222: What if you were a stranger in your own home?
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This Is Actually Happening features real experiences that often include traumatic events. Please consult the show notes for specific content warnings on each episode and for more information about support services. When the thing that you fear the most happens, you learn that there's nothing you can do to prevent it. And if life is so fragile, that can come to you anytime, any day, in any place. From Wondery, I'm Witt Misseldein.

You are listening to This Is Actually Happening. Episode 222. What if you were a stranger in your own home?

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My name is Guillermo. I live in Mexico City. I have always lived in Mexico City. And my family is formed by my father, my mother, my sister, and me. My parents divorced at a very early age. So for me, that sense of the picture-perfect family, for me, it's something that is not normal at all.

No one took the time to explain to my sister and I what was happening. It was like this big puzzle and we have to find all these pieces and just put it all together. The first one that started dating was my mother and she started to date different types of men and the men were aggressive

So it was very used to watch the fights between them and even have to pretend that that was normal. We have to pretend that everything was okay. So we were teach very early to behave very well around these people that they are not members in our family, but they are very close. And it was very usual not being comfortable in any house.

Not in my mother's house, not in my father's house. My father, on the other hand, he met a woman and it was very nice at first and I actually liked her pretty much. But through the years, she started behaving in a very odd way.

It was like her personality changed completely at the point that it was almost unrecognizable. Like even her eyes, her eyes were almost like devil eyes. Like it lacked soul, it lacked kindness.

It was very usual that she was laid down all day in a dark room with the door open and we have just to go tiptoeing through the house because we don't want to upset her. We didn't know that she had borderline personality disorder.

That borderline personality disorder increased and it turned to chaos. She became very unpredictable, aggressive. Anything triggered that behavior of hers. I remember thinking, "Why my father doesn't do anything to stop this woman to act that way?"

The last couple of months before the borderline personality disorder was at her worst, my sister and I have to lock ourselves in our room because it was very unpredictable. You don't know if you're going to wake up with a woman that is very charming and lovely or you are going to wake up to a woman that is very aggressive and hostile and very angry at the world.

It was years and months of living in constant fear. She started to get physical and actually it was just one event when she slapped my sister and that was it. My sister and I had to talk to my father and said, we are not going to live here in this context, in this house, because we don't feel safe anymore.

If I was thinking more like, oh, she's evil and she's like a bad stepmother and that's the story, end. But it wasn't like that. Like, I really know that deep in her heart, it was just like this person struggling with her own mental health. You want to help, but you cannot help so much.

The solution was that she wasn't lived with us anymore and it feel almost selfish to say something like "Oh, this person have a mental problem. I don't want her to live in our own house." But at the same time, it was almost like I don't even feel safe anymore around her.

So it was a very hard process because I really love this woman. Someone that helped me grow. She listened to me when I needed and seeing with your own eyes how she transformed to another person, this sad person, angry person, to the point that she even looked dangerous to be around. It was a harsh reality.

Like you learn in the movies, like love can conquer all. She's surrounded by love. She have a husband. She have us. She's surrounded by love. But mental health doesn't care about that. It doesn't care about that.

I start to learn that not everything is black and white. Like there's not evil people and good people. Maybe there are people like they try to be good, but there's something inside of them that don't let them be good or don't let them be happy.

I felt this guilt and I want to even apologize to her just to say something like, I know you're struggling. But instead of that, what happened was that she needs to leave the house and needs to leave the family. It feels almost like the message. It was like, if you have a mental problem, you cannot be part of this family. And that is something that is eating me inside.

I keep living through the years like I was in a house that it was not my own. Like actually the guest was me and I feel like my voice wasn't being heard. I really love how complex the mind is, how in the mind can live two different ideas that are opposite, but in your own mind you process it in a way that it makes sense to you, but it doesn't make sense to anyone else around you.

Because when I'm 18, I meet my boyfriend. And I remember when my boyfriend asked me for my phone, I thought, oh, I'm not gay. I like this guy, but I'm not gay. I'm actually not gay. I have a boyfriend, but I'm not gay. Like, I remember having that thought.

Sometimes the mind is not ready to handle some kind of information. You just simply avoid the thoughts that causes you anxiety. And the thought of being gay, all the problems in the house was already too much just to have my own type of problems. So I just put it on hold.

