Transcript of Armchair Anonymous: Bad Roommate II New

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dax Shepard. I'm joined by Monica Padman.

Hi.

Today we have Bad Roommates Part 2. Tell us a crazy story about a bad roommate.

They're everywhere, these bad roommates. You got to be careful.

You got to be careful. What I applaud and what we loved was one of our armchairies was the bad roommate.

Oh, I know.

Yeah, that was great.

That was—

I really like that. When we have these— people, you know, we do a lot of foreign objects in body, and I'd like to do way more of them.

Sure.

Um, but I wouldn't— I really want to hear from someone who had the foreign object in their body. I know that's high risk, but I feel like this is a safe place.

It's high risk, low reward.

Sure.

Um, but we want it.

We still want it.

No reward, maybe. Please enjoy Bad Roommate. Hard times come and go. Good times, take them slow. My life, I had them both. But one thing you gotta know, I'ma keep on shining. Hello. Oh, there she be.

Hi.

Is this Alyssa?

This is Alyssa.

Okay. Your hair looks phenomenal.

It really does. I just got really self-conscious.

Oh, you did? Because it looks so good.

Yeah.

Your hair looks great too.

No, it's like not good today.

No, it's good.

Don't look at it. You both look great.

Alyssa, where are you?

I'm in Sandpoint, Idaho.

Ooh, Sandpoint, Idaho. What's the biggest city close?

Spokane, Washington is 30 minutes. The Upper Panhandle, I'm like an hour from Canada.

Wow, you're close to a lot of things.

Close to bountiful.

Yes, I'm close to Montana, Washington, Canada. I don't know if you're familiar with Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.

Sure, yeah, I'm a member of many white nationalist groups that meet.

Oh, wonderful.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we have a couple annual Rides that I attend.

Uh, maybe that's your bad roommate story.

Could be.

Oh no.

Are you from there or did you move there?

I'm from here. Yeah, I've lived in various other places, but I recently, 3 years ago, moved back home and I met my now partner, father of my child, soon to be husband.

Wonderful. Okay, so where does your bad roommate story take place?

In Spokane, actually. So there is kind of a series of stories about this person leading up to this one story that was kind of like the final straw for me. So this takes place in 2016. I was 23 at the time. I had just moved home from Portland, Oregon. I was living with my parents, and I was desperate to not be living with my parents anymore. To give some context, this was a phase in my life. I had a whole head of dreadlocks. I was vegan.

Oh, fun!

Were you like a Portland street kid? Were you like rolling around in the dirt with the dreads?

If this gives any context, the people that I hung out with were the type of people that played the didgeridoo and did hula hoop dancing and fire staff dancing.

The didgeridoo?

What is this?

It's like a hybrid. You know, it's the weird doo doo doo goofy—

I honestly don't know.

It's like a big thing that you blow into and it's like tribal.

Oh, this sounds like some weird hybrid of like Rensen folks and carnival people and Grateful Dead all mashed into A very politically charged city, Portland.

It was a very interesting season in my life and I was in like my whole wellness journey. So I was taking shots of apple cider vinegar every morning and that will come into play later on in the story.

Okay, right.

Very health conscious, very natural, very crunchy. So I had moved back to my parents' house, which is in Idaho, but I had a whole friend group in Spokane, only like 30 minutes away. Started dating this guy and obviously we had like a mutual friend group and there was a girl who was moving out of her house she was gonna go travel and she was looking for someone to take over her lease and her room, and I was going to inherit her roommate. So we seemed like we had enough in common. This is gonna be great, you know? She seemed like a cool girl. We had hung out a couple times. Very quickly, I noticed this person was kind of lacking social cues, the ability to kind of understand etiquette, especially when it comes to roommates. The first thing that kind of was a red flag for me I had just moved in and my friends were helping me and we were going to go get some lunch. So we invited her, my new roommate, to come with us. She had asked to borrow a cardigan. I told her, go ahead, grab one from my closet.

And she ended up grabbing my favorite vintage thrifted cashmere cardigan. Oh my God. That's fine. I'm happy to share.

I want to confirm the red flag, which is you just met the person. You're like, hey, I need to borrow— you already live there. Like, if a dude moved into my house, I was like, hey, I need to borrow a leather jacket. That's Strange.

Girls do borrow clothes.

I mean, one thing if she was visiting your house and got chilly, but she's next to her own closet.

I know, but like girls do that.

I want your clothes.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yes.

I don't have your clothes.

Can I have them?

So she grabbed a cardigan. We're walking and she actually worked at this pub restaurant that we were walking to. And as we're walking there, it's June in Spokane. It's kind of chilly, kind of warm. It's warming up throughout the day. We're walking and she goes, "Oh, it's getting hot," and she takes my cardigan off and she looks at me as she says this and wipes her armpits with my cardigan.

No! Oh wow, she's savage.

And me and my friend looked at each other, we were like, "What? Who does that?" You know, like maybe in private, right? Like if I wasn't looking, like maybe a quick— but looks me in my eyes and wipes her sweaty armpits with my cardigan.

What color was it? I'm so sorry, I know It was like a creamy tan.

Cute.

Okay, flush, no yellow. Yeah, and white with hopefully deodorant paste.

I don't think she wore deodorant.

Yeah, well, we were crunchy. Oh yeah, that's not healthy.

