apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I've woken up many a night and spent fearful minutes trying to determine if the footsteps I hear are in my apartment or the people upstairs. Luckily, it's always been the latter.

The curse of an old building and neighbors w/uncarpeted floors.

I sometimes think there is a secret doorway under my kitchen sink and that one day I'll catch my next door neighbor crawling out of it.

That scene from Psycho is perfect because it's EXACTLY the reason I bought a clear shower curtains for my first apartment. Out of all the horror movies I've ever seen I think that one disturbed me the most because I feel so vulnerable in the shower. I have a knife in my nightstand and a bat in the hallway closet, but in the shower all I have to protect myself is a bar of soap - lol

I *have* had my house broken into while I was sleeping. That sort of thing scars you for life, so I'm not sure my fears are totally irrational.

I obsess about people coming in the windows. Even during the day, I can't leave them open unless I'm right there to watch them. Definitely not at night! I'd love to be able to sleep with them open, especially during the spring and fall, but I can't.

Also, sometimes at night, I get paranoid that there's someone in my apartment, so I try to lie perfectly still and breathe shallowly. The fear passes pretty quickly, usually when a car drives by. For some reason, passing cars are comforting. The whole thing is totally irrational, I know, but I've been like that since I was a little kid.

I have an odd habit of sleeping with my eyes open and, when I was in college, I dealt with sleep paralysis frequently. I lived in a studio apartment at the time in a rough neighborhood. Often I would find myself in the middle of the night lying on my mattress, which was on the floor, staring at the front door. Next I would have something like a hallucination of people trying to break down the door. I would try to get up or scream but never could. Eventually I would "wake up" from this. It was nuts.

After my wife moved in with me, she'd tell me about how she woke up in the night with me giving her a dead stare and making some sort of death gargle. I'd be having a similar dream and the sound I was making was what actually escaped as I tried to scream in my dream.

Creepy.

No joke, this was my status message on facebook yesterday:

"I thought I heard a noise in my apartment while I was taking a shower -- turned out to be a car in the parking lot, but now I've freaked myself out. I am wishing I had any combination of the following three things tonight: a dog, a gun, or a man."

I own what used to be my parents' house, and my mother actually passed away here, from cancer, because we had at-home hospice care. Officially, I don't believe in ghosts, but when I first moved back, I kept worrying I would see her wandering the house at night. At some point I reminded myself that my mother was a sweet, caring woman who died of natural, if unfortunate, causes -- and if it is possible for her to come back from the dead, she would never go around trying to spook me! I haven't worried about it since (and no, she hasn't showed up).

I moved into an old cottage last year (built in 1935). Old houses make the strangest noises. That's part of the reason i got a cat. Now when I hear things bumping around in the night i tell myself it's just the cat (and not my house falling apart, or someone trying to break in). It's made a world of difference for my sleep, and my sanity.

i'm terrified of hallways and corners. i'm always afraid someone was waiting to get me. when i was younger, we had really long hallways in our basement [which it where the kids' rooms were] and i would run down them so i could run past the "killer" waiting at the end of the hall for me. i'm still scared of hallways, but luckily in our town house, we don't have to worry about that.

i'm also afraid of windows and strangers watching me and doing something terrible. [i think i watch too much CSI and law&order SVU] or somehow a bad person could activate my webcam and watch me. [luckily we have macs so there's a light whenever it's on, but i have to check every time i walk into a room with a computer.]

there's lots more...i'm a very nervous person. but i think that's enough for now.

mlleErica,
I have a dog, and she is thoroughly useless. Yes, she *looks* intimidating, but she's made of chicken. She could also sleep through WWIII, so I can't even rely on her to alert me if there were an intruder.

One night I awoke with a start from a strange dream. Then I heard a strange knocking sound and a weird muted whine. My heart was pounding. I turned on the light and discovered my cat, slowly backing across the room slowly swinging her head from side to side with an emply Kleenex box--the kind with cellophane around the edges of a narrow opening--stuck on her head.

