Two Autistic Teen Orphans (A Story of Resilience and Survival)

Molina what is the most important thing you want others to understand about you I want others to understand that I've been through a lot and instead of living I've been surviving for most of my life so I just want people to understand that I struggle but I want people to know that I am trying my hardest why is it important for people to understand that because I don't feel like people understand I just feel like people are just going to be mean to you and they're just not going to understand wha

t things they're going through and they're just going to be so mean to you and they just won't ever understand what you're going through people are just making they're just laughing at you and everything like that and I just all I wanted was just then when I was just younger for people to understand that I really just wanted to fit in I'm just so happy you're here I just can't believe you're here I can't believe I'm looking at you you it this makes me so happy I'm sorry no I'm happy that our vid

eos mean that much to you can you share a little bit about why they've impacted you that way cuz I just feel like there's a lot of people who've been through a lot themselves or just have experiences that might been traumatic or things that might affect them severely and they're just still wanting to they're just wanting to share their story and I just find that a very deep thing a very influential thing and I just I don't know that just gave me Comfort too that I know there was there's just oth

er people out there that are kind of like me you know does it make you feel like you're not alone when you hear people sharing stories that they can understand what you've been through yes definitely it really does it consoles my soul a lot what is it like to be a teenage orphan teenage orphan um scary because you don't know what you're going to do and also feel like I'm just lacking the guidance that I needed or that I need you know so it's kind of scary and um it's just also scary because it f

eels like you don't really have anyone you can go to so that's just the terrifying part like you don't know who can you can confide in what is it like to be twins um triplets technically but we were in the same embryo so we kind of are twins in the set of triplets but I think it's really cool the only thing I find kind of annoying is that we don't we have to share the same birthday though so we don't have our own day but I feel like it would just be convenient to celebrate our birthdays in like

you know different days so then I just feel like it would work out in that way but I do enjoy my sibling a lot it's like um I like I pretty much have had a best friend since the beginning of my life so I mean I like my I like my sibling I so I I I like I like being um a set of twin like inste of twins and like a triplet and we can just relate to each better too because we're both the same age and everything so it works out really well okay so I am a fraternal triplet and I um my mother she raise

d me all by her own because my father he was a part of my life for the first two months of my life but he had bipolar one and he was really he didn't take his medications he would smoke a lot of marijuana so he wasn't really involved in my life as much as I wanted to and you know he wanted way eventually I Knew by the time um we were born my dad was uh uh he was still in our lives just for a little bit and then um he got like really sick there was like a woven bull underneath our crib and had li

ke chicken bones I think and leaves and I think it was just him trying to perform something yeah he was just he was just like ill he was Ill he wasn't in his like best mine he eventually um got deported oh he went back to Mexico so I uh I didn't have a dad growing up my dad he was from Mexico so he got deported at one point so he got deported and um eventually at age 14 I found out he died and I remember I was coming home and my mom was just telling me like oh my gosh your like father's dead and

then like um I'm sorry um and then like eventually my brother got an autism diagnosis around the age of um 4 years old I would say like around 2009 that's when he got diagnosed with autism and um I would just say like because of that I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm so I'm sorry can I repeat that I'm sorry yeah okay is it is it okay if I share with you um just feedback yeah you're doing great everything you said was perfect um I understand it could be overwhelming to share your story on camera

but there's nothing you need to change okay well my brother he was diagnosed at autism like diagnosed with autism at age four years old and because of that my mom got featured in this Magazine with me as well and everything like that and you know like I feel like things were going good then but then like my mom she had she eventually got lime's disease from a tick and I know like lime's disease it can mimic signs of bipolar and schizophrenia and stuff like that so she was just suffering a lot i

t was difficult because um my mother was sick my grandma was old um at the time only my brother was like diagnosed of autism cuz he um was non-verbal so I felt like like we had um we were struggling of autism too but we weren't like getting um attended for it um because we were overlooked pretty much yeah and are you saying that you two also are diagnosed with autism but you weren't receiving attention cuz your brother was the main focus I mean that's not his fault though he obviously needed it