Yeah, it's not healthy.

It's very dangerous.

We then get to the restaurant. She works there, so she gets a discount, and her manager was our server, and she ended up ordering garlic bread, you know, just a side. And our tabs come, and she asks if anybody has any change, and my friend Chelsea gives her wallet, and she proceeds to take out every piece of change besides the pennies and pays for her entire tab with Chelsea's change.

What? Doesn't leave a tip.

Wow.

So again, we're like, okay, these two things have happened in the span of 2 hours. These are red flags. I should have known, but I stayed in the house. I gave it my best shot. There was another time I came home, had been drinking and partying all night, came home early around like 7 or 8, and my mattress had been pulled out of my room and onto the living room floor, and she was having like sleepover on my mattress. Oh, I didn't have like a mattress to go sleep on.

What the fuck?

With one of her pals or her and a pal?

Like a bunch of friends.

Oh, she hosted.

Some girlfriends, some guy friends. She would eat my leftovers, you know, like I would bring home leftovers from a restaurant. She would eat it, which I think is just kind of odd. This gives some context as to what I'm dealing with. And the straw that broke the camel's back was when I came home one day after working. We had been living together maybe like 3 months at this point. We both had cats. My cat was mostly an indoor cat. He only really went outside with me. And when I had gotten home, I had noticed that the screen door was open and my cat was gone. And so I go to find my roommate and she's sitting on the couch and I ask her, you know, like, where's Jasper? Have you seen him? And she's like, oh yeah, he got ran up a tree by the neighbor's dogs. He's totally fine. I'm sure he'll come back soon. I'm mad at this point.

Yeah.

And I neglect to notice that she has her hands down her pants.

Oh my God.

Oh my goodness.

When I noticed this, after I've kind of like, okay, whatever, my cat will come back. I go, what's wrong? And it's then that I see my bottle of apple cider vinegar sitting on the floor open. And she looks at me and she has this kind of look on her face. Like her eyebrows are scrunched and she goes, ah, and takes her hands out of her pants, has a rag on her hand, puts said rag on the rim of my apple cider vinegar, flips the bottle upside down, then proceeds to put the rag back on her pants as she says, I think I have hemorrhoids.

Oh!

Or even worse— I thought she was on her vagina for something but she's at her rectum.

Yeah.

Oh, I thought she was masturbating.

Oh my God. Well sure first okay?

Okay.

And she's using both hands or whatever on her butthole. She was applying from the lip of the container. Ew! I'm surprised you didn't just put the container up to angry.

Also, how many times has she done that, right?

And you know, that's funny because I was just telling my partner the story yesterday and he goes, well, hemorrhoids don't just like pop up. Has she been treating her hemorrhoids this way with your bottle of apple cider vinegar like previously?

Exactly.

And you've been drinking it.

So yeah, so there's a chance that I have consumed her hemorrhoid insurance.

It doesn't matter, but I definitely need to somewhat of a visual.

Yeah, you want to know if she's cute or not.

Like, is she normal looking or does she look insane?

Totally normal looking. Definitely a stereotype. Like, you would look at her and go, okay, like, I can kind of guess maybe what she does in her free time. I think at this phase in her life she is a part of a circus, if that gives any—

an actual circus, or that's a term for like a sex cult? Okay, it's not like— oh, okay. And what was her talent? Hemorrhoids?

She had these like fans that had fireballs, you know, she would like dance.

Okay, so hold on. It's possible if I can make my best case for her, she might have like an extremely high arousal setting. Like she's just dead if she doesn't juggle fire or fucking push these social boundaries. Like she's dying inside if she doesn't rattle herself with all this absurdity.

It just seemed like she was so comfortable in her own skin that she wasn't fazed by anything. She had this glass dildo. We would have house parties and her dildo was just always next to her bed with like a bottle of coconut oil and she wouldn't like put it away, you know, like she just didn't care.

Yeah.

And props to her for that. I need some space, right?

Oh, how did you end this? Well, first of all, did your cat get retrieved? Was it in a tree?

To be honest with you, I don't even remember what happened after this. I just blacked out. I have no memory of what happened with my cat. Obviously he was fine because Nothing happened to him that day. It didn't end well because I moved in with her because I wanted to not live with my parents. I went back to my parents' house to get out of this living situation.

Do you remember telling her, like, I just need to save more money? What was your excuse?

I'm not good with confrontation. I was very polite, but I did send a very, very long, I think maybe Facebook message or text message to her just explaining next time you have a roommate, maybe these are things to think about.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Constructive criticism.

Did she respond?

She did. And I don't think she was fazed by it. Again, she was kind of like, this is normal stuff. Like, what are you talking about?

Yeah, I feel bad for you. And I'm envious of her.

I'm not.

Me too.

Yeah, right.

Just like, you're—

well, because I'm riddled with thinking about what other people think about me. And clearly this—

well, there's a reason, because that, that person just repels every single person that's around.

You know what I was doing most of your story? I was very paying attention and dialed in, but also I was making a lot of room for envisioning you with the dreadlocks. My conclusion was you looked very cute with dreadlocks, and I'm sure you were a really fun hang. Probably coming home hammered with the dreadlocks.

It was a good run. You know, I don't think they would suit my personality now, but yeah, they were great.