Otherwise, I sleep pretty well.

I could have signed the post by amazonikon. Also, I wake up in the morning, I open the door, I have breakfast and I go to the shower. Then, I remeber that I let the door open. And it happens every day. One day I will remember to close the door before I get into the shower.

If I go to the loo in the night I have to put the light on (even though it also means a noisy fan comes on) just in case i see a malevolent presence in the darkened mirror.

My 12 year old daughter hates the for the shower curtain to be closed in her bathroom. She's okay with it being closed during a shower (with the door locked) but during the day it has to be open at all times. I'm pretty sure we have shower scenes in scary movies to thank for that one. And the time her brother hid in there and scared the everliving daylights out of her. Evil!

@klt108 - that is hilarious!

I feel very safe in my apartment. I know my neighbors and there is a certain comfort in being surrounded by people in that way. But when I stay alone at my parents' house, I sometimes get a little spooked. It helps to have animals around. Even though my prissy greyhound and my mom's parrot would be helpless against any intruder, there's something calming to having them near.

I live with three big dogs. I'm confident that two of them would bite an intruder. And all three would bark and growl an awful lot to let me know something was up. And I have $600 worth of deadbolts. And Brinks. And I lock the bedroom door at night. And I have the doggies in the room with me. Feels purty safe . . . I can't possibly be the easiest target around, anyway.

Dropped the pups off at the dogsitter before a trip one time and came back to take a shower before heading to the airport. Scariest shower EVER!!!

I startle like nobody's bizniss. Will never live without dawgies.

I have always thought that the creaking I hear during the night is my 14 lbs cat walking around on our old hardwood floors. So far thats all it has been thankfully!

Creepiest was discovering during our reno/demo that the stairs connect straight through with out neighbors...meaning we could have broken into to their place (or vice versa) since there was no drywall or plaster seperating the stairs. We put up insulation on the common wall and between the joist which helps with sound mitigation.

Now it's only the cats that wig out when they hear the neighbor's dog running up and down the stairs. I bet they think the mice are HUGE next door.

My biggest house fears are going into basements or into attics. No idea why but I am just not brave that way. Other's have to go first so the murderers or monsters get to hit them first. Honest (I like to say no matter how scary I am right behine you!).

It's so nice to know other people share these fears, since I always feel pretty silly (as well as terrified) when I get up and have to turn on lights just to go to the bathroom or when I feel like I have to scare whatever evil things are in the living room at night by telling them to get out because this is MY house.

One thing that has helped immeasurably is having my guinea pigs, even though they are... guinea pigs.

As long as my husband is home, I'm fine - he doesn't even need to be in the house during the day, as long as he's in the CITY. But when he's working on the road, I always have at least a couple bad nights of paranoia. I have cats, but the noises they make sometimes sound eerily like someone opening the back door (actually the cat door to the basement), or walking on our 100 year old floors (creeky dresser they like to walk on). Scares the living daylights out of me...

We have a security system with motion detectors and sensors on all the doors. Part of that is an actual alarm that when it goes off...is so ear piercing it almost makes you double over.

One night we were asleep in bed, at about 2am the alarm went off and we were struck with panic. The alarm NEVER goes off. I jumped out of bed and didn't even think about grabbing some type of weapon...I just ran out to the kitchen.

Turns out the door from the kitchen to the garage wasn't shut tight and it blew open, setting off the alarm.

Now we lock it...but that's about as close to an actual intruder as I wanna get.

As a kid I lived in one of those neighborhoods where parents would just turn the porch lights on as a signal for you to come home for the night.

When our porch lights flicked on, my big brother would run ahead of me screaming "the burglars are going to get you" and then lock me out when he got to the door first.

To this day, being alone outside my house (any house) in the dark freaks me out. Thanks big brother.


My other phobia is that I must sleep with at least a sheet up to my underarms or I simply feel too vulnerable.

I'm moving into my first house in a few days, the first time I've ever lived along in a detached house. I'm guessing it will take me 30 days to get a dog.

