no idea. I got this from somebody who I did not know. And I said, okay,

"Well, I still feel very weird. I still feel very bizarre. How do you feel?" And he said, "I also feel the same way. I feel like something is very, very wrong." And I said, "What do we do?" And he said, "Just go to sleep."

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I got in my car and I remember feeling very different. Almost as if time was stalling. It's very difficult to describe. It's almost as if you're in a moment and about three to four seconds disappear. I cannot describe exactly how that feels. I got to work and immediately I told my mom, who was my boss,

that last night I did something stupid. I smoked something. I don't think it was what I thought it was gonna be and it was really terrifying, but I feel okay now. And it was almost like refreshing to tell my mom that I did this like the night before. Like it was almost like when you do something when you're bad as a child and you feel good because you get it out of your system. For about five to six days, I am still feeling very weird.

The night before it happened, I was watching the movie called Birdman. And I remember thinking it was an incredible film. But the fact that it was shot in like almost one shot terrified me.

There were a lot of elements to that movie that were really, really scaring me. And I could not express what it was. I think it was like this element of just being completely unnatural. It was unreal. And I think that's what sort of set off the dominoes to what happened after that.

I was at work and my mom, again, who's my boss, asked me to take something to the post office. And we deliver medical records constantly. So this was a daily routine. At that time, I had not told anyone that something was off. I was driving to the post office and I felt incredibly anxious. And so I pulled in, get the medical records in the boxes. I go to the front desk and...

There's a child crying. And I remember thinking, wow, that child is crying really loud. I don't know why that's really bothering me. And then for some reason, my phone started to heat up. And I'll always remember this. It was heating up very, very fast. And I thought, oh my God, my phone's going to fry out. Something is wrong with my phone. And the child was crying. And the line was long. And...

the woman at the desk who I constantly work with because we're always delivering medical records. She said, you're next. And I said, okay. And I walked up to her and everything felt so off. It was very tunnel-like. It was very loud. So I just left. I didn't say anything to her. I left and I went back to my car and I thought in that moment,

Something is really wrong. This is really weird. I have never experienced something like this, where everything, my emotions were very magnified. My hearing, my vision, everything was just very, very magnified. I remember driving back.

I walked into the office and I broke down and I told my mom something is going on. I've been feeling odd for a week. And today at the post office, I felt very, very off. I think I had an attack. I was in this environment where everything should have been comfortable. Everything should have been normal. But at that moment, I felt down.

completely vulnerable. I felt completely new. I felt completely attacked. Like I had never set foot in this office before. It felt completely new, even though this woman that I have worked with for so long, I did not feel safe around her. I tell my mom everything. The first thing that my mom says is, do you think it's associated with that night? And I said, I think so.

My mom asks me, what do you want to do? And I said, I have no idea. I think I just had a panic attack. I felt so stupid. I felt so tiny. I felt so small saying that I just had a panic attack because it felt so cliche. It's something that is so thrown around.

I grew up not knowing what mental illness was. I grew up not knowing what a panic attack was. I always thought when I heard panic attack, I always thought it meant just a public freak out. I never knew that your senses could confuse you and could ignite this emotion. And I also had no idea that this was just the beginning of what was to come. I was living a completely normal life.

I was trying to accept this. I considered myself, I mean, I had a lot of friends. I considered myself decently outgoing. I did have a very good group of friends. I was dating this guy and I never even told him. Then it happened where I woke up and I realized that I was afraid to leave my room.

I woke up and there was someone coming into my apartment to fix the dishwasher. I remember that. And I remember being so terrified to open the door from my room. And I remember it wasn't a fear of them. It was a fear of just leaving my room. I was afraid to leave a bedroom, which was so bizarre to me.

When I started to experience this fear of leaving my room, I gained this extreme paranoia of people outside of my room, even people inside of my apartment outside of my room. I was terrified. Even though I could hear the voices of my friends and I knew that it was them, it still terrified me.

I know that the people walking outside on my sidewalk are students and they have nothing to do with me. But in this moment, I feel like they are against me and they are conspiring against me. Even though at the same time, I know that it's a lie. I know that my mind is trying to convince me that this is not real. But the fear, the paranoia was greater than my rationality.

I remember waking up a couple days after and this sounds so crazy, but my vision was widescreen. It was as when you're watching a movie and there are the two black bars, like one at the top and one at the bottom. And my vision was pure widescreen. Imagine a saran wrap and you're stretching it out very, very wide.