No one likes them anymore for white folks, and that's fine. I accept it. But I had them myself. Tell me, isn't it the greatest hairdo? Because there's nothing to be done. That part of thinking is done.

It is great. And they always look good.

Mm-hmm.

They're not for me.

I bet you'd look pretty cool if you had dreads and then shaved the sides.

You've added that.

No, I think you could rock it.

I do.

Why, thank you.

Tiger side.

Well, I'm sorry that happened. That lady's nuts.

Yeah, I want to meet her.

I have to give a quick shout out. I promised her I would. My friend Sarah, she's my childhood best friend. She got me into Armchair Expert, Armchair Anonymous. Shout out to Sarah. Shout out.

We love Sarah. Thank you, Sarah, for proselytizing.

Keep it up.

You're in an MLM and you have whatever they're called below you. I don't know.

Oh yeah, she's talking with you.

All right, well, congratulations on the baby and the marriage, and I'm so happy for you, and it's lovely to meet you.

Thank you, lovely to meet you guys.

All right, take care. Are you a Max Verstappen fan, David?

I'm actually a Sergio fan. I don't like rooting for the front runner.

Oh, sure, that's fair.

Yeah, I always was rooting for Sergio, and I think he was never given the best opportunity.

I agree. And I think history showed that he was faster than we thought. We just didn't realize how fucking fast Max was.

Exactly.

So, David, where are you? You have a beautiful background, but that's not to say that's representative of where you live.

It actually is. It's not too far away from where I live. I'm in upstate New York, right outside Albany. But that was a fall hike in Lake George.

Oh, wow.

It's absolutely stunning.

Oh, so you took this picture?

Yes.

Wow.

Yeah. For the listener, behind David is just a gorgeous thousand acres of forest followed by a beautiful lake that seems very natural shoreline.

I had moved back here unexpectedly after not living in this area for 20 years, and I realized how much I missed being up in the mountains.

Yeah, you get reminded. Okay, so you have a crazy roommate story, and where did it take place?

It took place in Astoria, Queens. In New York City. So it was February 2006 when Craigslist was at its peak.

And what were you doing in Queens? Had you taken a job there, or were you just loitering?

I was working in Manhattan at a luxury hotel as a bell captain.

Which one?

The Westin in Times Square.

Oh, wonderful! What was the biggest tip you ever received as a bell captain?

Probably like $100. It was never anything too crazy.

Fun job! That feels fun.

Oh, it was so much fun. We had a lot of baseball teams that would stay with us, basketball teams. Got to know a lot of players. Have a lot of good stories that way as well.

Anyone check in with like a large cage and an animal?

Not that I remember.

Okay, okay.

So you're working at the hotel.

Sorry, sorry.

So met these two guys on Craigslist that were looking for a third roommate. We're in our 20s, we don't have many cares, we get along, things like that. But their friends that they grew up with live upstairs, and they've converted the dining room into a fourth bedroom. So in Queens, you have a lot of railroad style apartments. In our 20s, we had no need for a dining room, so we decided we'd put up a wall like they did and convert that into a 4th bedroom, which gave us more drinking money at the end of the day.

Sure.

At 26 years old. So, we agreed to put up a listing on Craigslist for the fourth roommate. My two other roommates, they were in constant communication with me, picked a day that they were going to be interviewing for this fourth roommate. I'm working that night that they're starting the interviews for the fourth roommate, but I get onto the subway and get there as quick after work as possible. And we end up meeting in what's going to be our apartment. And they said, we found the perfect roommate. It's this college student, senior. The only thing is, is he has a circumstance that he has to get into this room like next week. And our landlord had given us the keys to the apartment, but we weren't moving in until March 1st. Don't think much of it. Just, okay, cool. He's given us the first month's, last month's, and security deposit. We have that in our pocket and let him move in. Fast forward to move-in day. He's already moved in. My two other roommates and I agreed to rent a U-Haul. We'll move all our stuff that day, return the U-Haul. We picked up a 12-pack of beer and some pizza and unpacked the apartment full of boxes.

The student roommate joined us for a slice and a beer, but really was introverted, didn't really have much to say, and went back to his room. Just thought, oh, he is not as social as we thought he was. About a week later, we haven't seen our student roommate for a few days. My one roommate calls and texts him with no answer from him. We're not like crazy worried at this point. Probably should have been a little bit more worried. It's New York City. It's safe. We've never been in any trouble. One day my roommate Ryan, he gets home from work, who's been texting this newer roommate, and he gets a call from his friend who lives upstairs. And this is when DVR is brand new on cable and 2006 as well. He goes, "I paused the TV. You have to come up and watch this right now." I'm at work in the middle of my shift and Ryan texts me, "I need to talk to you ASAP." It was early on in cell phones, always on you at all times. So we had a work policy of no cell phones at the time, but we had this enormous luggage room.

We had a corner there that we could sneak away and always take a phone call or a text. So get into the luggage storage room. Ryan, the first thing comes out of his mouth is, are you sitting down? And my reply is, was our roommate found dead?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And he goes, no, worse. And I'm like, what?

I know the only other worse thing.

Two other worse.

Oh, I wonder who's right. Do we want to say it on 3?

Okay, 1, 2, 3.

Murder or pedophilia. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah, there's two worse than being dead.

Exactly. So the FBI has actually arrested him. Crossing lines for child pedophilia.