I also enjoy blaming noises on my cats. And I require covers to keep the monsters off (everyone knows monsters hate covers...)

I lock my front apartment door, live on a high floor and own a gun.

I can't believe this post exists. I JUST had a dream last night about staying in my childhood home with my partner and someone breaking into the basement with a flashlight and a gun. It kept me up for at least an hour afterward.

I always have fears of people breaking in... about a year ago, in a former apartment, the phone kept ringing at 3am... the voice-mails were very basic and creepy, "Call me baaaaaaaaaaaack." It was an unknown number. During the third voice-mail, it hit me; THEY WERE CALLING FROM THE HALLWAY outside of our front door.

Thirty seconds later, there were violent pounds on the front door. Nonstop. We were sooooo scared, especially when we realized there was really no other way out of our 4th story loft. The madness ensued for 30 minutes. I called the NYPD. They hung up on me.

Eventually, we learned that our car had been stolen, then totaled by the carjacker and the whole thing was the another precinct of the NYPD trying to get a hold of us, although in a VERY unprofessional manner. I told an officer, "If I had owned a gun, you'd be dead right now."

The middle of the night presents itself with endless possibilities. A creaking floor can turn into our worst nightmares. A bad dream can paralyze us in fear. As scary as it is, the best solution is to have a plan. Get out. Fight back. Run like hell. Whatever it may be, have it in the back of your mind before you have to use it.

And try not to sleep naked. Embarrassment and fear are NOT a good combo.

tequila red, Lol, I have the same exact fear! I go through so many liners because they get ruined not airing out. Least your daughter's 12.
mlleErica, best advice - get a pet :)

As for me - thank goodness I'm not the only one - but I also fear what I can't explain. I've had too much experience with that sort of stuff for years.

Biggest fear of all is someone trying to break in. Another person who can do me physical harm that will probably affect me emotionally for the rest of my life. Scary.

Its interesting how where you call home can be such a concentration of fear. A small portion of my decision to finally give up roommates and get my own place was because of this irrational fear that my roommates had. Personally, I found thier constant walking around and turning on lights to be more bothersome than the thought of home invasion. Actually, not even that, burglars and rapists are a real thing to be scared of, but these girls were constantly spooking themselves at the thought of ghosts, zombies, aliens, Tomas from The Orphanage, etc.
I have to admit though, I cannot have cupboard doors even slightly ajar or time left on the microwave. Also, that glow around my bedroom door in the middle of the night because someone turned on the hall way light makes me want to jump off a cliff!
BTW, on sleeping naked, I do that on purpose in the hopes that cops or firemen will have to come knocking on my door!

I feel safe in our apartment, but if we ever move to a house, I'm getting a gun for sure. That is, provided the government will still be recognizing the right to bear arms.

I hate elevators. Hate. All because of a movie I've never even seen (Japanese version of Dark Water or whatever it was). The elevators in my last apartment building were slow, dark and had doors that made me think of a morgue, which I'm sure didn't help. If people are in the elevator with me, it's fine, but alone, I don't even really like the ones at the office.

I feel too exposed in bed without lots of covers. This makes summer less than fun if I can't get enough cold air into the bedroom.

DialJforJake, I'd have been incredibly freaked out, too. What idiots!

I'm afraid of dark mirrors, so I close my closet door (where I keep a full-length mirror) and my bathroom door at night. I have to turn the light on in the bathroom before I open the door fully if I go in there in the middle of the night.

I do "perimeter checks" before I go to bed, where I check that the windows are closed, locked, and barred and the front door has all 3 locks on it. It usually helps my sanity. Usually. I'm getting a cat soon so it will be nice to blame strange noises on her.