Being gay, it feels since the beginning of your realization that you're gay, that you're like an outsider. I was very lucky that in my own house and with my family, even if it's going to be a struggle, at the end they are going to accept that. And I started thinking, "Oh, once that I'm out, I'm going to be the full version of myself."

I'm right now 29 years old and since 18 I'm out of the closet. And I'm still not comfortable being surrounded by people, letting my guard down. And I'm always checking myself and thinking that I have to act like someone that I am not really am.

So it's almost like every time you are taking this huge amount of energy, try not to be very vulnerable. So I always feel like an outsider. It's like almost like you are not able to feel comfortable because if you're comfortable, you will let your true self be out. So I am not able to relax when I'm surrounded by other people that it's not my family.

but my boyfriend showed me another kind of stability that I have never knew in my life before. So I found security in him and I knew that I can build a family totally different than the one that I lived since I was born. And it felt like I was the protagonist of my life for the first time. Between 18 years old and 24 years old, I start college.

And I discovered that having a career gives you focus and gives you meaning. And it's a big part of my identity. My family started to learn that I am a person of my own. And I think for my family it became very strange when I started to say no.

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This Is Actually Happening is sponsored by ADT. ADT knows a lot can happen in a second. One second, you're happily single. And the next second, you catch a glimpse of someone and you don't want to be. Maybe one second, you have a business idea that seems like a pipe dream. And the next, you have an LLC and a dream come true. And when it comes to your home, one second, you feel safe,

and the next something goes wrong. But with ADT's 24/7 professional monitoring, you still feel safe. Because when every second counts, count on ADT. Visit ADT.com today. So it was 2016. It was September. And I remember in that time of my life, I was single because my boyfriend and I decided to be on a break, on a big break.

It was that time of your life that you have to put everything on perspective and you learn how to be alone and to know yourself even more. So I was living with my father and I was living with my sister. And it was this weekend, I decided to go out with a couple of friends and it was late at night. It was, I remember, three in the morning. I returned to my home. Everyone was asleep and I go to my bedroom and fall asleep.

At 9 a.m., I heard someone crying. It was my sister crying. And then I hear doors opening and closing and footsteps and a lot of chaos. And I was like, it's Sunday in the morning. What on earth could be happening right now? When the crying starts to becoming louder and louder, that's when I say I have to leave my room. So I just opened the door and I went to the bathroom.

And I remember seeing my father and my sister standing inside the bathroom looking at the floor. And in the floor there was a naked body covered just with a towel. And I remember not being able to see the face, but I remember to see the legs. And the legs were very white, like the whitest legs you've ever seen. And it was just like meat, like actually it was like raw meat.

So I just tried not to look very much at the body because it was almost unrecognizable. It was almost feel like a body, a mannequin. It was almost like this blank canvas. It almost feel like it was an accident that this body was in the floor. Like if someone has mistaken this situation and put it in the wrong house, like someone copy and pasted in another place.

Because I was waking up, I was only wearing boxers and a sleeveless shirt. So the vulnerability, it was very raw emotionally, but physically too. My sister was screaming, crying very loud. And I said very quietly, who is that person? And he told me, is Daniela the friend of your sister? And my sister was like outside of her mind.

Daniela is one of my sister's best friends and my sister asked Daniela to stay to sleep over to our house, but I was not aware of that. When my father told me the person that is lying is Daniela, I remember, does her parents know what is happening? Why aren't they here? And why is a bottle of vodka and a knife in the counter in the bathroom?

And I remember watching that vodka and that knife and it was almost like waking up in a different reality. Why is a bottle of vodka if nobody in this house drinks very much? I was like trying to figure out if that element, the vodka and the knife, had something to do with that person lying on the ground.

My mind started to putting a story together. It was very puzzling. It was almost like joining a cinema when the movie already start. Very confusing sensation and your mind is working like a thousand miles per hour. Like I want answers but nobody was there just to answer why is this girl laying dead in the bathroom floor.

And I don't even know what do I have to do in this story. I was like in the wrong place at the wrong time, but the wrong place was my house.

