Woman Spent 3 Years Creating a 'Nostalgia Room' Full of '90s-Inspired Pieces to Deal with Her Childhood 'Trauma' (Exclusive)

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2 days ago

Filled with everything she didn't have as a kid, Destinee Ristau's nostalgia room has been her project for the past three yearsNEED TO KNOW
Destinee Ristau has spent the last three years making a "nostalgia room"
Her first few items were an inflatable couch, a lava lamp, and a VHS tape of The Princess Diaries
From there, she's grown her room and her social media following, sharing her '90s and 2000s treasures with the worldWhen you walk into Destinee Ristau's room, it's like you're walking through a portal to the '90s and early 2000s.
Deemed her "nostalgia room," Ristau has collected everything from Britney Spears posters to Disney-branded bedding and Furbies. While the room now brings Ristau joy and comfort, the idea grew from a place of longing.
"The room would not exist without the trauma. I was growing up in a rough situation from the ages of 1 to 7, and I dealt with complete chaos," she exclusively tells PEOPLE. "My parents separated. It was not an amicable separation."
The 35-year-old says her mom worked at a strip club and was often out all night and asleep during the day. This left Ristau alone to care for herself from a very young age. Once her dad realized the gravity of the situation, he did everything he could to help.
"The trauma cooled by the time I was 6. I was living with my dad and my stepmom, and things calmed down," she explains. "Still, it swung from those first critical developmental years of my life being complete chaos and uncertainty to getting bullied in elementary and middle school."
For Ristau, she never addressed her childhood trauma until she was an adult.
"I couldn't be a kid when I was a kid for a while," Ristau says.
Then, when she was in her 20s, her dad was diagnosed with cancer and died.
"That was the trigger in 2017 when I thought, 'There's too much going on. I have way too many underdressed issues.' I started going to therapy," she says. "I returned to college and completed my degree in psychology. I learned a lot in my therapy sessions and dealt with mourning my dad."
"It turned into a constant loop of grief, because my dad passed, my mom passed, my grandparents passed, a sister passed, and I was in a continuous cycle of grief. I'm trying to heal myself, and everyone around me that I love is dying. How can you heal when all these things keep happening to you?"
It was then that the idea for a "nostalgia room" came to her.
"I started leaning into 'What is little Destinee trying to tell me right now? What does she need?'" she recalls. "I feel her coming back out, and she's saying, 'Let me help you in ways that maybe nothing else can.' I was 30 and I started leaning into nostalgia."
The first few items she bought were an inflatable couch, a lava lamp, and a VHS tape of The Princess Diaries.
"I thought, let me rewind and go back to something happy, or maybe a picture of that childhood that I didn't get early on," she explains. "I needed something to bring me out of everything so dark and so scary and traumatizing, and it went from there."
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Everything from her childhood had been thrown away, so when Ristau began creating her nostalgia room, she had to source everything from thrift stores, eBay, and other online marketplaces. Looking to expand into a different room, she then took over the office. Thankfully, her husband was "all for it."
One of her favorite purchases is the daybed, which is placed right in the middle of the room. It reminds Ristau of when her dad brought her home and bought her a daybed with Pocahontas bedding. That bed, paired with her Disney Princess TV, gets the most use.
In addition to these items, Ristau also has an extensive collection of VHS tapes and CDs, throwback posters, stuffed animals from various movies and TV shows, and a collection of catalogs from the 1990s and early 2000s.
She now shares her room with the world through her TikTok and Instagram accounts, bringing that same sense of joy and nostalgia to thousands of people.
"That's the most humbling and cool part about it, hearing people tell me that my videos make their day, or every time they see my room, they feel a sense of calm, and they sit and take deep breaths as they watch the video, because it's like their therapy session," she shares. "If you need therapy, definitely go to therapy, but I'm happy to help you, like I've helped myself with this community."
Ristau says that she's "so grateful" for the nostalgia community that she's found.
"The people who get it get it, and the people who don't, don't. That's fine, but people should be open to it. Most people love nostalgia, and some people may think it's cringy, but to be cringy is to be free. It makes me happy. It makes so many people happy."
Despite living in a digital world, Ristau encourages people to start curating a collection of their own physical media.
"Now is the time to invest in physical media, and you do not want to lose this stuff," she says. "You want to have a copy of your favorite movie. You want to have physical media. If you watch Gilmore Girls every year, buy the DVD set. You'll be so much happier."
For Ristau and others, "nostalgia is so healing," and can lead to community and connection.
"People need to be open to listening to their inner child. Hear them out, see what they're trying to tell you," she adds. "I'm happy to share this room with others. It's fun and it's a good way for a very traumatized generation to heal in an unorthodox way."
On her TikTok page, Ristau also shares that she is working on a "grandma kitchen" and a celestial room. While some people in her comments say she's stuck in the past, Ristau would tell you that's precisely where she wants to be.
Read the original article on People
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