I used to live in my parents garage that wasn't attached to the house, and my dad in his wisdom had only put up a flimsy internal door as my outside door, it had clear glass in it and could easily b kicked open. it was in the back garden but the garden gate didn't have a bolt on it, so every night when i turned off the lights, i'd try not to look through the window in a door incase a face was staring back at me, watching me. luckily i had an internal door that i could lock, tho it was still pretty flimsy.

but one night, i had my window open, it must of been 2am and i heard the gate go, i went to close my window (incase it wasn't the wind) to see a persons gloved hand receed back into the darkness fast when i moved the curtain out of the way to close the window. i stood there, and screamed, grabbed the sword from under my bed and the dagger by the PC, screamed again (trying to wake up my parents in the house) and started yelling, " come on then!!" The next day mum asked me what that noise was last night, sounded like a fox in pain" thanx for checking mum.

i also have fears of monsters coming out of dark corridors and getting me. oh and the night after watching "i am legend" swear i saw zombies hanging in my closet that was left open. yuk.

i forget to throw the deadbolts all the time. my apartment is too exposed to try to break into. it would be stupid. though, i plan to apply my old sorority paddle with extreme prejudice, should the need arise.

waking in the middle of the night to pee, the bathroom mirror gets me everytime. that and shadows. i walk with my head down looking at my feet till i get back in bed.. usually just afraid ill see something im not wanting to see. its not impossible, you know.

i also tend to be afraid at night getting into my car that either someones waiting underneath to slash my ankles and steal my ride or that someones waiting in the back behind the back row seats to get me and my kids. its silly.. or is it?

When my husband is away overnight, it takes me longer to fall asleep b/c I believe every quick moving shadow is a bug waiting to pounce on me. I have a fear of bugs.

When I lived alone with my dog, no fear. even though he would welcome any burglar with a tail wag and a grin, he would have at least barked once or twice, but in a friendly way. His friendly warnings would have been enough time for me to run to the kitchen, grab a knife, then hide.

I used to get the creepy feeling (just like another poster said here) that when I straighten back up from the bathroom sink after washing my face with my eyes closed, that I would look into the medicine cabinet mirror and see ghosts or zombies. I don't get that anymore, thank god!

I am so glad I am not the only one who sleeps under the covers in fear of the monsters or boogeyman - LOL - I figured I was the only one who had that fear into adulthood.

I can not stand to be outside alone at night - it drives me insane. Though I can thank the fact I have slight agoraphobia to that.

I can not sleep a wink until I know the windows are locked, the blinds are down and shut (don't ask), and the doors are securely locked. The only two ways into my apartment are the door on the balcony (live on second floor) and the front door (you'd have to go through hallway), so I'm not sure why it scares me.

Even with everything locked, there's an antique walking stick by my bed along with a knife in the nightstand, a ball bat in the hallway closet, and numerous knives in the kitchen (of course). I even have a mini-ball bat stashed under the couch.

I'm also one to turn on many lights on my way to the bathroom or kitchen in the night...terrible waste of electricity but I would go paranoid thinking someone somehow got in and was waiting for me in the dark.

I have a fear of a hand reaching out from under the bed and grabbing my foot. I check underneath the bed - every time. I always have! probably always will.
Also going upstairs when the lights downstairs are turned off... I have to run because I think something could chase me.
We had a recent break-in but we were out of town... it still freaks me out.
I also have a fear of seeing someone in the bathroom mirror.. like when I look up from washing my face.
I am super-paranoid! I blame older siblings, and also being allowed to watch "America's Most Wanted" and "Unsolved Mysteries" as a kid !!

I always leave the shower curtain open during the day, and will always check behind it before I use the bathroom.

I have to sleep with my door shut. The logic behind this is that I'll hear someone come in and wake up in time, but of course that doesn't make much sense.

I don't like walking up my staircase because my back is to the upstairs where someone could easily throw something or assult me somehow.

One night I woke up to most awful growing and ferocious barking I have ever heard from my dog. Turns out it was just deer, but it is very alarming to wake up to.

I used to be afraid of every little noise at night. I recently got turtles and the noises from their water filter effectively block out most house noises.

LOL obviously I can be pretty paranoid, but it's only really when I'm alone. I blame the scary movies I watched as a kid.

