o4. Paranoia.

Nobody understands my paranoia. Everybody just tells me I need to "get over it" or that I should learn to "get over it" but it's just not that easy. Nobody knows the extent of how deep my paranoia goes & how long I've been dealing with it, really. I've had this problem since I was a little kid. I can remember, when I was a little kid, I used to sleep with my mom in her bed for a long time, & I would keep the covers all the way up to my neck about, no matter how hot I was, because I thought if anybody broke in & wanted to kill me, they wouldn't be able to see me breathing & could think I was dead already. Pretty silly, I know, but at that time, that was how oneause  way I thought with my paranoia. Nene (my grandma) used to have this house that had this big staircase that was very tall & it would be dark at the top, even in the daytime, & I'd always be scared that there would be someone at the top of the staircase & I was afraid to go past the staircase, so I would actually run past them or avoid them all together.

The one thing that is actually pretty ironic & kinda funny in a way though, when I lived in a house in middle & part of high school, I was in later middle school I think, & mom woke me up late one night & told me to be really quiet. She told me to go to the bathroom with the phone & stay really quiet. Well apparently someone had been trying to break into our large living room window. Our dogs at the time, Lacey, had started barking first, which woke mom up & then Bowser started after her. I think this is what scared off the burgalar because they didn't try anything afterwards. We still called the cops & they looked around but found nothing. But what is weird is the whole time, I wasn't scared. I was really calm the whole time & wasn't freaking out at all. I don't know if it was because I had just been woken up so I was kinda sleepy or what. I just have always found that really strange.

However, for some reason, it got worse when I was living in one of the apartments in Stafford & I don't know why. It was just like the feelings were out of my control & the anxiety was just so much worse. My bedroom had a little hallway & I was afraid of someone walking past the doorway & being out in the hallway in the main part of the apartment. I had to start taking meds again, which I had started taking for the same thing when I was about fifteen but I stopped taking when I was about seventeen. So when I lived there & this started happening, I was about nineteen or so. Then when I moved into the next apartment, I started having night terrors, which didn't help the situation either. So I got on a medication that is supposed to help both the paranoia & the night terrors. Well the medication helped the night terrors for a while but recently I've been having them pretty frequently again,  & the paranoia is pretty high as well.

When I get home from somewhere, even if my mom has been home, I have to check every room, behind the shower curtains, in the closets, etc. to make sure there's nobody there. I can KNOW that there's nobody in the house, but for some reason there's this bit in my mind that doesn't accept that fact & I don't know why. So when people tell me to "get over it" or it's time to "get over it" or whatever. It actually kinda pisses me off when people tell me that. They just don't understand it. Like I said, I can know, literally & physically, that no one is in my house, but somewhere in my mind it just doesn't accept that & I still am scared & paranoid & I still get these anxiety feelings where I can't help but feel how I feel. It's just how I've felt for most of my life & it's not something I can get over in one night of being alone - that's not going to "cure it" or "get over it"; that's actually just going to make it worse & make me have a panic attack. So when you tell me it's time to "get over" my fear, it just pisses me off & angers me, so please don't say it. I know I try to explain it, & I'm trying to explain it further, but even this doesn't really get out the extent of how bad it makes me feel at times & how it makes me feel. It's not something that's easy to "get over" & "face my fear" & whatnot, especially in one day. When I ask someone a favor like staying the night with me when my mom's away, it really means more to me than you know, as well. But anyway, I guess that's all I have to say. I doubt anyone will read this anyway!