but I just felt like it you know like what about us though you know and I just feel like that caused like a lot of our development of trauma cuz I just felt like you know cuz I feel like it's kind of traumatizing to not be diagnosed because especially in a world that's made for neurotypicals you know um like why am I so weird yeah so it just felt like we didn't have that we didn't have that treatment that we needed everything around was kind of disorganized and I know like autistic individuals t

hey need um structure and I felt like that structure wasn't often there and I felt like that caused him to get really upset so then he would have meltdowns and he couldn't help it and I'm not blaming him but he would like beat us sometimes or we' like punch holes in the wall he would just get really violent and he would just continuously get violent like it just get got worse and worse as he got older and um I just remember when I was like in 7th grade I kind of told um a like I told a counselor

school counselor about my brother and everything like how like how we had like a really bad situation one night with my sibling and I and they eventually like got DSS involved and they eventually took my brother away into a grouping home with other autistic IND indviduals we were being investigated by like um DSS yeah and they were um like they they wanted Aaron to go somewhere I also though like our grandma and our mom got really upset about that though and you know I feel like I understand wh

y they got upset but like I just feel like it was just also upsetting for us cuz it felt like it was our faults like we just felt like oh it was our faults like we got sent away cuz I just remember there was like an incident that happened and we told the school counselor about it and then like that's when you know they just got involved with that and stuff like that um I like I tried not whenever I'd be like they would pull us out of like like I would be in class mainly like be class and then it

's like oh like go to the front office and I speak to like a social worker and like um I I didn't I didn't tell them exactly what was going on all like I I told them a lot of things but like then I was like told by like my parents like don't tell them that they're going to take you're going to take they're going to take you away from us are you comfortable sharing some things they said not to say myom mom was uh she was a drug dealer and um I was uh I was really close to my mom um uh and I was I

was the one who would basically like like give them to people and that would require going to um sketchy men's houses and um I remember I was uh getting and um I was also like um like having like um being drugged too and I remember my mom I remember one night we were just driving home and she was like your sister and grandma can't know about this no one can know about this the Poli like if the police ever question you deny deny deny she would she would she told me not to uh I I couldn't I never

I I I am I I I haven't I uh I was told not to talk about that I was told not to talk about the actual condition of the house I was told not to talk about my brother um you know getting like physically like aggressive um I was told not to talk about the fighting that happened in the house I was told not to talk about um I guess like like um some of the animals like you know feces and Ur um how I was just like not being really paid attention to how old were you it started when I was like about th

is when I when I could walk and talk that's when like by the time I was walking and talking that's when I so I was like around 5 kind ofish um that's when you started doing drug runs um yeah what was your relationship like with your mom really tough oh my gosh um she wasn't a bad person she was never inherently a bad person I knew that with my heart um my mother I used to love her to death and then I just remember when I just started puberty I just like literally felt different like I felt like

the neurop Pathways in my brain literally felt different like just like my brain chemistry felt different and I just felt like then I just started seeing the things that were wrong with her I would just see her like falling asleep she would just mummer with her words she wouldn't say things that were coherent she'd be like passed out on the floor and stuff like that and I would get so frustrated with her like I would be literally downstairs like where she like she had like a little room that she

built with my grandpa and her old house and I would be pounding at her door door trying to get her up because I just wanted her so bad you know and it was just really frustrating in the end of her her in the end of my relationship I just remember um her telling my sibling that she loved me but she didn't like me because I was just doing so many bad things then and it just makes me upset cuz I just wish I could have like I just wish I could have made her happy before she died or I could have tol

d her I love her one last time or happy Mother's day cuz I never did and I feel so bad when you're going through the things you experienced as a kid do you realize that something isn't right yeah um like when I when I uh I I I didn't really know it as a kid um but when I look back on it well I I knew there was something wrong but I never understood the scope of how like dire it was so I guess like looking back on it I I knew it was really um not healthy when's the first time you remember realizi

ng wait something I uh fifth grade fourth fourth grade um I uh I feel like um I also have like diso type Identity Disorder so it was around that time I had started hearing um you know the internal voices and like that's when I like and like they were like telling me things about my family and stuff and it like it brought me like it brought me to like awareness that like hey like not other people go for this and I also would try to speak to people when I whenever I did speak to people um I would