I hear noises all the time:

Creaking walls from heat expansion/contraction.
Neighbors in adjacent apartments.
Homeless people & traffic on the street below.
Plumbing.

If you're paranoid about intruders - it's smarter to do something about it like installing better locks (consider the new keyless electronic locks by Schlage) and deadbolts on your doors and sash-locks on your windows rather than hiding under the covers like a silly person.

I can't sleep with the closet door open. You never know what could come out of there in the dark.

I used to travel a lot for work. At one hotel in Texas, someone tried to force their way into my room in the middle of the night. I woke up, started screaming, and pounded on the wall. It scared them off and everyone else on the floor. The next morning I found out another woman's room was broken into the night before.

Another of the guests recommended I get loud bells or windchimes to place on the door knob. That became standard practice for me and I adopted that for my apartment. I have windchimes/bells on my front and balcony doors, as well as the bedroom and bathroom doors. They make a lot of noise when opening the doors. They are not exactly deterrents but they will wake me quickly enough so I have a chance to fight back.

The picture says it all. Whenever I shower, I wait in terror for a vague figure to loom behind the frosted glass of the stall doors. Aaaahhhhhh!!!!!!!

it looks like alot of us paranoid ppl are the younger of siblings, curse you older brother!

i also had a ritual when walking up stairs looking back over my should 1/3 of the way up the stairs, then again over the opposite should 2/3 of the way up the stairs. i can pin point this to the thin man that comes through letterboxes to eat peoples livers in the x-files that i saw when i was around 10.

This one time while I was still in nursing school, we had a late shift that ended at 10pm. That very day our instructor had told us nursing students "hospital ghost stories"; room number such-and-such's bed-curtain wouldn't stay closed no matter how many times one pulled it shut, and another room had a heavy-feeling presence to it; when one walked into the room one felt as if they were being suffocated. A priest was called to bless the room and then it was fine. After my shift ended I drove home to my apartment. Walking up the stairs to the top floor. Suddenly my room-mate jumps out from around the corner, scares me, and I nearly have a heart attack and fall down the stairs!!! *Sigh*, boys will be boys. From then on I always carried a small mirror in my pocket so I could see if there was anyone hiding in the corner waiting to get me.

This is disgusting and I can't believe I am typing it, but when I go to the bathroom in the middle of the night I don't turn the light on because it's too jarring to my sleepy eyes, and I always have the fear that a rat is going to come up from the sewer through the pipes, up into my toilet and bite me on the butt.

I use my cats as an alarm system. They aren't a deterrent (big chickens), but they are good about letting me know if someone is around. They woke me up when there was someone outside the door once (in hindsight I think it was a lost, drunk student, but I went out the backdoor to a friend's house!)

If I ever came home and wasn't greeted by them, I'd turn right around and run out and call the cops before going back in as I would assume there's someone else in the place then.

I'm so glad I am not the only one! I often wake up my husband in the middle of the night with "did you hear that???" He never does and falls immediately back asleep and then I have to lay there completely still to convince myself there is nothing there. I have to fall asleep before he does or else I can just lay there forever freaking myself out. When I was in jr. high and high school I refused to shower if I was alone in the house. Now I can do it but my dog lays in front of the tub and I frequently have to open the curtain and check the bathroom while i'm showering. Obviously I'm powerless with my shampoo bottle but I guess I want to see what's coming?

I think the story about the person with sleep paralysis whose wife would wake up to him staring at her is the CREEPIEST THING EVER!!! Anyone ever seen Exorcism of Emily Rose???

I sleep with my sheets past my ears. I am always scared that a roach will crawl into my ear and not be able to get out, as at one point I heard that they can't walk backwards. It may or may not be true but I can't get it out of my head!!

I also get these really strong impulses to run up the stairs instead of just walking when I am alone at home, like if I could just get to the top of the stairs faster, I will outrun the nonexistent person chasing me.

I just Netflixed another Hitchcock classic, Rear Window, since I hadn't seen it in years. On a night you're feeling less jumpy, I'd highly recommend it.

