Afraid of the dark memories
When I was a child, my siblings were telling me bedtime stories. Scary horror stories which didn’t exactly made me sleepy. They did made me afraid of the dark though…
We were sleeping in the same room, my siblings and I, when I grow up. It was rather contradictory, because on one hand it was making me feel very safe and on the other hand, not at all safe. They were excellent horror stories tellers - older than me as they were, their stories were like true professional horror stories.
You know, all the good stuff, murderers, hunting of victims, blood that dripped, heads shopped off, body parts laying around, surprise moments that made me scream loud and so on. We all had very high level of imagination. We had a lot of fantasy bubbling.
Despite the fact that I begged them to tell me these stories, I was at the same time terrified and ready to pee my pants. You have to remember that they started at a very early age to horrify my mind…. (No wonder I am like I am today ;-)
I was so afraid of the dark that I didn’t dare to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night without putting on every light on the way. One evening when I had gone to bed and the others were still up, they could here me coming up, putting on the lights during my way to the bathroom.
Then there were a very long pause in the bathroom and after that I went straight out of the entrance door, out in the common entrance hall and put on the light out there. Then I went to bed again. I was doing it in my sleep, because I fell asleep in the bathroom. Still I wanted the lights on.
I also remember that when I should go home from a friend in the evenings, even if it were on the same street, I’d always run home the fastest I could, just because I was afraid of the dark. Oh, and how I hated it if the light were not funtioning somewhere! I guess that even our bitter neighbour contributed some to my fear of the dark.
I was afraid of the dark even when I had growned up and moved in with my boyfriend. We lived in a very small apartment with just one room and a kind of kitchen. The light to the living room where the same as for the hallway, so when going to bed in the nights, we had to put out the light in the hallway and get all the way to the bed in darkness…
You got the picture, I never wanted to put out the light for the night, so I always throwed myself in the bed before my boyfriend. One night he decided to change that and nearly beated me. Call it even then, but I refused to recognize that, so what happened? We woke up the next morning with the light still on!
I also made my dog afraid of the dark. When I was out walking him in the evenings and it were dark, I was always on my toes all the time and sensitive as he were, he started to wondering if there might not be anything dangerous after all if I was so nervous.
That meant that every time there were any noice of any kind, I went nervous which made the dog nervous, so in the end, he did always snarl at any noice, just to be on the safe side. As he thought - me - I just become even more nervous….
To be afraid of the dark is a very strange feeling. As a grown up I knew that it was quite silly to be afraid. What was suppose to happen? And just because it was dark? I couldn’t explain it.
I didn’t think that there was some murderer or monster who wanted to attack me, it had grown to a more general feeeling that the dark was dangerous. It was the darkness in itself that scared me. Like a black hole you didn’t know anything about.
It didn’t help much to reason with myself, my mind was still clogged up with the old horror stories. What you experience or learn as a child are very strong memories obviously!
The fear has kind of faded away gradually during the years - or maybe when getting older, you also see the advantages with the darkness ;-)
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