Alyssa Chhim-Michelle grew up in a Cambodian Australian family shaped by her parents’ escape from genocide. When she learned her father carried a rare genetic condition, she faced an impossible choice about her own future. Now as her sister’s caregiver, she confronts the gap between family duty and the life she wants to build.
Alyssa Chhim-Michelle’s story sits at the intersection of cultural obligation, genetic uncertainty, and disability caregiving. Born to parents who fled the Cambodian genocide, she inherited not just their resilience but also their framing of duty: in Cambodian Buddhist culture, parents are treated as God because they gave life. When Alyssa discovered her father and sister carried spinocerebellar ataxia, a progressive neurological condition, she faced a decision no young person should have to make alone. Would she test for the gene herself? What would it mean for her future, her marriage, her family planning?
In Istanbul, days before her wedding, Alyssa learned she did not carry the gene. Relief crashed into guilt watching her sister’s reaction: ‘Why me? Why do I have it?’ That guilt has become her compass. Now, as her sister’s mobility declines and language barriers compound caregiving, Alyssa works as an NDIS plan nominee and PhD researcher studying neurodivergent employment. She is trying to change what her family inherited: the silence, the sacrifice, the assumption that disability is punishment or personal failure.
This episode explores what disability reveals about ‘normal life’, how immigrant families carry invisible caregiving labour, and what it means to love someone across communication barriers. Alyssa articulates a quiet revolution: she wants to do differently, to change inherited patterns of obligation and unhappiness.
🕒 CHAPTERS:
00:00 Alyssa’s story
02:34 When your parents’ trauma shapes your childhood
06:05 The genocide that forced her family to flee
14:39 NDIS plan nominee: what that actually means
16:51 Spinocerebellar ataxia and the gene they inherited
22:02 She doesn’t carry it. So why does she feel guilty?
28:16 Her sister’s generosity before the disability worsened, shared travel memories
39:40 When a caregiver makes a mistake that changes everything
41:29 Living with the weight of her sister’s disability
47:32 Finding silver linings and what disability has taught her
50:18 How to reach someone when words don’t work
57:49 What comes next for Alyssa
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Welcome.
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Kintsugi Heroes was created from a simple belief: every person has a story worth sharing, and sometimes the story we need to hear arrives exactly when we need it most.
Our name comes from the Japanese art of Kintsugi, where broken pottery is repaired with gold. Rather than hiding the cracks, they are honoured as part of the object’s history. We believe people are much the same. The experiences that challenge us, break us, shape us, and help us grow are often the very things that connect us to one another.
This channel is home to honest conversations about resilience, hope, grief, recovery, courage, love, and what it means to keep moving forward when life doesn’t go to plan.
Here you’ll find six podcast series, each sharing stories through a different lens:
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• Animals & Us, hosted by Natalie Stockdale
• Grit Diaries: From Grit to Grace, hosted by Simone Allan and Maryan Bova
• From There to Here, hosted by Emma Bellamy-Dodd
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• Pride in Stories, hosted by John Dwyer
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