You feel like you're in a familiar situation, like in a familiar environment. This is your house. This is the place where you take baths, where you brush your teeth. But at the same time, you realize that death can go inside your home and you're not even aware of that.

It's like, I don't want to say an entity, but it's almost like this presence, like it arrives, it took the life of someone and they leave this trace or this presence. You start to look in this place with different eyes, like, oh, this is a bathroom, my bathroom. But at the same time, it's a place when someone loses their lives.

Everyone in that room knew that Daniela was dead even before the paramedics arrived. Because like the body was empty. Like you can feel the way she was laying on the ground. You know that there is this crossing line.

I'm a true crime fan, so I binge watch every crime series that have ever existed. So I pretty quickly know that we were in trouble. This is the new reality. This is the problem that we get in, but we cannot predict when we are going to get out.

I hear outside my house an ambulance. The ambulance arrives and the medics and the paramedics, they just grab the body and they just pull it on the floor like it was furniture. They start to move it like it was furniture. And they take it outside the bathroom, they put it in the hall, and they look at each other like we cannot do anything.

because I say, "Do something." And they shout at me and said, "This is not like the movies. There's nothing we can be done right now. This is it. She's dead." That is the only moment that I started freaking out. I was like, "No, this is not possible. This is not possible." My father told me, "Relax." And I was like, "Okay, I have to relax." I am not being helpful.

And I remember saying to the paramedics, don't leave. I'm going to call the police, but I'm going to ask you, please don't leave because I want you to tell them the thing you already told me, that you cannot do anything for this girl.

The policeman arrived to the house in a couple of minutes. The thing that I remember the most is that they start to look at me very weird. Like they thought that I was guilty, but I don't know if that was my mind because we haven't had answers. It's a weird feeling, but it was almost like shame. Like when we were little kids and we do something wrong, we are like ashamed, like someone is going to be angry at me.

And when I was in that situation, I felt the same feeling. I was like, I know I didn't do something bad, but at the same time, my life is going to change forever. The father of Daniela was the one that came first. He laid face to face to the body of his daughter and he stayed late crying and everyone just went quiet and just watched all this scene. And I think everyone was expecting rage.

And I remember looking through the door and watching a guy at the same age as me, like 24 years old, walking to the apartment through the open door, watching the body. That was the time that I started becoming angry. Who is this person and why is he here? And she was like, oh, he's the best friend of Daniela. This is the most inappropriate moment in the world just to be receiving guests

The third person to arrive was the mother of Daniela. She is the one that has all the rage. I remember a red face and these eyes, almost like the jaw was like clutched. It was like a bomb, like it's going to explode. And she arrived with the sister of Daniela. And she was the one that cried the loudest. You can feel the sense of impotence, like frustration, like almost like that it cannot be controlled.

The police start to question my sister in a very aggressive way, very aggressive. "How can this happen? Why is a vodka in there? What is this knife?" And I remember being my sister and handle everything in a very graceful manner. Daniela went to take a shower. My sister was waiting to Daniela to finish the shower, but it take it so long.

She heard in the bathroom someone trying to breathe. The minutes passed, my sister started knocking the door to check if Daniela is okay. Nobody answers. Then she go for a knife and she tried to unlock the bathroom with a knife. She saw Daniela laying in the shower, like sitting because she like slowly fainted.

She went with my father and told him "help me" to drag the body outside the shower and lay it on the floor. In that moment my sister go for a bottle of vodka and put it underneath the nose of Daniela just to try to make her recover her senses. I think my sister tried like mouth-to-mouth respiration

At that moment, like the police understand that it was an accident, but they have to call the ones that check the body just to make sure that everything that my sister said was true. So it arrived a person that inspects the body of Daniella. One of the weirdest days of my life. The way it started, it was pretty weird, but at the same time they start adding layers of weirdness.

But nobody was the one to say, "This is a sacred moment." It was very chaotic. I don't know, I keep thinking what Daniela would want. The other person that arrived to my house was the brother of Daniela. And he actually arrived to the apartment, he was like, feeling very loud, very explicit about his anger. He was the one that was very physical. And he started to banging the walls.

