We Used to Live Here

Content Warning: This section contains graphic depictions of violence and presents mental health conditions through a stereotyped and exaggerated lens.

Although perception and reality are connected concepts, they’re distinct in that perception can often be skewed, manipulated, and influenced by factors imperceptible to the conscious mind. Reality, in the context of the story, isn’t set in stone either but is the concrete world that exists around Eve. What Eve perceives as her reality is mainly the creation of her conscience and inner dialogue but also receives input from Charlie, Shylo, and especially Thomas.

Eve’s inner voice, which she calls Mo, often pushes her toward a perception of a terrifying and at times exaggerated reality. Mo isn’t a voice of reason but rather of fear and paranoia. Eve’s anxiety often alters her perception, as the novel clarifies through one document’s discussion of pareidolia, in which people see familiar shapes or abstractions in objects like clouds or trees. Eve notices fine details in the people and things around her, and her perception is always in such a heightened state that she calls her reliability into question, leading readers to do the same. She’s constantly stressed and tired, and these factors lend doubt to the veracity of her experiences. In addition, Eve’s past (including her religious upbringing) influences her perception. She believes in the supernatural but occasionally doubts what she sees, either because of what she says to herself or what others say to her: “Now, she was less certain of what she’d actually seen, and…no. There was no way that was a trick of the light” (92). When Thomas talks about Alison’s mental decline and how she “thought” her reality was being altered, he describes it as if it was a delusion, which leads Eve to believe that her own perception is delusional too. The first time Eve sees Alison’s ghost, the novel doesn’t clarify whether it’s a hallucination or a real experience.

The circles with lines through them (which exist throughout the house) symbolize the various realities and timelines that exist and how they occasionally intersect. The house itself acts as a sort of portal to many of these other places, and for a time Eve hangs between realities as she slowly watches her familiar world disappear. She remembers her neighbor’s address differently, recalls the motel as being abandoned, and is certain that the stained glass window is no longer there. Additionally, Eve knows that “the more one tried to prove their sanity, the more insane they appeared” and therefore that her efforts to defend what she knows and has experienced won’t help her (186). After an alternate reality completely replaces Eve’s world, Thomas traps her and pushes her to the edge, which leads to Eve’s attacks against Paige and Thomas—which end in her being sent to a psychiatric hospital and told that everything she remembers is a delusion. Despite everything, Eve knows who she is and where she came from: “You don’t need a PhD to know that actual psychotic delusions and hallucinations don’t resemble what I experienced—so sudden and impossibly intricate. Those weren’t hallucinations. Those weren’t delusions” (298).