Before going on my trip to Santa Barbara, I had never shared a room with anyone that I wasn’t dating or married to. I had my own room growing up. I never went to summer camp. Didn’t do dorm life. Never split a room with a friend to save money… I’ve always had my own spot to sleep and always went to bed knowing that no one else was coming into my room for anything.
It’s not like that when you head into “Summer Camp.” In Camp Get Less Crazy, there was a revolving door of people that I shared a room with.
Mostly it wasn’t a big deal. I am surprisingly adaptable to sharing a room with a stranger. I am a recovering people pleaser after all…
But, even I have my limits and I truly found out what they were when I moved out of Detox House and into Sober House.
My room in Sober House was set up to hold three people, but for most of my stay I only shared it with one. It was.. an experience.
Roommate was a talker. Nothing wrong with that really other than she had some real out of left field questions for me.
One day I went upstairs to get some pain/mood meds and my roommate busts out with "Are you the only child?"
It was very abrupt, like I had barged into her space, even though I always knocked whenever I went into our room.
I had also told her that no, I wasn’t an only child, probably about five or six times already. But this is just how she was. If she caught you without an exit plan, the questions began. Some of them included things like:
-Do you think suicide is selfish?
-Why haven't you ever been married? (I have and I told her as such but again… sometimes you got the same questions every day.)
-Don't you want to be married?
-Where does your boyfriend live? (in my house with me.)
-How many kids do you have? (none)
-Why don’t you have kids? (Me: I am too old and I can't have kids, it's simple. Her: So you never tried then? --- Please believe me when I say I was wishing the good lord would deliver me from this shit any day now.)
-Have you ever been arrested? (I answered her truthfully, that yes I have been arrested before.)
-So you have a felony then, huh? (No Roommate, not everyone in the world has a fucking felony, what the fuck?)
-Do you have a car at home? (no.)
-Where do you live again? (There was no point in answering this one. I'd say "Los Osos," and she'd ask me where that was again. I'd say "North of here." And she would all but ask me to draw her a map of where I live in relation to where we are and then promptly forget all of it within 12 hours and ask me in the same excruciating detail as before.)
-Do you have any friends back home? (Me: Sure...)
-Do you believe in God? (Again no good answer to this- a yes or no answer both result in the next question "So you're a Christian though, right?" I swear to you all of this is without fail no matter what.)
This though, was nothing compared to one night when I found exactly where my edge of tolerance is and she jumped right over it.
It was 4:30am.
I woke up to my Roommate standing over me.
"You are sleeping on your back. People aren't supposed to sleep on their backs, you can die that way."
I have never been so confused, irritated and kind of scared as I was in that moment. For one the fact that she could even wake me up, at the time my doctors had me taking three different meds at night before bed. Secondly, I always slept in my over the ear headphones listening to meditations or podcasts to drown out any sound in the room.
She didn’t turn the lights on either during this. Just in the dark, there she was telling me I could die if I slept on my back.
In Summer Camp Groups, the question was sometimes posed by our therapists, “What is your motivation to stay sober?” When it was my turn to answer I told the truth. My motivation in that moment was to never experience sharing a room with a stranger again. I never ever want to live with 9-12 people and two bathrooms, ever again.
As we cruise into my ninth month of sobriety I obviously have other motivations to keep on keeping on this new path, but that first motivation, to get to go home and have my own space again, was mad powerful.
So, I thank that Roommate for that, actually. I learned what my limits are.
And waking up to someone I barely know standing over me telling me how to sleep is definitely past the limit for me.
I'm no expert but a Sleep Number salesman told us years ago sleeping on your back is the healthiest way to sleep. Regardless, I'd definitely be a bit freaked out by that situation.