In it, Jimmy Stewart's back window overlooks the back windows and decks of several other buildings, and he catches some suspicious behavior while his broken leg heals. Now that I live in a building with a similar collective back alley/courtyard, I may find the film a little more unnerving.

Great post! I've always wondered if I'm the only one.

1. Fear of closed shower curtains. Check.
2. Fear of a hand grabbing me from under the bed. Check.
3. Fear of looking in the mirror late at night / in the dark. Check.
4. Fear of noises when the hubby isn't home. Check.
5. Fear of waking up so someone's staring at me next to the bed. (and often I see something like it, like a suit hung up to the door or something thrown over a chair etc.)

Also, I need to have my feet tucked under the comforter/sheet/blanket or whatever I'm sleeping under. Came from Nightmare on Elm Street, where Freddy came from the bottom of the bed and pulled the screaming poor thing into a flaming abyss... as a kid it was always tigers that were going to get me.

another incident i had thinking about it was a classic bumb in the night. we were staying on a canal boat on the Norfolk Broads and had docked somewhere for the night. i was only about 12 i think, but in the middle of the night i heard a bumb, and draws sliding open in the galley kitchen. i didn't move, then a dark shadowy figure poked his head around my door (as it was open) and looked at me, i stared right back, hoping he couldnt see my eyes open as i couldn't see his. then he krept away.

the next day i asked my parents about it and no1 said they had gotten up, not even my brother, and the shadow didnt really look like any1 in my family, too big for my brother, but too small for my dad. years later i brought it up again and thats when my parents decided to take notice of what i was saying, sigh.

now i usually sleep facing the doors, so i can see whos coming through it, and if it happens again, they are going to be so dead.

i too have tormented myself for years and it is very reassuring to know that there are at least 45 other people in the world who are just as irrational. i have many fears and obsessions, but i will only divulge a few here. the others i may take up with a professional someday.
the mirror thing - i totally get that! i don't know where i came up with that one, but it always crosses my mind as i am spitting out toothpaste in the sink that when i straighten back up, i will have the face of a zombie.
closing doors - i am a closing freak! can't sleep with the door to the bathroom or closet open.
snakes in the toilet - does anyone remember the 80's classic TV series "Highway to Heaven" with Michael Landon? well, unfortunately i do. especially the episode where he was a plumber and there was a lady that had a snake in her toilet. wow...i'm really sounding retarded here.
noises in the night - ever since i started co-habitating with my now husband 9 years ago, i have gotten over much of this. is it just having someone else in the bed with you that ends these panic attacks? i don't know. but my 2 Boston Terriers are absolutely useless. their snoring has woken me up on numerous occassions...talk about creepy noises in the night! snoring that isn't coming from my husband! however, my girl dog is terrified of night time when my husband is away. she walks around the house all night, growling at the windows and doors. i finally got smart and make her stay in the basement when he is away.
TV shows - yes, i too was a victim of overactive imagination after watching Unsolved Mysteries and the X Files. stupid TV.
wow...i think i really do need some professional help.

Love this thread. Says something about the human condition...

eeks: "I blame being allowed to watch "America's Most Wanted" and "Unsolved Mysteries" as a kid"
Me too! Whenever there was an episode about aliens I'd have to run up the stairs and leap onto my bed.

I had this fear as a child that there was a monster with long fingernails slowly scraping through my matress right at my ear, and when he finally got through he was going to stab me in the ear. I HEARD the scraping. Years later I realized I was hearing the blood pumping in my ears as I freaked myself out!

Our house is old, has a basement, and makes lots of noises. Getting a security system was the best thing we did. Now we have identified most of the recurring noises.

Ooh, I have some of these same fears.

I definitely don't like mirrors in the dark. When it's light they don't ever make me nervous, but in the dark? *shudder* I just imagine an evil face or pair of eyes being reflected in the dark behind me.

I feel jumpy in the shower about break-ins, too (though only when I'm home alone). As others have said, I just feel so vulnerable. Likely the combination of not really being able to see/hear anything, and being naked!