That's what my vision was. Like this very blurry yet widened thing like in front of you. I did not know how to react. I, of course, did not tell anybody. I went about my day with extreme panic, extreme physical pain. I would wake up with jaw pain.

I would drop these hints to my friends and to my family. Do you guys like see this kind of vision? Like, have you guys ever seen this before? And it was like, no, I have no idea what you're talking about. And that's when I started to experience hallucinations. I would see two eyes on top of regular eyes on anything on top of my friends on top of my dogs, anything.

And I would see a set of two legs. I would see a set of two arms. I would see a set of two anything, sort of like this duality. And I didn't know how to comprehend that. And that's when I had to stop driving. That's when I had to rely on someone to drive me around. It sounds so bizarre, but I would see glitches.

This entire time, I'm telling myself that this isn't real. You're seeing this glitch in the quote matrix, but it's not real. Try to grasp to reality as much as you can, because if you don't, you're going to freak out and you're going to end up in a hospital for the rest of your life. As someone that didn't even know what mental illness was, you can imagine how terrifying it was.

I think the hardest part was to see my family members as 2D objects. I lost my perception and everything became 2D. Everything became like a Super Mario video game, like a side-scroller. Everything that I knew existed beyond 2D just existed in 2D. And I could not comprehend that. I knew

that it was not real, but there was like this huge factor in my mind that was telling me that this is what you're going to experience from now on. You're this individual being and you're surrounded by people that look so fake to you. So you're so alone and you're so terrified of what reality is and what it isn't. And you're also not able to recognize yourself in a mirror.

I completely lost touch with reality. You can't rely on those around you and you can't rely on what's within you. That's the most terrifying thing in the world because if you don't know what's within you, then you're lost. There's nothing there. I remember one night I woke up and I went to the bathroom, of course, still completely hallucinating.

And I could hear my mom downstairs talking to my dad. And I could hear her saying, crying, something is wrong with my baby. Something is not right. The people that I loved were all of a sudden noticing that something was wrong with me. As much as I was trying to hide this. At this point, I had to move out of my apartment. I had to quit my job. I moved out of my apartment. I moved back in with my parents. And...

She said, I will give you 14 days to try to get your stuff together. And at this point, I started to hear hail, like ice, like hail falling on the ceiling. And I would call the police. I would call my parents. I would call certain people. And there was nothing there. I was just hallucinating that something was there.

And at the same time, I knew that I was hallucinating, but I couldn't help but call for help. It's the most bizarre situation that your mind can go through is to convince you that something is there, but it's not. But you also know that it's not there. Like, it's crazy. The symptoms keep getting worse and worse. And I keep making these excuses to all of my friends and my boyfriend.

I'm such a social, like I love to socialize. I love a lot of people. I love people. All of a sudden I was afraid of my own friends. Like I was afraid of big crowds. I was afraid of people being in my room and I would always make excuses to like people, you got to go. Like you guys got to go. Like, oh, like someone's coming. Like I'm about to hook up with somebody like, you know, TMI. But in reality, I would crawl into my bed and just like freak out. Like the fact that

There are these individual identities and I can't read them and I don't know what's going on inside their heads. And it's freaking me out. Like, I feel like I'm the only like existing thing. I had my ex-boyfriend and I would tell him a little bit about it, but it's just it's you can't really describe it. You can't really describe it to other people like you can't like it's hard.

So at this point, I'm terrified to sleep in my own bedroom at my parents' house. So I'm sleeping in other rooms. I'm living from couch to couch to guest room. I have a fear of my own room. I remember thinking, oh my God, something is wrong with the world. Something is wrong with reality. Something is wrong with the universe. How is this happening to me? Something within existence, something wasn't right.

And if I'm feeling this, everybody has to be feeling this. There's no way. There's just no way.

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thinking like she's an android. And she's trying to talk to me about what's going on, like my mental illness and everything I'm going through. And I can't listen to her. I'm turning away. I'm trying to look down. I'm thinking that she's going to destroy me. And she's telling me, you need to get help. And at this time, I had...

already applied to a program to teach English in Spain. And before this happened, I was so excited. I applied to teach English in Spain. I was thrilled. I was so excited. I got accepted and this happened and it just ruined everything. My parents sat me down and they said, "We do not think it's a good idea right now to leave the country." That terrified me because it made it more real.