He didn't ask for permission to do it. Like the family adopted the house like this horrible place where my sister, my daughter died. So at that moment, I knew and I understand that my house stopped being my house and it become this place where a tragedy is happening. This is not longer belong to me.

The worst guest was the grandparents. When they came through the door, I remember hearing the grandmother screaming, "My little princess!" Like I felt my heart breaking. I don't want to be here. Like I feel like I was the one that didn't belong in here. My needs wasn't important at all. Like the main things that any human can have are not welcome in here.

I remember they started taking pictures of my bedroom, the bathroom, the bedroom of my sister and we started hearing that the reason of Daniela's death was suffocation. The lungs of Daniela stopped working when she was locked in that bathroom. Maybe she had like a medical precondition because we all have showered in that bathroom and we were fine. How did she suffocate?

I was like, why the body is taking so long to be removed? I discovered that the reason was that the father of Daniela tried to bribe the policeman to not have the legal procedures to handle the body. He was ready to go straight to the funeral of Daniela. Like he was just like, we were not interested in open the body and find the reason of the death of Daniela. We want to skip that.

the father of Daniela have to give like $3,000 just to avoid that. So why the parents are not eager to know and to find out what truly happened to her daughter? Because the suffocation part was like a theory.

After the death of Daniela, the first time I saw my sister and I was like able to talk to her and she told to me like, well, the doctors and all the people said it was like suffocation. But I remember like Daniela have like these injections, like punctures in her leg. And Daniela wasn't clear about what was that because my sister asked to her like, what is that on your leg? And she was like, oh, it's a treatment.

She was not giving a clear explanation about what was that marks on their legs. When we were with the police and when they were talking about the reasons of Daniela's death, my sister said, I remember Daniela having two marks on her leg. And I remember the father, he said, no, no, no, that is not it.

It was like the lack of curiosity about the death of her daughter. Why are they shutting down possibilities so fast? What do you know? What are you not sharing with us? Why it feels like we, like my family, are more eager to know what happened to your daughter than you? Why your wife seems so angry?

I almost feel like that sensation that the mother had this feeling of this could have been prevented. That angry in her eyes and that jaw clutching, almost like she was wanting to say, I told you so.

and i remember a particular conversation of the father of daniela and a policeman and he said to them almost like snapping oh she is not my daughter anymore she is just like an empty shell and i remember the policeman trying to be polite but saying oh don't say that it's not a shell it's your daughter and he was like no my daughter is no longer in that body

That word, like "shell", it rang a bell to me, like that sounds weird. Nobody described his daughter using that word, like your daughter died a couple of hours ago and for you it's already a shell. So they removed the body of Daniela and that was it. And as fast as they started, they leave.

The first thing that I wanted to do was like mopping the floor where the body of Daniela was lying. I actually got a mop and tried to clean the floor. It wasn't that the floor was dirty, but it was almost the feeling that I want to clean the dead away. You know, remember my father said, "Okay, so we have to go to the funeral later today." And I said like, "Today's the funeral?" And he said, "Yes."

And I was like: "She died this morning, why the family have this urgency? They don't want to find out what happened to her daughter and they already went to the funeral today, this afternoon." And my father said: "We have to go because it will be weird if we don't go." So I have to take a shower in the place where Daniela died. This is weird. And the funeral was as awkward as any funeral there is.

The first nights that I spent in that apartment, it felt very weird and very lonely. There was no way that you can tell that someone died in here. And that felt even more like when you're gone, you're gone and that's it. And that is like a painful reality.

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We figure out without an autopsy that the main reason of the death of Daniela was that she went to the bathroom, took a shower, but she locked the door, she closed the window, and the heater, the water heater, was inside the bathroom. So it becomes like a gas chamber.

There was no fresh air, there was like this hot water, there was like the gas that this heater was exuding, and she just suffocated. I really tried to stop thinking about any more reasons for her death, because I think it was like an accident.

I even think my father had this guilt that maybe if we were all aware of the dangers of having the water heater inside the bathroom, maybe we can avoid that tragedy. I think we as humans, we try to find an answer. We like to play these detectives.