And sometimes I get the same impulse others have mentioned to run up the stairs, or past an open doorway, or whatever, in case something is behind me!

Or occasionally-- especially if I've recently watched/read something scary-- I'll get this horrible feeling that if I look into a dark empty room, even just my own living room, SOMETHING awful will be there looking back at me.

I'm sure glad I'm not the only one!

I live in one of America's safest cities, and my complex has security patrols, but I still check EVERY door and window EVERY time I leave the house or go to bed to make sure they're locked and bolted.

I refuse to leave my bathroom window open if I'm not home, even though it's impossible to reach that window without a tall ladder (and the neighbors would notice something like that). I air it out only when I'm home.

And I love Rear Window. Great film.

I have to tuck all my limbs under the comforter when I sleep because when I was little I was afraid of vampires coming in the night. even in the boiling heat - must be tucked in. I guess I must still be a little scared now!

When I moved into a new apartment kitty developed a delightful habit of convincing me he was asleep at my feet and then with ninja like silence sneaking into the livingroom to make a lot of noise (jumping on squeaky chairs, jumping on tables, scratching the floor with his claws, and pulling down piles of papers). Scared the BEJEEEZUS!!! out of me the first time. Once I figured out what it was I was more annoyed than anything, but it took a couple weeks of getting used to and putting up some kitty deterents on the furniture before I go to bed, but now i can sleep through it.

Of course now that I sleep through it god help me if its not the cat.

I dont have a ton of these but occasionally when I come home late I will get freaked out by the echo of my own footsteps that someone is following me... and if the fiance is out of town I have to turn on music and lots of lights or the empty-feeling (though quite safe) apartment bothers me.

However. I went to a party during grad school where I wasn't feeling well so I went home early. A bunch of my female friends got very drunk and decided to crash at my friend's place... when they woke up in the morning they discovered someone had broken in through the glass patio door and taken all of their stuff (wallets, keys, purses, computers, electronics, etc...) so terrifying. They slept through everything. The weirdest thing was that the robbers also took the trash can, probably to carry all their loot away in.

The scariest one of these is that when I was a tiny baby, my mom was home alone with me and went to put me in my crib which was near a window in my parents' ground-floor bedroom. The window had those wooden slat-style blinds and they were tilted down... she looked down and made eye contact with a man who was crouched down on the ground outside the window looking up and in. Needless to say she FREAKED out and got her gun and called the police.

I also get scared at home of falling down the stairs and lying there with a broken leg/back/whatever for days if my boyfriend is out of town... I had an uncle who fell like that and broke his pelvis... they didn't find him for three days (he couldn't even crawl to his phone)... by then the break had gone septic and he died.

I leap into bed. Always sleep with the covers over my head. Have the TV remote next to me so that if I hear something I turn on the TV to check. Have a bat next to my bed!

There was an episode of "Are You Afraid of the Dark" when I was around 9ish about these kids finding out that they were living next to vampires. So my bright idea when going to sleep for about 6 months was to wear a scarf around my neck and the covers up, because everyone knows that vampires aren't smart enough to just move the scarf before they bite you. I also slept with my head to the bottom of the bed so I would get extra time if they did attempt to get me, even though the scarf was protecting me. To this day, I still sleep with my head and shoulders extra extra covered all the way with about 6-10 inches of my feet and legs sticking out. The one past boyfriend that I told my reasoning to told me I was a piece of work, so until now, nobody else has heard about my crazy. Makes me feel better to share. :)

Probably my weirdest phobia is about using the toilet at night. One of my friends told me a very lame, unfrightening ghost story about a man who kills his relatives and drains their blood into the toilet on the advice of a local fortune teller ~ until one day he forgets the injunction to turn off the light and looks down to see the face of the fortune teller in his toilet, drinking the blood. The story is about as dumb as they come . . .and yet, sometimes, at night I'm seized with the awful confiction that if I were to carelessly look down I'd find I'd just peed into the waiting mouth of a demonic fortune teller.

ever since i was little, walking up stairs ANYWHERE where the bottom floor is dark & the floor i'm walking to is light. i just feel a panic & want to run & not look behind me.

