Thoughts By Hawa

I went to stay in a shelter when I was 29 to get away from a bad situation. The experience was something. I was grateful for the fact that I didn’t have to sleep on the streets. The staff were firm, understandably so, but nice. I felt safe there because of all the security. I’ve never even felt that safe at home. At first, I stayed at the intake shelter. It was nice. It was a new building. The food was good. I slept better than I had in as long as I could remember. The clients, as we were called, were friendly as well. Well, most of them. It was a pretty okay experience, considering the situation. 

Now the second shelter I was in there lies the drama. Some of the staff were friendly. The rest weren’t mean, just not so friendly. I had no problems with the staff. My problem was with my roommate. Well, one of them. I’ll explain. 

After about a week at the intake shelter they transferred me to the permanent shelter. They call it a permanent shelter but we’re meant to leave. The goal is to help clients get an apartment, possibly with a housing voucher. I’m actually not sure if they referred to us as clients in the permanent shelter. If we don’t  have a job then they would help us get one. 

Most of the rooms seemed to have 2 beds. I heard of some singles. But the one I was put in had 3 beds. One of the beds was occupied by my problematic roommate. The other was occupied by 5 different people during the 6 weeks that I was there. Most of them just left and didn’t come back. One transferred to another room because of said problematic roommate. 

So here’s how it started. When I first got to the room the problematic roommate was sleeping. The other one was awake. I had a few questions so I asked the other. Like when was breakfast and what times we had to be out of the rooms during the week. They answered them and were kind about it. I was apologetic, but I needed to know these things. Future interactions with them were also friendly. 

I can’t keep referring to my other roommate as the problematic one. So I’ll call them Sammi.

So in the morning Sammi didn’t even acknowledge me. I greeted Sammi and they barely looked at me and mumbled a greeting back. I didn’t take it personally. I gave them the benefit of the doubt. I figured I don’t know them or their situation and so I’m not going to make any assumptions. They continued to barely acknowledge me. I continued to be friendly towards them. I would greet them upon entering the room. And say bye when leaving. Sometimes they would just ignore me. They didn’t have headphones in. But I still gave them the benefit of doubt. But then there were other things. They would always have the temperature really high or really low. So it was either freezing or hot. Even when they weren’t even staying in the room. They would adjust the temperature to an uncomfortable number before leaving. At first I figured maybe they thought they would be staying longer. Still, they didn’t ask me nor our other roommate if we were okay with them changing the temperature.

When I came back to the room after being gone all day and Sammi was there, I left the temp at whatever they had it at. 

Then there was the stuff they left on the floor. In the path that myself plus our other roommate had to go to get to both the bathroom and the door to leave. So I was constantly stepping over their stuff. From the first day I noticed that one item seemed too perfectly placed in the center of the floor. But then I figured, sometimes something falls and lands perfectly. It happens. Only, I kept noticing this. Items were perfectly placed on the floor in the path. Items that we then had to keep stepping over. And in the beginning most of the items that were perfectly centered were not like the rest of their stuff that they left on the floor. The usual stuff being dirty laundry, shoes, slippers. That’s about it. But these items that were perfectly centered were beauty bags and I don’t remember what else. I just remember them not being items that Sammi usually left on the floor. They only ever appeared neatly placed in the center, at first. Then they started to appear in front of my locker. 

Speaking of lockers, Sammi would leave their locker doors open. Which would also block the path to walk. They didn’t just treat the room like it belonged to them alone. I suspected them of doing these things with the intention of inconveniencing their roommate. Sammi would also talk on the phone, with the person on speaker, for hours at all hours. They would come in the room late while we were in bed and immediately get on the phone. One time they even turned the light on and left it on till around 3am. While also talking on the phone. 

I never confronted Sammi about their behavior. Nor did I try to talk to them about the things they were doing. Because they reminded me so much of my family members that I’ve spent my whole life putting up with. And whenever I tried to reason with them it just resulted in me getting dismissed or gaslighted. So I was very hesitant on how to approach her. But twice the third roommate brought up the noise. The 1st time they asked Sammi to keep the noise down because they were trying to sleep after a long day. Sammi was talking on the phone with their friend on speaker at the time. They agreed to keep the volume down. Then proceeded to continue talking at the same volume with said friend on speaker. The 2nd time was pretty much the same scenario but with a different roommate. Only this time Sammi, surprisingly, got off the phone. But then, for a few minutes, they proceeded to make other noises before finally quieting down. 