But when I start to bring all the puzzle together, all the pieces, hearing about that this girl have marks on the leg, watching how the dad bribed the policeman just to avoid the autopsy, seeing this mother of this girl enraged,

It was like almost you want to find an answer, a complicated one. But at the end of the day, when you just realize that it was not about being interesting or solving a mystery, it was just like sometimes life did not give us a clear reason. That girl took a shower and didn't leave that shower alive. And there's no clear explanation. There is no reason why.

One of the things that was very impactful for me is that the days after that accident, I actually want to speak to my father like, "What happened in this house?"

And I remember his attitude being almost like "Oh, it was very random and that's it." And he was refusing to accept any type of responsibility. And that was like a reflection of how our relationship is in all of our life.

Through the years, I discovered that my dad is almost like he forgot to be a father. I don't know if he's scared or maybe it's too much for him. He did not want that responsibility of taking care of someone. And I had to become the parent figure in my house. Like I have to put the rules and I have to be the one to take care of the safety of everyone because he's like almost like it's not my responsibility.

I try to avoid to feel angry to him because I know that nobody teaches parents to be parents.

But I hate to be the one in my house that is the most angry all the time. Why the stove is on flames or why the door is not locked. And I try not to be resentful to my father because his approach as a parent is more like, I don't want my own daughter and son to hate me. So I try to be like this cool father. But doing that,

He lived to me the part of being like this parent to set the rules, to be angry,

I'm sure people will say you're crazy. If your father is cool, just be grateful. But there's sometimes that we really need that our parents to behave like a parent. Don't worry, I'm going to protect you and we are going to overcome the situation and this is what we are going to do. Because reflecting on that day, my father, it was almost like this absent figure and we as daughter and son have to take charge in our own way.

home. Weeks later, the family returned to my home with a candle and they said a prayer in the place where Daniela died. My house right now is like this sanctuary and they were like saying goodbye to Daniela in the last place where she was alive. One of the things that confused me the most is that the family of this girl joined, it was like a cult, it was like a pyramid scheme,

They recruit a lot of people and you have to escalate to different courses and different levels. There are activities that they do to make you vulnerable and they make you to share your more intimate beliefs with a group just to break you. They try to break you. Like, what are your worst feelings? Why do you think you are not excelling in life?

They try to get you to your most vulnerable state just to try to make you feel in this euphoria state and this hyper alert way that when you finish that weekend, you feel transformed. This group have like this secret language. They say hi to each other with the hand making a four finger gesture. And they say phrases like, I give you my four.

that means I embrace you with my forelimbs, arms and my legs. And it's this code language that makes you feel like you're an outsider if you're not part of this group and feel like you're an insider if you're in this group. So my sister started going to these meetings and I was angry that my sister was being manipulated by this group because I know this is an expensive weekend.

I really feared that maybe I was losing my sister, not by death, but by other people that maybe were trying to use tragedy just to fill their pockets.

And when I find that there were part of that group, they become almost evil for me. Like this person are avoiding the critical thinking, saying phrases like, oh, everything happened for a reason. It was like almost they didn't want to find out more about what happened. But at the end of the day, like I think if this group, if they help this family to overcome this tragedy, maybe that was the main point

Maybe they have like this huge lust in their hearts or in their souls. What they really need was to avoid the critical thinking. They were just looking for a group that tells them: "Don't think very much. Everything happened for a reason. Please stop looking for answers and just, I don't know, live your life and the life of your daughter. It was meant to be very short."

So I'm against these type of groups and cults. But at the same time, I find that I was trying to look for a complex answer. And the answer, the many theories that I have, like this cult, or maybe the dad trying to protect the family secret, maybe none of that were true. And it was just a family trying to deal with the loss of the daughter.

naive in question, maybe that is the right way to face life. Not to make questions and just to make peace with the events that happen to you and your family. Here in Mexico City, it's very common that there are earthquakes a lot of the time. And there is an alarm that you can hear on the streets. And when you hear that alarm, you know that there is going to come an earthquake.

And when I hear that alarm, I experiment two types of feelings. First, I am fearful, but at the same time, when the earthquake is happening, you have no control in that. You cannot let go and you just watch your stuff being shattered and you just sit and wait till the earthquake ends.