We talked it through and my mom said, I think you need to go get help. And I said, okay, as long as I am not hospitalized. So we went to the psychiatric hospital and I told them everything that was going on. And they said, okay, we can take you in for a certain amount of time. And so I was there for a little bit, but they had to release me because I was not, I was never a threat to myself.

And that I still stand by this day. I never wanted to take my life. I just happened to be not myself. And that sounds crazy, but I don't really know how else to describe that. They sent me to a psychiatrist, I guess like an on-base, like daily psychiatrist. We took tests, we took everything, and they diagnosed me with dissociative disorder, mild Alice in Wonderland disorder.

Derealization and Depersonalization. They told me that I probably had always had this disorder in me, but because I went through a bad trip, it brought it out a lot sooner. And that's really hard to hear. Like, you know? Like, that's really, like... It's like you've always had this disorder,

And so like, I'm not equipped to deal with that. It's like, okay, you've always had this disorder, but you know, like the fact that you smoke pot or whatever, like this brought this out. It's crazy because I lived a life of like, not knowing what mental illness was. It's like being thrown into like this whirlwind of six months of like hallucinations, like derealization, depersonalization, like not even knowing like what your reflection looks like.

And so I somehow recovered by like the attacks weren't as strong because I was on a lot of medication. And so I wasn't having as like severe panic attacks, like anxiety attacks, identity attacks, because that's a real thing. You have these identity attacks of being in your body.

I know that like this is a body and I'm supposed to be in it, but it's not my body. And I still feel that to this day. It's been about four years and I still feel like this is not my body, even though this was my body. It wasn't my body for about six to eight months and it's not my body. And I'm supposed to deal with the fact that this was my body. Like it's crazy. It's so crazy.

When I went to the psychiatrist, they told me that derealization is when your mind can't really comprehend what's around you, your surroundings. When you suffer from derealization, depersonalization, your mind has gone through something very traumatic. So your mind tries to escape. Your mind goes into hiding and this other false mind comes out.

and what you're viewing is a very distorted reality. It was just like hell. It was like six months of hell. Like from someone that like didn't know what was happening. I thought my life was over. I don't think my life will ever be the same. I don't think it will. I think I'm in a place where I know what I went through. I know that I'll have this for the rest of my life, but I know how to deal with it. And that's like the most important.

And that's like what I want to tell people that like have this like that anyone that has ever suffered through the realization depersonalization like I know it's terrifying. It's so scary, but you can survive this like you can't. I reached a point during this where this is not going to be me. This is not going to affect me. I'm going to fight through this. I'm going to look for every way possible to get out of this.

And it sounds crazy, but I picked up on video games. I picked up on a PlayStation 4. I bought a Nintendo and I started to game like hardcore because I actually read that that was like a major way to get out of it. I was lucky enough to like have time off work, you know, to take off because of this. And I would play for like nine hours straight, like for just my mind, like concentrated and

Literally, within a week, I realized I was getting out of it. I was like, my vision is not blurry. My perceptions are getting back in track. I feel like I'm actually coming out of this. That's how it happened. I just became a big gamer. That's what saved my life.

The thing about video games was your mind is just constantly busy. You are distracted and you're worrying about something else. So when you complete the puzzle, when you complete the temple, your mind is not there. You're not worrying about your dissociation. You're not worrying about your derealization. I think another thing that really helped was moving to Spain.

My parents sat me down and they told me they don't they didn't think it was a good idea to move to Spain. But I just decided to move anyways. I remember being at the airport and thinking my arms did not belong to my body. And I remember having like these crazy attacks. And I still was so adamant on moving to Spain. And on the airplane, everything I would have these like these hallucinations. I was I was still having them.

my fingers, like my toes, like everything just felt completely off. But I still wanted to do this. I was not going to let this affect me. I moved to Madrid and I was there for three years. My first year, I would have these episodes of walking down the street and I would look at my right arm and it didn't feel like it was a part of my body. And I would look at my left arm and it didn't feel like it was a part of my body. But I knew that

that I was still gravitating towards like this area of recovery because I went from going 24/7 to about three days a week. Three days a week to one day a week. One day a week to an hour a week of like feeling like my limbs, like my face, like all of the stuff like was not a part of me. I went from like fully thinking that to like fully integrating back into my own body.