My experience with people who act like that taught me that it’s pointless trying to reason with them. They’ll just keep lying, manipulating, and torturing you. So I never got around to confronting them about their behavior. I thought about it all the time. I planned what I would say, how I would approach them. But the way they just kept reminding me of toxic people that I knew made me assume they would respond similarly to them. And I had had enough of people gaslighting me. 

Apart from the extreme temperatures, the noise at all hours, and the objects blocking the path to walk, there were a couple other instances to note. One of which involved a light switch. So, the light switch for the bathroom was located outside of the bathroom. To me that was odd. Though, I haven’t lived in many places. So maybe it’s not so odd. And once I realized this I knew Sammi was going to accidentally on purpose turn the bathroom light off while I was in there. And sure enough they did. 

I started avoiding being in the room to avoid Sammi. We had to be out of the rooms from 9am to 4pm during the week unless we had a day pass. Those were given predominantly if a person had to work either till after curfew or worked nights. Which Sammi did. But that’s not important. She seemed to be in the room a lot for someone who worked, was apparently in school, and had a social life. I had none of these. I would be looking forward to spending some time in the room. Either on my laptop looking for a job, or relaxing, or catching up on sleep. But I couldn’t do much of that because Sammi would be in there being loud. They’d be talking on the phone for hours with one friend or another. Always having them on speaker. And often also playing something on their laptop. Noise on top of noise. Mind you, the rules said we had to use headphones when watching or listening to anything. They also mentioned roommate etiquette. All of which Sammi didn’t obey. They would stay up late making noise. Or come back late and start making noise. So this one time I was coming back to the room late, as to avoid Sammi. And all I wanted to do was hit the pillow. But she was in the dorm watching something. And I knew I wouldn’t be falling to sleep anytime soon. So I figured, I might as well shower before going to bed. So I got my stuff and went straight to the shower. And once I got in the shower Sammi turned off the showing and started to go to bed. Usually they would stay up till like 3am. But this time coincidentally they went to bed earlier. Now, my experience with people with narcissistic personality traits taught me that they didn’t give up. Their goal was often to make you uncomfortable. And if one way didn’t work then they tried another. So I suspected that Sammi would try something else. Seeing how I didn’t let them interfere with my sleep. As they were going to turn off the light to the main room, they “accidentally” turned off the bathroom light. I wasn’t the least bit surprised. They played it like it was an accident but I didn’t believe them. 

The other instance actually happened after I had been there only a day. It was after Sammi barely acknowledged me when they made this comment. I had just got out of the shower. And my hair was freshly washed. Before this my hair was covered and this was the first time Sammi got to see it. Once I took the towel off of my hair Sammi said “your hair is so damaged”. Now, at this time, I didn’t know if my hair was damaged or not. But I thought it was in pretty good condition. But I kind of got into a bad habit of just agreeing with people. Growing up in my family it wasn’t very safe to disagree. So for survival I would often either not say anything or agree. I just didn’t want the drama and emotional abuse that came when I disagreed. So I agreed with them. I said “yeah I know”. I don’t know if this caught them by surprise. But they were quiet for a bit. Then they brought up a protein treatment that I should try. I told her that I had low porosity hair and protein was not suggested for such. They said that they had low porosity hair too. And I thought, okay then I don’t see that protein treatment working wonders for their hair. Was it not them who used this product that they were trying to get me to use. They were quiet for a little bit again. Then they mentioned how damaged my hair was again. And suggested that I cut it off. I said, “yeah I cut my hair off before because of damage, I’m not trying to do that again”. They responded that they had done the same thing. Then Sammi said after a pause, “if I were you I would cut it off, just cut it all off”. I couldn’t help but wonder why they were so concerned with my hair when they couldn’t even be bothered to acknowledge me. Not when I came in the room, not in the morning with a hi or good morning. But they care so much about my hair. I wasn’t going to take her advice. I just thought that interaction was weird.

Other than the previously mentioned situations Sammi would often talk about things I would expect them to discuss in private. Not in front of strangers and with the other person on speaker. Sometimes when I got back to the room the conversation would be appropriate. And then they’d randomly start bringing up inappropriate topics. I started to suspect they were doing that on purpose too. Now, when it comes to narcissistic types you tend to get paranoid. But this is because of all the games that they play. And they play a lot. And so sometimes I’m not sure of when they’re playing and/or manipulating. So it gets  confusing. Which is why they just can’t be trusted.

So yeah, this was my experience at the shelter.