All my life I tried to prevent that something bad happened in my house. Like the house is sacred, that is the place where you live and where you live the best moments of your life. And when this thing happens, when the thing that you fear the most happens, you learn that there's nothing you can do to prevent it. And if life is so fragile, that can come to you anytime, any day, in any place.

One of the biggest lies that I told myself was that this event didn't change me. But this is the story that I remember the most of all my life. This is the one that I keep returning and trying to make it sense of this. I cannot let go of this story.

I discovered that I am more selfish than I was aware of. I remember the first thing that I keep thinking is like, "Oh, maybe my life is going to be over. Maybe people are going to start gossiping about me being involved." Or even the lack of tears. Like, I remember not crying even once.

And it's almost like you start to question yourself like, why I'm not sad? Why I'm not crying? Why I'm only thinking about myself?

It's hard because we like to think ourselves as trying to help others. And yes, I tried to help as much as I could in that situation. But at the same time, I remember thinking, I want to go to the bathroom or I am thirsty or why is all these people in my house? It was very selfish feelings. And I don't really think it was because I'm a bad person, but it was because of the complexity of human behavior.

And even I'm thinking, the family of this girl, maybe they think that the weird one is me. Maybe I was acting as weird as them. Nobody likes to confess that they are thinking selfish thoughts when they're facing the death of someone. It's hard, but at the same time it's almost like discovering a new part of ourselves and

I'm trying actively to learn how to be less selfish and just try to be more empathic, not judge. And really, truly, when I ask what do you need, how can I help, to respect how other people behave without judging them or without trying to search for a conclusion and just accept the situation as it is.

I lived that day as one of the days that I will never forget and I started to share it with people. One of the responses were like, "Oh, I'm so sorry that you have to live that and I'm so sorry for that girl."

And that hit me because I was like, I am not telling this story like in a way that it was like a grieving story. I started to telling this story as a mysterious case or a mysterious story. And I forgot that I was talking about someone dying. I have to accept in a weird way, but like I was so concerned about, oh, I'm not being guilty or their family being guilty or the situation was so weird.

And I forgot that day, that was for me weird, it was the end of the life of someone. When the apartment was filled with people, filled with policemen, filled with doctors, family members of this girl, my sister, me, my father, in a very bad moment, he told me, how bad that this happened because you loved your privacy. You should, must be struggling because this is like your worst nightmare.

I don't know if it was in my face or it was in my attitude, but it was almost like someone died and my father was more concerned that I was even annoyed that my privacy was being invaded. They knew that all my life is like this struggle.

Home, my home and a house, it represents physically the limits of privacy or protection. And I think it's reflective feeling that since I was a child and through my childhood and my adolescence, I keep facing these situations like the divorce of my parents or my stepmother having borderline, like there was something happening that disrupt the privacy of my life and the security of my home.

So, living this all in one day, in a couple of hours, it was almost like a metaphor. This day, in a couple of hours, I live all these feelings that I have felt through all my life. That is, I'm not feeling secure in my own home. That weird day that we live, this reassures me that your home and anybody's home, it's not a safe place just because it's your home.

There's nothing special about our home. It's just a place, a regular place and anything can happen in our home. It's not like you expect that to happen, but it happened and it's almost reassuring. Like I knew that my house wasn't special. I knew that my house was a place that something horrible could happen.

I start to understand that as romantic as it sounds, home and your house is inside you. I try to let go of control. So I do not have to rely at my home as being my secure place. My secure place have to be another place. And I started thinking, actually, our home is our own minds. Maybe that is the one thing that I can call home.

Today's episode featured Guillermo. You can find out more about him on Instagram at GuillermoRSS. That's at G-U-I-L-L-E-R-M-O-R-S-S. I also want to say thanks to Andrew Waits for his work on this episode and for his collaboration on the show over the last few years. And a special thanks as well to Ellie Westberg and Hilary Bergman for their help on this episode and their ongoing and valuable support. Thank you.

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I'm your host, Witt Misseldein. Today's episode was co-produced by me and Andrew Waits, with special thanks to the This Is Actually Happening team, including Ellen Westberg. The intro music features the song Illabi by Tipper. You can join the community on the This Is Actually Happening discussion group on Facebook, or follow us on Instagram at actuallyhappening.

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