hear about like their their home life their house situation and I'd be like mine isn't like that so you were talking to people who had Healthy Families yeah mhm what was it like to see that difference um I definitely like felt like um like a kind of jealous like I I felt like I deserve that like I I I I want I want that I want both of my parents to be like happy and healthy I want the house to be clean and I want I want stability so I was diagnosed with dissociative identities disorder I was dia

gnosed with conduct disorder um generalized anxiety disorder I have post-traumatic stress disorder the dissoci of subtype I think it's more of complex people TSD though to be honest cuz there's a lot that happen and um I have ADHD the inattentive type I have borderline personality disorder I was diagnosed with borderline tendency disorder because I was a minor at the time I have um disruptive mood disregulation disorder I was diagnosed with cannabis use disorder I have autism as well I was I'm s

orry I forgot to say I have an Autism diagnosis as well I was given that after I was given those list of diagnosis and I also have a non-verbal learning disorder which I forgot to include in the list of diagnoses that I was given by a professional I feel like um growing up I uh I didn't really know how to like um take care of myself I don't I don't think I was taught um uh so I just I kind of I spent like most of my time usually being online cuz in um in person and around like my peers uh I was

like kind of I was weird I was weird I was always considered the quiet kid um I would just like like draw like and people would like make fun of me even if I was in the room so I just I wasn't treated good at school so I I found an escape um and going in on the internet and um I feel like that uh definitely like has it um affected me socially and I the autism affects me socially too um is autism your only diagnosis no I have uh I don't know where the exact diagnosis paper is but I have um autism

uh did um I have the same like same type of BPD she has um trying to remember what else cuz I can't exactly remember um mood disrup disrupted mood dis yeah depression like anxiety um conduct disorder which of your diagnoses would you say impact you the most borderline what is borderline how does it impact you borderline personality disorder um it's a cluster b um personality disorder probably actually the most common personality disorder um it affects um how you interact with others how you per

ceive others how you are in relationships and stuff like that and um I would say there's like a lot of impulsivity with borderline so I have a hard time with impulse control I might split on people and get angry I might get so I just have a huge fear of rejection too because of it and also I get like really frightened about people leaving me and everything like that so like like I used to have like a really unhealthy favorite person relationship with somebody and I remember like when they wouldn

't text me and I would visibly see them online I'd get so upset like I'd start screaming and crying and I might like spam text them and I would just like call them like over 50 times or something like that can you talk about that favorite person relationship not your specific one but what that means and how it plays in the borderline personality to order yeah so favorite with my favorite P like favorite persons favorite people or like favorite persons um like a favorite like in an FP relationshi

p um a Bor line person like they just have a wrong they just have a really strong emotional connection with that person so they just dedicate all their time towards that favorite person and you could have multiple favorite people too but your whole world centers around them how they perceive you how they feel about you how they how they act around you it just affects your mood and like ultimately what is it like to live like that um really hard because you're watching yourself destroy relationsh

ips and that's like the worst part cuz you feel like a monster knowing that you have a family history of mental Health disorders and now knowing that you're diagnosed with mental health disorders do you think it's something that is biological or do you think it's just kind of like a trauma cycle repeating where both I think it's more of a trauma cycle though but I think definitely both yeah I feel like so this is how I see it I feel like because we have mental illness in our family we have it do

esn't necessarily you're going to have the mental illness but you have a huge potential of getting it and when you go through trauma that just that makes it happen like it just opens it up yeah yeah like it triggers it MH when somebody hears your story what do you hope they think I hope they think that um this is kind of tough to answer I just hope they think that I'm not a weird person I'm not a bad person I'm just a person who's been through a lot of things you're diagnosed with did what does

that mean um um so bro that's my dog wait he might have to sit next to me that's okay I'll ask I'll ask the question again so you're diagnosed with did mhm what does that mean um it means um from all like I guess the research I've done on my own and what um the one uh um my psychiatrist told me um I am something called a system and uh I have um alternate States Of Consciousness which um essentially means there are I there are multiple individuals um within my um within the same body uh I I perso

nally um I am I'm the one I I'm jamus I'm the one who's out um pretty much most of the time um what is the name you go by sorry damos damos yeah um how many Alters do does the system have total so uh so I think we have so right now I could probably name around like near 10 but realistically speaking there is probably about 20 probably more I have not met everybody and I do not talk to everybody and um it it's literally just kind of it's kind imagine like living all like having roommates so like