Oh, and the reason we even said that is we just had an expert on, and they were saying, yeah, the only thing Americans hold in worse regard than a murderer is a pedophile. It's the lowest. And it made the news.

It was one of the top stories on the news that night. So we were in New York City and he had crossed state lines to Connecticut.

Oh my God.

Yeah, so my reaction was the same way. I was like, what the fuck? So I went to my manager, I asked to leave early for a family emergency, quote unquote, and she gave me the okay. I changed out of my uniform and got on the subway as quickly as possible. I get home, my roommate Ryan, who called me, looked like he had seen a ghost and showed me the clip. And he was the one who reached out to the FBI.

Oh, he turned him in?

Well, no, the FBI caught him, but because he was our fourth roommate, he wanted to find out, like, what's the next thing. The FBI told him, do not touch anything in his room because everything is evidence. My next thought was our landlord lives in our building. She was going to find out when the FBI shows up and we're going to get kicked out. We're not even a month into this lease yet. Yeah. Luckily, the FBI came in pretty discreetly to pick up the evidence as well as interview Ryan. He gave the details about how he was rushing to move in. We didn't know anything else about him. Ryan stayed in contact with the lead agent for a while. Again, this is before even Google Search became a thing, so I Yahoo searched that roommate that got arrested and saw that our address was on the sexual offenders website.

Oh, jeez. Oh boy. Oh boy.

And we're all in our early professional careers, so I had Ryan reach out to the FBI agent to get that all settled. But we did end up finding a fourth roommate a few months later who was amazing. She wanted to be a Broadway singer.

Good for her. She moved in with 3 dudes at a sex Oh my God, yeah, she's—

you know, that's New York real estate.

It's hard. Yeah, it's hard.

That is insane. Yeah.

Did you guys find out any of the details of what he was up to? Was he even a college student?

He was actually a computer science major.

Oh no.

It was with a minor. It was pretty crazy.

Do you think the minor was ever in your apartment?

No. Our understanding is that part of how he got was he commuted to Connecticut to meet up with said person.

Ah, that is a nightmare.

Yeah, I know.

I didn't think I would say this, but we've had two of these and I'd much prefer someone put my apple cider vinegar up their asshole than this as a roommate.

If you have to pick.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Am I able to give a shout out real quick?

Yeah, of course.

Awesome. I listen to you guys all the time. I even have an A Cherry personalized license plate.

Oh my goodness. Me too.

That is so sweet.

Mine says Arm Cherry.

Oh, nice. Yeah, mine says AE Cherry.

Oh, we can start a car club.

There we go, selling them.

But I had to give a shout out to the person who got me into this podcast. His name is Scotty Johnson. I think you have a friend Scotty Johnson.

I have a best friend. I just got chills when you said that. I thought it could be the same Scotty Johnson, but it's not.

And kind of Sim, he was He's the gym owner of the gym I went to in Miami, and he's now relocated to Detroit, Michigan.

Oh, that is really weird. I hope Scotty Johnson and Scotty Johnson run into each other.

Well, shout out Scotty Johnson.

And I want to be on record, yeah, if I've ever stolen anyone's personality, it was Scott Johnson's. Yeah, he made me a lot better.

Great personality.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, and then Dax, I just want to thank you for all the father advice you give. I'm a single father to a 4-and-a-half-year-old daughter.

Oh, congrats!

4-year-old little girl. Are you having so much fun?

The best time ever. The full-on conversations are the best. I'm trying to get her into Armchair Expert, but it's more listening to Blippi than it is.

Sure, sure, sure.

Give it a couple years.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You get her Anonymous, I think, is the gateway.

Yeah, exactly.

Well, David, it's lovely meeting you. I'm so happy for you.

Yeah, thank you so much.

All right, take care. Is it Brittany Britch? Yes.

Hello, how are you guys?

I'm great.

What does your sweatshirt say, Brittany?

It says I need a Diet Coke. Yeah, girl, I figured you would appreciate that. I always have one handy.

What do they call them? Fridge cigs.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Truer words have never been spoken.

It's true.

Brittany, where are you at?

I'm in San Diego, so not too far from you guys.

Okay, and you have an exciting— you're in an office, there's a cocktail cart, there's It's a weird head mask. Oh, is there a Star Wars fan in the house? Is that what's going on?

It's Avatar: The Last Airbender. It's an Appa. We have a dog that's named Appa.

Oh, okay.

So you guys love Airbender?

Yes, the original, the cartoon.

Oh, okay. You had a bad roommate. Please tell us about it.

Absolutely.

I don't love the term bad roommate. It was just a wild roommate.

Love that.

Great reframe. I'll clarify later. Maybe that will make sense why I want to make that distinction. But let's go back to early May 2020. So this is peak pandemic. This is that phase where we're home 24/7, people are watching Tiger King. Oh yeah, we are making banana bread, drinking a lot, but also a time where your home life becomes more important than usual because you're home 24/7. So I was 30 at the time, working full-time, navigating remote work and what that looks like. I was spending a lot of time with my boyfriend of 2 years, but we did not live together at this time. We had had conversations about it. I wasn't quite ready, so ultimately I was living with random roommates by the beach. So on a Thursday night, early May, about 1:30 in the morning, I get a call from an unknown number. So I answer, and on the other end of the line is a police officer. I'm a little alarmed, but he says like, I'm outside of your house, and he asked if I was safe. Oh, like, yes, I am safe. I'm confused.