I wouldn't say irrational. Four years ago this month, a guy broke into my house at 3:16 a.m. I lived alone (well, with no humans), and my boston terrier woke me up growling. He'd never barked at a person before, but he barked and tried to keep the guy out, then chased him around, even after he got kicked really hard in the belly (swollen afterwards, requiring a trip to the vet). I hid in a closet and called 911. Eight wonderful cops came and surrounded my house, then kicked in the door. It was a young guy on meth who probably wouldn't have hurt me, but it opened my eyes to what "could" happen. Now, I can't sleep if my boyfriend is out, but my pup still is my all-time hero.

we should make a separate support site.

Lol, now that I've finished reading everyone else's responses, I'm feeling a little spooked. :)

I am paranoid as hell. I'm a person who doesn't believe or disbelieve in ghosts, I.E. if a ghost-like thing pops up in the middle of the night, I'm not going to deny its existence as impossible, but instead book my butt at mach five out of that room.

Anyway, I used to live in an old creepy house where a guy committed a *very* messy suicide just a very few years before I moved in. Ever since, weird stuff goes on, loud (and I mean incredibly loud bangs) outside my window on a clear night, doors opening by themselves (air pressure, right??) and more, all of which only seems to happen in my bedroom attached to the attic entryway.

Because of everything that scared me as a kid, I still have a habit of vaulting into my bed from an impressive distance, doing perimeter checks, shutting and blocking doors every night with heavy objects, etc. Most of these fears are thankfully diminished when my fiance is home, but he works one week on, one week off overnight shifts at a Nursing Home, so I'm more or less terrified every other week.

Also, it doesn't help that my Father-In-Law-To-Be, freaks me out all the time with stories. I won't go into his many tales (he's had an extraordinary life) but there is one where he was home alone as a kid with someone who broke into his house! The burglar was answering his home phone so that no one would think there was an intruder, telling his friends that "he wasn't home at the moment" etc, etc. My FIL had to keep hiding in different rooms until help came!!

You sometimes think that these sort of things won't happen to *you*, but his stories remind me that that's stupid.

@ lizziepeony - I have to sleep with the sheet over my ears too! A few years ago, it dawned on me that the did that gross "bug in the ear" thing in the Wrath of Khan, which I saw as a kid. I blame that movie for my ear-sleep paranoia.

Last summer someone stole my dad's weed eater out of our backyard while my dog... a puppy at the time was there. One time my dad saw the two guys looking into our yard when he was pulling weeds out of the grass. He chased them and after that I was terrified they would try to break into our back door which is right next to my bedroom door. During that same week my dog was barking and barking and I was so freaked out and then I saw a flashlight and it turns out it was my dad he went through the front door just in case it was the guys so they couldn't hear him. It scared me so bad. It must have been around 4am.

My dog who passed away 2 years ago would protect me if an intruder broke in but my two dogs now are a bunch of goofy softies.

I use to have a blow torch next to my window just in case someone would try attacking me. Kinda dangerous if I accidently set a wall on fire but I think it looks more intimidating than a knife or bat.

I have often wondered what it is like to be female in today's world, or the world at any time, I suppose. It seems pretty scary. Not that women can't take care of themselves! But, men are the perpetrators and women the victims in so many crimes, you have a legitimate reason for your fears. I'm glad that so many of you have chosen dogs as your defenders. Even the smallest little mutt will give up its life to protect his or her human. Talk about selfless devotion. It wasn't the X-files that scared me; I was in my thirties when that show debuted. The movie that scared the bejeezus out of me when I was a kid? Plan 9 From Outer Space, widely regarded as the worst movie ever made, but terrifying to me on a 16 inch black and white TV screen in 1965! Vampira walking through the cemetery with outstretched arms...Yikes!