but like you it's in like it's in a situation where none of you kind of asks for this so my most prominent altars are um Alan Ki um Marcy aah Bruce um Edward Josie Maryann um and I feel like when I was when I like I felt like I didn't have anything like growing up and like I I was when I was like after I would uh sorry sorry um trying to think of how I'm trying to articulate this when I felt like I I like I had no one I um I used I I I began hearing um internal voices who would um like talk to m

e and I I thought it was normal but I uh I just thought like um like I I I am being taken care of wait what what were we asking so sorry I'm so sorry what are you thinking when you're laughing I'm just thinking about how this is going to be put out there so like it's just so hard for me talking about having did cuz it's um I i' I I sometimes try to deny that I have it um do you know you have it though yeah because I remember one day I was like I don't want this anymore I I don't want I want to b

e my own person like I I don't I this is scary like why are you guys here like it felt like I felt like someone like I feel like I had a house and someone broke into my house and so I was just like like get out of my life and never come back and I I tried saying that to them my sibling we're really close actually we are so close like we are this close and um we always go to each other for things and everything like that like we just have such like a soul tie to each other what do you think Molin

a when your sibling shares the story I honestly I didn't really know about de's um dissociative identity disorder until like a later point until like he um spoke up spoke up spoke out about it more cuz he never I just feel like he kind of kept it to himself for a bit because I'm pretty sure he was kind of hesitant you know cuz like how I would have reacted or something like that but I'm perfectly fine with the way damos is I still accept most I still accept every single part of him so I'm just c

ontent with how he is even if like sometimes like even if sometimes like like his altars might not do the best things I still see a lot in him my altars are currently uncomfortable communicating with like almost anybody outside like besides me like um so some some someone want to talk to Molina more um I know Alan like literally spoke to you two days ago really um yeah oh I didn't know yeah I know I didn't know until he was like oh I spoke to Molina I was like oh like dissociating that moment yo

u don't remember right yeah like I I feel like I don't completely lack Amnesia but like but I know like sometimes like there is am Amnesia and sometimes there's not yeah some I like I do like see them like like um I I see what's happening like like in like a passenger like seat kind of thing does each altar have different goals and Ambitions for the system's life yeah um it's because Josie wants to be a performer but I tell her we don't have the skill we've been in contact for a while I think wh

en you first reached out was probably 3 years ago so you must have been 16 yes um you wanted to share your story and we waited till you were a little older 18 19 now but um why have you wanted to share your story because I just want people to know like especially my specific situation I just want people maybe in similar situations to not feel alone that when you're an orphan like you're not alone in that and that's really hard you know losing your parents but I just want them to know you're not

alone what is something other people can do so that you don't feel alone show empathy empathy is very important for the soul would it be correct to say that did was a response to the trauma you experienced I definitely feel like it was I noticed that after um what would happen um I would begin to hear like like hey like like like I would hear like it was singing sometimes I'd hear like a sing Voice singing to me or it was just like I would uh like blackout I would not remember it would I would j

ust kind of like disappear like just go to sleep basically but like I wouldn't like lay down lie down and take a nap I would just kind of banish I feel like it's it's something I've tried I've tried to keep to myself I I um it's it's it's so it's so complicated and it's so hard and it's so complex I I just I this stigma of it is so like strong right now that like like you know I'm I'm like it's it's it's it's so I really like I can't I can't express how hard it is to like to open up about this t

here's even some self stigma there see sometimes I like sometimes I lay at bed and night I'm like there's no way I have this like sometimes I tell myself too like there's no way I have autism there's no way I'm mentally ill like there's no way like this is not happened to me let's keep going chronologically you said at 16 your mom passed away what happened after that so she tried withdrawing from all her prescription medications and she was like taking like 12 13 or 14 she was like on Xanax and

stuff like that and like I just remember then like her body just like shut down over that period of time and she was just dealing with withdrawals like she also had other complications too but I felt like that was just the main cause and eventually on May 27th she died and it was so hard to take like I didn't know if I had a pit in my stomach or not but it was just so upsetting you know I didn't know what to do cuz I was like oh my God both went my parents dead like the reality hit me I just rem