Yeah, I thought I was safe until you called.

Exactly. So then I walked to my front door and open And slowly the scene starts to come into focus, and I realize that my house is surrounded by police officers with guns and spotlights pointing at my house.

Oh, wow.

Oh my God.

This is kind of my dream wake-up.

No.

Trade places with me.

Yeah.

She didn't like it.

I'm like, "Oh man, something's really happening.

Time to be awake." It is burned into my brain as one of the crazier things that have happened.

How many conversations How many cops do you think are out there?

At least a dozen.

Oh my God, they got the whole department.

Let's rewind a few weeks. So now we're in April, even earlier in the pandemic, and one of our roommates was actually from another country. So I don't know if you guys remember, there were travel bans that were going on, right, where there were countries you could and couldn't travel to. The travel ban got lifted and she was like, I have to leave now or I'm gonna get stuck. And we were like, okay, we totally understand. Never fun to have to like suddenly find a roommate, but we live in a pretty desirable area. We haven't really had issues finding roommates in fast. So we post an ad on Craigslist. I know there's lots of horror stories about that, but that's actually how I found the room. That's how we've been doing it for years. Never really had any issues, have found some good fits. So we interview someone, let's call her Jamie. I actually go to where she's living.

Oh, there's very proactive of you.

Yeah, this was smart.

I meet one of her friends, we talk, seems like a good enough fit. When can you move in? So she comes in. The first couple weeks are going really well. She's very clean, she'd like cook for us and share food. Great roommate perks, can't ask for much more. She talk a lot. It becomes clear that she's going through a breakup, she's grieving that, kind of taking a toll on her mental health, which I totally understand. I'm trying to be supportive of her, but I also actually am a therapist for a living. I work with foster kids.

Oh my gosh, good job!

I couldn't be her therapist, right? I was like, I have to set some boundaries, but also want to show up for you how I can, but also like you're a random, you know. Yeah, trying to kind of navigate that. But again, a couple weeks, things are going well, and then one night in the middle of the night, we get group text, so between me, Jamie, and then our other roommate, and she says, I've had enough of this shit, 5 straight nights, I'm moving out.

What?

And I'm like racking my brain, like what is this about? Is maybe her and my other roommate having conflict I'm not privy to? I got up to pee, I was like, did I wake her up? And like that was frustrating, like I have no idea. So I text my other roommate and I'm like, any idea what this is about? And she's like, well it's late, like we should all kind of talk tomorrow, but she is hearing conversations about her and it isn't very comfortable. And I'm like, okay, I mentioned I do have a boyfriend that I spend time with, he comes over sometimes, but he was not there that night and hadn't been the last couple of nights, and we had never talked about her, right? A single time. So like, this isn't happening. The next day I talked to her, tried to reassure her like, this is not happening, we are not talking about you, I'm sorry if you feel that way, he wasn't here. And then slowly as we're kind of talking more, it's becoming clear that she is having some auditory hallucinations.

Oh my God.

So not only that, my boyfriend and I are talking about her, but that my boyfriend is like threatening me.

Oh, okay.

I would like to add a disclaimer that my boyfriend is the most wonderful, non-violent man. There is no reason for her to think this. It was just very clear she was projecting her own trauma onto like the nearest relationship.

Oh my God, psychosis.

I'm kind of talking to her throughout the day saying like, hey, has this happened before? She almost maybe like seems a little embarrassed, like, no. I'm a therapist, I'm providing education on grounding techniques.

Is she becoming open to the idea idea that maybe she imagined them, or no?

It seems that way, I think, in the first conversation. And so again, I'm kind of talking through, like, normalizing that being anxiety-provoking. If she says this hasn't happened before, we're in, like, the evening now. So I also offer, hey, my boyfriend is not here, I'm gonna leave my door open. So my door was, like, right next to hers, catty-corner. So I leave my door open, she can peek in if she wants, if she's feeling unsafe. And I let her know, like, hey, the next morning I'm aware of some community-based mental health resources. Let's get you some support.

You're the dream roommate.

Yes, I honestly am glad it happened to me because I feel like I had maybe some more tools to handle and deal with that. So I go to bed that night, and now let's cut to the earlier scene. About an hour after I had fallen asleep, I guess she had called the police and told them that my boyfriend was in the home with a rifle. Oh, and he had pointed at her and was now holding me hostage.

Oh my God, this is the point I try to make with my sympathy to police. They don't know what the fuck is going on ever. They just show up and they have to assume that's the scenario.

They were responding as if it was like an active shooter, which I'm glad—

I'm glad they were, absolutely.

But hence all the guns and manpower in that situation. They were responding as if that was the case. So I walk outside and talk to the police officers, and I kind of give them my perspective. I let them know it's become clear the last couple of days that she seems to be experiencing some auditory hallucinations. It seems like now she's experiencing some visual hallucinations as well. They pretty quickly believed me, but they were like, we do have to clear the house. So they asked me to follow them as they're going in with large weapons, like clearing my closet and the garage and making sure, right, that I am telling the truth. Obviously he was not there. They did tell me they found like a large butcher knife in her bag in her room. Room that she said was to defend herself. So that was a little alarming.