It's like, I don't know. I just, it was like pure hell. It was pure hell. Two weeks before I moved to Madrid to teach English, I was working at the office and I happened to leave my Facebook logged in. And I left for the weekend and my mom logged in to the computer and she saw me.

messages that were catered to my boyfriend, that were sent to my boyfriend. And she read them and came to the conclusion that I was gay. The next day, my mom confronted me and she asked me, "Are you gay?" And I said, "Yes." And she started to cry.

But it wasn't a bad cry. It was more so the fact that we were so close and I did not tell her. And I think that's what really bothered her was the fact that a lot of my friends knew and that she did not know. And so when I was going through this mental illness, I think that's what drove her crazy as well was the fact that I did not tell her first that I was going through something very, very significant. And I think this illness that I went through

It brought us so much closer, more so than me coming out with my sexuality. Because I was such a happy kid. I was such a positive kid. I had such a positive outlook. And she could see for the first time that I was struggling, that something was wrong. It brought us so much closer. My dad is a very conservative Mexican man.

He has been the most supportive through all of this. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that everything that happened with my mental illness and with me coming out, I'm still fighting to retain who I am. You're fighting for your identity. You're literally fighting for your identity. And that's the most terrifying thing out of any mental illness, in my opinion.

Like, I've had friends that have had depression, like severe depression, and they're like, I still know who I am. And I'm like, well, that's great. Like, you still know who you are. But I had no idea who I was. I did not know what was in the mirror. I had no idea what I was looking at. I think I'm doing okay. Like, I got this job at a boarding school. It's only been about 40 days here at this boarding school, but I'm loving it so far. And you just...

You don't ever fully recover from a traumatic experience. You learn how to live through it, but you don't fully recover. I know what I went through and it changed me forever. And I know that I'm going to have moments in my life where I'm going to have identity crisis and I'm going to have moments where I don't know who I am. And that's fine. Like I've learned to live with that.

I think of my life, like, before this happened, and how happy I was, and I have those memories which are great. But I'm... It's like, your life is never gonna be the same. That's okay. Like, it's okay. It really is okay. Like, I've learned to live with it. I can't go back because I know...

what life was before that. And it was a life of... Everything was so simple. You did not know what identity was. You would look in a mirror and you wouldn't question that. You would not question anything that was 2D, 3D. You would not question that. And all of a sudden, you're questioning the shape of stuff. It's a matter of questioning everything.

And once that's broken, it's done. It's like you've breached that realm of like normal. And once you've done it, you can't go back. And that's okay. It's okay.

I have been able to tell more people about what I went through. I just told my friends, hey, remember that time when you probably thought I was being rude? In reality, I was probably having a very, very, very bad mental breakdown. And I've received like the most respect. I've received such comfort.

It makes me wonder why I did not come out with this in the first place because I thought the moment everything started to happen, it was such a domino effect that I thought the ending was going to be me being hospitalized. I mean, you can't really tell people you think your mom is a robot and you don't expect to be hospitalized. They still accept me to this day and I wish that I didn't feel that pressure.

I have deviated so far from reality that the most that I want right now is just reality. I want like the most normal thing. I don't even drink anymore. Like I don't do anything like

For everyone, it's so much different. But for me, I think the fact that I deviated so far from reality, I just don't want to go as far as I did. I want to stay as the most minimalistic, the most minuscule, the most routine everything. And that sucks because when I was younger, I had such an adventurous mind. I wanted to question everything.

I wanted to do all of these things. And now I just want to remain as grounded as possible. I hope to reach a point in my life where I don't think of this moment in my life because this moment in my life really shaped who I am right now. But because it was so traumatic, I hope that at one point later on in life, I forget about it.

I think that's one of the biggest moments of moving beyond something, moving past something, is that it shaped your life for the better because you dealt with it. But that part of my life is over and I will remember it, but it's beyond me. This Is Actually Happening is brought to you by me, Witt Misseldein.

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Scammers are best known for living the high life until they're forced to trade it all in for handcuffs and an orange jumpsuit once they're finally caught. I'm Sachi Cole. And I'm Sarah Hagee. And we're the host of Scamfluencers, a weekly podcast from Wondery that takes you along the twists and turns of some of the most infamous scams of all time, the impact on victims, and what's left once the facade falls away.

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