ember then like my life just started changing like I'm not going to lie I feel like my life kind of got better after my mom died I'm not trying to sound mean but um like after that my uncle started coming in my life I never met him before then but he started coming in my life and I felt like ever since then he kind of transformed my life and made my life so much better tell me about Michael's role in your life he is a significant part of our life he came in he came in it a little late well actua

lly I mean I have a whole life but he came in a little late in this air like he came a little late in my life but in our lives but he's has has had a profound impact on us and he makes her life better thank you you're welcome and I know they call you an uncle but you're actually a second cousin yes I am uh Melanie their mother's cousin when my cousin passed away I came down and was that was the first time I had met them and it was an amazing meeting cuz I'd only heard a little bit about them thr

ough the family and Word of Mouth but when I met them I was just completely taken with both of them and thought it was uh they just uh I just wanted to be of help to them and be assistance how I could and help their lives go on further with you know once their mother passed away and just have a support system for them be a support system for them and to them what are some ways in which Michael does help you he he sets up appointments for us to be honest he does a lot of things that I feel like a

dults should be doing for us but he does help us cuz like not going to lie I'm not the best with things he helps me manage my money he helps me with setting up appointments he helps me with connecting with things um like maybe he helped me connect with my therapist my current therapist he helped me to get even the diagnosis that we have now and everything like that you know like just to take an interest to even care I just think that's really nice you know like just you know going out of your wa

y just wanting to know about me I just think that's really nice what's it like to have a supportive family member oh my gosh she's like the best thing ever honestly like honestly for real he feels like a father figure to us honestly so I really appreciate him and um I feel like he like he's like the father figure that I needed cuz I remember when I was like a little kid I like went up to a random stranger and was like would you be my dad and stuff like that cuz that's how desperate I wanted a fa

ther so now I feel like I have that Father Figure fulfilled and um I forgot the rest of the question though I'm sorry how's that like like how like she just asked you how was it like having a figure oh it's great though he's a great and he's a great part of our life I love him so much feels a lot better feels so much better I love this guy we like to have fun that's like the most important part like bringing fun to their life when you visualize the person you want to be like when you close your

eyes and think about in 10 years this is what I want to be this is what I want to be doing what do you see I see myself wanting to be a clinical social worker like what I'm wanting to do specifically is working with adolescence with neurodevelopmental dis ERS and mental illness like that's my the thing I want to specialize the most so I want to do that I know as teenagers it's hard to always want to talk to the adult or the person who's like nagging you about doing this or nagging you about doin

g that which I try not to nag I try to make everything like fun and inspiring and exciting but um texting you know it's the modern world so texting is what it's all about you know if I can get they're both so busy too doing their thing so that if I can get them on a phone call it's I'd feel lucky and blessed to be able to talk to them cuz it's always fun and you know I just want to be able to like pass them on like words of wisdom and support and just let them know people I'm there for them and

we're trying to get everything done that they want and let them know that anything they want in their life can be accomplished and there it might not be as easy as it is for other people or easy as it should be or sounds like it could be but it will get done and it will get accomplished and they'll be everything they want to be and can be what's it like for you to hear that up lied really uplifted and I feel like it helps motivate me to where I want to be specifically I don't know about I can't

speak for deos it's pretty much the same thing like it just makes me feel like hopeful um you know that like I I still have like a shot um cuz I have somebody who just car so much about me what is the most important thing for people to understand about mental health that like mental health like I just want people to know that psychology is biology ology so that people like if they're suffering psychologically that's going to impair the way that they're going to take care of themselves how they p

resent to other people how they react with other people I just want people to know that mental health matters a lot what advice do you have for somebody watching this video who's been through something similar to you okay for starters just know if you're an or or an and you're under like if you're an orphan and stuff like that especially when you're a child you're not alone you um You're Not Alone um and everything that's happened to you you can always make those bad experiences into experiences

that will be good for you in the long run because you'll know how to deal with those situations you can help other people you can make people um I don't know you can just uplift people because you know because you just been through something that other people haven't been through and I just feel like you can just make beautiful use of the things that you've been through even if you've been through the ugly you can make it beautiful