Well, I remember learning in college that the schizophrenics that had been put in prison for murder, almost without exception, they believe sincerely, like, the town was poisoning them. It's always self-defense. It's like never just, I want to kill that person. It's always self-defense.

Yeah.

Yes. And that was kind of her idea. She was telling cops, like, what would you do in this situation if someone is targeting you and threatening you and holding someone hostage? I need to have something to protect myself.

This also shines a little bit of light on how the previous relationship probably dissolved. The boyfriend was probably like, okay, I gotta get off this ride.

Yeah, she has some psychosis.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Or it was she had a traumatic experience with that partner and was unsafe and was maybe threatened with weapons to where she didn't feel safe, and now her brain is kind of in that fight or flight mode, right? Of like, I'm in survival mode because of those experiences that she's been through.

Oh, horrible.

Yeah, so they end up pulling us all in a room. I'm kind of hoping this will help alleviate some anxiety, like he is not here. But she's like, Brittany, you're a good girl, you tell them the truth, you know this is happening, he's hiding in a car around the corner. Like, just very vividly still feeling as though this was happening. My other roommate corroborated the story. They were able to take her for a psychiatric evaluation. And then the next morning I actually get a call from the psych hospital and they're like, hey, can she come home? Do you have a place? And I'm like, I mean, is she still she's still feeling as though she needs to defend herself. So they do end up actually releasing her pretty quickly. She texts me and says like, I'm on the way home and I have the police with me and I need to see your room. At this point I'm like feverishly packing. We're home 24/7, I'm working from home, like I have meetings that day. It is not sustainable for me to stay here in this environment. I'm trying to get out of the house before she gets there, but I don't.

She comes in, surprise surprise, the police are not with her. I like show her my room and then I let her know like, hey, I'm gonna be leaving. I will not be here, my boyfriend will not be here for an indefinite period of time. I will leave my doors open, please, like, I want you to feel safe. We'll connect later. So now in the middle of the pandemic, I end up couchsurfing between like friends and my boyfriend's house, even like my boyfriend's mom's house in LA, like just kind of trying to find safe spaces where I can continue working and figuring out what's going on. I'm of course staying in touch with my roommate who is still at the house, and she tells me she is now repeatedly calling the cops and continuing to state these things.

Why aren't they committing her?

Well, they end up not coming to the house every time because they are starting to see that pattern. To my knowledge, they never like connected her with mental health resources. Apparently she was like looking under our house for me and like in nearby buildings.

Oh my God.

And she actually then started sticking burned notes under my door. I actually sent a couple pictures.

Oh, right here.

Yeah, if you want to look at them.

Oh boy.

Yeah, this is so scary.

You can imagine, like, in a psychic eval, just seeing these notes, you'd be like, yep, I see what's exactly—

like, she needs to be placed on a hold for sure.

It's ranging from like, leave her alone, to like, go ahead and do it. So that feels like threatening, of like, you're telling him to kill me. I don't know.

Oh my God, it says, I'll take a bullet for her. I want her to stay with us now. Oh my God, this is very upsetting.

I want me to get to you. You sound like you Don't stop narrating everything. Do it, asshole. Been waiting.

And she also like was saying she was like recording us. I was talking over the story with my sister and she was like, that was the part where I was like, I don't care about COVID I'm getting on a plane to come out. Yeah, she was like, the burn notes was kind of a next level for me.

Anything and everything starts seeming possible.

Yes. And she is like sending like kind of threatening texts. We also find out in the midst of all of this that she never paid rent. So she had told us numerous times that she had We had been there again for like years at that point, never paid rent late. The landlord never told us until we got an eviction notice of pay or you're gonna be kicked out of your home in the middle. And we had actually contacted them about this situation and they were like not so helpful and never told us that we had outstanding rent. So that was just kind of an added stressor. Yeah. In the midst of all of this of like, okay, are we gonna have to then pay for her portion of the rent so we can stay? So ultimately we ended up having to like reach out to her mom on Facebook who lived across the country and were just like, hey, this is kind of the situation. It seems like she really needs support. These things are not happening. Like, this has been verified by the police. I'm not just saying this. Her mom does end up flying out.

Ultimately, after a few weeks and a few more eventful things, she did move out. And I do just very much want to add that disclaimer of like, I have no bad feelings toward her, nothing but empathy. I hope that she got the support that she needs and that she is stable. And I obviously am a huge mental health advocate. This is my passion and what I do for a living. I never want to be disparaging. This was just a crazy thing. Yeah.

Yes, absolutely.

Did the mom take her back?

I'm not 100% sure. I do think that was what they were going to do, is bring her home, where then she could hopefully get connected to therapists and medication support and whatever she needed.

You know, the whole story just reminds me how much we need other people. Oh my God, you need a mom. You know, you need someone to call that can be like, oh yeah, I'll drop everything.

Or even like a best friend, real real people in your life to help you.

I think that's tough about even living in San Diego. Like, we don't have family here. There's a lot of transplants where you come here because San Diego is a beautiful, amazing city with lots of fun things to do, but there is sometimes a lack of community in that way. That is, yeah, very essential, especially in these situations. I actually like ended up flying home after that just to kind of also get a little bit of like a breather and space. And then in the midst of all of this, actually, my boyfriend— we were on one of those trips down from LA to San Diego from staying with his mom's— he proposed to me. Oh, and a fun story, all the jewelry stores were closed, so he actually proposed with the diamond in like a Ring Pop setting, which is kind of a fun anecdote that we have from that time. And we've been married 5 years and have a precious 2.5-year-old.

Oh, congrats!

We are very, very happy. This was a small little blip in a very privileged life.

You have such an amazing attitude.

I appreciate that. That's all we can do in these situations, and again, we're humans first, and so always want to hold space for that. I did have another quick anecdote if we have time that I think I also sent pictures of. So my husband in 2022 surprised me with front row tickets to see you guys at the Wilton. I think it was Armchairs and Dangerous. Oh, which was so much fun. But the coolest thing actually happened after. So I'm a huge Kristen Bell fan, as many of us are. She actually posted a picture from that show, and my husband and I are in the background. So I like to say Kristen posted our Instagram, which was like the most exciting thing that could happen!

Oh, that's great!

And my husband actually is here— I don't know if you want to say hello?

Yeah, we love her! We live... Hi! Hello! What a nice man you are to have gotten those tickets for her! That was really fun! You obviously met this roommate?! Oh yeah, yes, yah, yah, yah, yah, yah, yah! Yah, that was a fun story; it all worked out, and hopefully she's doing well—we don't keep in touch with everybody else. Hopefully! Alright, lovely meeting you guys, so fun! Nice seeing you both!

Bye. Thank you guys so much for your time. Have a great rest of your day.

Hello. Where is this photo that is your backdrop? Tuscany. Ooh. Oh.

So the photo is one of the few things that turned out great with that story, but that's a scam episode. Oh. Oh, wow. Although there were some bad roommates there too.

Where are you at, Danielle?

So I currently live in Eastern Washington. My story is about Portland. Oh, Portland. And is that where you're from? I'm from near there. There and lived most of my early adulthood in Portland.

We had another Portland story, also bad roommates. I believe it.

There's a lot of bad roommates in Portland. Yikes.

There's a lot of young people, uh-oh, with dreadlocks and not wearing deodorant.

That's right.

Yeah. Okay, please walk us through Portland. What year? So this was around 2005, 2006.

I was trying to figure out exactly when it was. I think it might have been a summertime, and I was the bad roommate.

Oh, wonderful! I'm so glad.

Oh, someone said owning it. What if— oh my God, I just— what if you're the person from the Portland Suburbans?

That would be hilarious. Oh my God.

Okay, let's hear it.

You need a little bit of background. So at the time, I was in Portland finishing my undergrad, and I was working too much, going to school too much, certainly not getting enough sleep. And the background to that is that a few years before, I had an intruder. I was living with some friends. Someone came into our home and came into my room, turned on the lights, and I woke up, just primal scream, went into attack mode. He left. We weren't really sure if it was like an accidental situation or if he had bad intentions. We never really did figure it out. They never found him, but certainly created a lot of problems for me with sleep. Yeah, I bet. Ended up with PTSD and a combination of preexisting sleep disorders just magnified. Ended up with night terrors in combination with nightmares. Usually people have one or the other, but I was very lucky and got a big combination of frequent nightmares about intruders and added demons to the picture and would wake up screaming. An example that I often give is one time I woke up screaming, bloody, bruised, in front of a bookshelf that I had a bunch of, like, trinkets from travels around the world, and they were all broken, like, all— Oh wow.

You're Your night terrors are like you're waking up but you're still asleep, but you're wreaking havoc, and then you're coming to and realizing you've wreaked havoc.

Yeah, so I had a long history of sleepwalking, talking, and then that coupled with this PTSD just made a big giant mess.

Oh, I don't want to make light of it, but I do want to see a reality show of just you moving around your bedroom at night. Has it ever crossed your mind to maybe put some night vision cameras and have a show?

20 years ago it would have been fascinating. Now it's just me checking on my baby. I actually don't have night terrors very often anymore, maybe once a year rather than once a week or more. But that's the background. Yeah.

Going on for a couple of years. Well, sorry, one more question about night terrors. Did you ever wake up like far from the house? Were you always pretty much in or around the house?

Always in or around the house. I did go through a phase where I would unlock and relock the door. Fortunately, that didn't last very long, but I never left. And my sleep specialists would say, we need to make sure that you aren't sleeping upstairs, or, you know, the keys are where you can't get them, those kind of things. But fortunately, I never had to do that, and I never severely injured myself.

Yeah, we interviewed a guy who ran through a plate glass window from the second story.

Yeah, I could have very much been in danger of that, I think.

How scary.

You're going down to bed, you have to be afraid of what's going to happen once you fall asleep.

It's probably that stress also adds to it.

It's like a bad cycle. Yeah, it does. And it becomes a really bad cycle because you're afraid to go to sleep because you don't know what's going to happen. But then the insomnia makes it so much worse.

These are the makings of a bad roommate. Yes. Continue.

Yes. Yes. My very sweet roommate was really terrible about locking the door also. That's how I ended up with the intruder in the first place was that a door didn't get locked. And so I became a little bit obsessive about locking doors for a while. And so that just would start off a whole cycle. So we had gone through a week of her not locking the door a couple of times and she worked late and was also in a band and so would be out late at band practice and then maybe We bring people back, you know, that kind of thing. Not a great combination. We also lived in a part of Portland that is known for its seedier side. So lots of drugs being done on the side of the road, lots of sex workers, not really safe, but it's what we could afford. And it was a really noisy night and I went to bed. It was hot. I had the windows open and I must have been hearing her come in. It was really hard to come in quietly where we lived. I don't remember that, but I woke up And I was hearing her say, "Stop, Danielle, it's me," over and over and over again.

Oh, fuck. I had a really large lamp in my hand and I had it raised up to basically hit her with it. Oh my God. I thought it was somebody coming in to attack us. Yeah. Sure. It would've been really bad if I hadn't woken up because I'm 5'11" and she's around 5'1". Oh. And that is the story of how I almost killed in my room.

That is so scary. Okay, when you came to, were you like, mortified?

Oh, horrified. Like, I could have really hurt you. What if I actually had a real weapon? What if I had hit you? It was bad. She was so understanding. Oh, so kind about it. But I felt so afraid of what I might do in my sleep for a long time.

Yeah. What do you do? How do you even address that? Lock yourself in your bedroom?

I can tell you what I did. Yeah. And she was a really sweet great guard dog. She would just lay by the door, be very protective if anybody came to the door or ever talked to me, like, in a breezeway. But otherwise, if I would wake up screaming, she didn't respond. She just would kind of, like, lift her head up and then go back to sleep. And that did more healing work than any therapy or any medication, which I hate to say. I'm a psychologist. But that is absolutely what healed my brain. Wow.

I mean, it makes— Makes sense because I think at the core, right, you're feeling very vulnerable and alone, fearful. And yeah, and now you got a co-pilot. Yep. You can offload some of the responsibility to her.

Your brain feels safer.

And I didn't feel like anybody would ever come in when they heard this dog who sounded big, mean, and vicious but was really a sweetheart.

Yeah, you know, I know you want me to get out, but we both need to take a moment and see these little dogs are so special sometimes.

Sometimes. So Good for me. Yeah, that's lovely.

I'm really happy to have the job. Like, if you told a human, like, here's the sitch, man, I'm unraveling, you gotta be my co-pilot, babysit me at night, everyone would run. Yeah, I'd be like, fuck this. But dog's like, yeah, I'm there, man.

Do I tell her very last day? Oh, I thought the night terrors would come back after she passed, but they haven't. I mean, I've had maybe like a couple. I'm a new mom, but it's been fine. Good. I love that.

Oh, I love that you were the bad roommate. Yes, thank you. Yeah, that's good. That's big of you.

Yeah, I That's like kind of the worst roommate.

We could have very well heard that other side of the story. I came in, all of a sudden she came barging out with a lamp and threw me against the wall. Yeah, drop it on my head.

Good for her for being kind.

I had several roommates who were just so kind who would say, just come get in bed with me, you're fine, like a little kid.

And it was really helpful. Oh good, we've been hearing a lot of good about humanity in this episode. It's been affirming. And don't There was some bad ones.

There was a pedophile. But okay.

Can I say a couple of thank-yous and a shout-out? Of course. Jax, I'm so thankful for the way that you talk about addiction. From a professional standpoint, it's really helpful. But also, I have 3 siblings who struggle with alcohol addiction. And for me, Day 7 is so helpful from both of you to be able to go back and remind myself this is a process. Relapse happens. I can be there for my family. And also, the realities of how it feels to be on like Monica's end of things, you know, it's always a good reminder. So I've listened to that episode so many times in supporting my siblings. And I'm so thankful for the way you talk about addiction and the way you share and you let other people share.

Oh, thank you.

Our pleasure. Glad it was helpful.

Yeah. And Monica, Race to 35 is an amazing gift. So I'm a perinatal psychologist. Oh, wow. I've been supporting families in becoming families for a long time. So people with fertility issues and pregnancy and postpartum problems. But I myself, it took 10 years for me to get my baby. Wow. Oh, congratulations. We're going through the egg retrieval process around the same time. Wow. And it was really cool to have that. I wish that I had had that podcast when I was 35. Yeah.

Yeah.

It would have made the process a lot easier. But I did get my little science baby. Yay!

My little science baby.

I love that you share your process and even your process and thinking about like, do I become a single mom? Do I not? I'm a single mom by choice and it really works for me. But I think so many more young women need to have that information because I think for some people it's way too late when they start. And for me, it almost didn't work.

Well, I'm so glad it did. Yeah.

Good job, Monica. We hear that a lot. I'm so proud of my buddy.

Oh, thank you.

And I have to shout out a former client who turned me on to your podcast. She really, from day one, was like, talking about you guys, and it was a really fun bunch of years that we spent talking. I'm sure she'll know who she is.

Oh, shout out anonymous person. I think anyone who gets you as a therapist is very lucky.

Very. Oh, thank you. It's so nice meeting you, Danielle.

Yeah, thanks for chatting with us. Thank you.

It's great to meet you guys.

All right, congrats on your science baby.

Thank you. All right, bye.

Bye. God, they're nice.

Got my daily tear up in.

Free now to be a prick the rest of the day.

First of many. All right, I love you.

I love you. Do you want to sing a tune or something? We don't have a theme song. Oh, okay, great. We don't have a theme song for this new show, so here I go, go, go. We're gonna ask some random questions, and with the help of our cherries, we'll get some suggestions on the fly. Rhyme Rindish on the fire, rindish, enjoy!