Ha-Ha-Haunted

In the spirit of Halloween I thought I would share with you a few of the experiences I have had with the unexplained. I thought of this idea while watching Ghost Adventures (I'm more of a Ghost Hunters kind of girl, but I needed to watch something scary that wasn't a bad 80s horror movie). It occurred to me that I have a fantastic "unexplained" picture! I thought it would be cool to post the picture along with the story and several other stories of spooky things that have happened to me. However, after about an hour and a half of searching almost every corner of my house - I gave up. I'm pretty disappointed because the picture would add so much to my story, but alas, I must continue without it.

So I will begin with the story of the picture. 

It was the early 2000's. My friends and I had become pretty obsessed with "ghost hunting." We wanted to explore and investigate as many of the haunted places as we could. A few of my friends had mentioned Blood Cemetary in Hollis. Supposedly, it's one of the most haunted cemeteries in New Hampshire, so things seemed promising. Armed with a video camera and several other cameras my boyfriend at the time, sister, friend, and I all took a trip out to Hollis. We decided to go during the day since we tried to go at night once before and were too terrified to even stop the car.

It was a very hot summer day, and at first we were all a little disappointed. Nothing was happening. It wasn't even creepy during the day, but we hoped to maybe get something on film. We tried to provoke any of the energies floating around - telling them to push us over, but nothing was happening. Until, we came to a specific grave. All of us were drawn to one with the name of (if I'm remembering correctly) "Rebecca.". It was strange because all around this grave were these patches of cold air, like air conditioning. There was no breeze, and all four of us felt the exact same thing. We stayed and talked to the grave - even sitting beside it. It was at this point one of us snapped a picture. A little while later, we left.

We dropped off the film to get developed (remember those days?!), and looked at the footage for anything cool. We found nothing - until we got the pictures back. None of the other pictures showed anything except for the picture of us talking to "Rebecca." In the picture there are three of us sitting on the ground. You can see us feeling the cold spot, and right above my friend's shoulder was this bright white orb (dammit I wish I found the stupid picture). It was the coolest thing I've ever seen. It was too big and prominent to be a bug (and if it was a bug, why didn't they show up on anything else). We also weren't using a flash, so I don't have any other explanation as to what it would be.

My other stories all involve my childhood home.

My sister and I had separate rooms, but my room just so happened to have a spare bed. One day, my sister came into my room (she couldn't have been any older than 5) and said to me, "Can I sleep in your room? There are people talking in mine." This was pretty terrifying, so I said yes. She stayed in my room for close to a year after that.

Another incident happened early in the morning. My sister and I were in my room; she was asleep, but I was awake lying in my bed. My mom was taking a shower in the bathroom down the hall. I heard her open the door suddenly and say, "Hello? ... Hello!" I thought it was strange so I yelled back to her. She said, "Did you knock on the bathroom door?" I said no, that I had been laying in bed the whole time. She said, "It had to have been you. You were probably sleepwalking." I did sleepwalk, but I knew it couldn't have been me - I was laying in bed the whole time! She wouldn't accept my answer, so I just let her believe what she wanted to believe.

The strange things in my house got more intense in my teen years. There would be so many times where you would feel like someone was watching you. We had three dogs and sometimes all three of them would stare in the same corner and start barking. I watched things fall down the stairs (which could be explained as things just falling, not supernatural, to look at it objectively), and many of my friends felt very uncomfortable in my house (one had never heard any of our stories).

The best example of my dogs noticing strange things happened pretty late at night. I was on the internet in our computer room. To my right was our kitchen, and past that was our living room. My large, vicious dog was laying in the kitchen when there was a noise in the living room - like a quick bang. We both heard it - he picked his head up and stared exactly where I heard the noise. Then immediately after, there was another bang - this time right behind my dog in the kitchen. He took off and ran upstairs. That scared me, and as I started to get up there was another bang behind me. At that point I ran upstairs into my room probably the fastest any human being could have traveled.

Another strange situation happened again when I was sitting on my computer late at night. I was downstairs in the same computer room when I heard my dad yell, "SAM!" from the top of the stairs. I yelled back, "What?!" Then there was nothing, so I yelled again, "What, Dad?!" I got annoyed and headed to the stairs. When I got there no one was there. I assumed my dad got annoyed and went back to his room, so I went up to their room. Both my mom and my dad were asleep - TV off (they fell asleep with it on) and my dad snoring away. So who the hell called my name?

The last incident before everything seemed to stop was the weirdest one. I hesitate to tell people this because it's pretty weird (and you may judge me), but here we go. I felt like the ghost or energy or whatever was occupying my house liked to mess with me - specifically me. My neighborhood had a theory it was the ghost of one of our neighbors who had committed suicide (my neighbors had similar kinds of ghost stories - one I will share later), and that he would just walk around house to house and freak us out. So on this night - I had, had it. I was in our living room watching TV. It was at night and everyone was upstairs. My mom was the only one awake, and she was watching TV in her room. I started getting the feeling that someone was watching me. Most of the time I would try to brush it off, but this time it was giving me goosebumps. I decided to go upstairs and it felt like it was following me. I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth and wash my face. I started washing my face when it felt like something poked me. I looked up, wiped my face with a towel, and then I saw it. A mother-effing tissue was being PULLED out of the tissue box. Every so gently I saw it tug once, twice, and by the third time I was so confused and freaked out I started screaming at it. "Stop! Just stop! Leave me the fuck alone!" And it was over. The feeling like someone was staring at me was gone, and I ran to my mom's room to tell her what had happened.

Everything else up until that point could have a reasonable explanation. However, the tissue takes the cake. I didn't touch the tissue box before it started happening, so it's not like maybe it was my fault. It happened completely on its own. I know it sounds out there, but you need to just take my word for it that it happened. Nothing "paranormal" has happened to me since then that even comes close so being as strange.

The last story I will share with you happened while I was babysitting for my neighbors. The parents had gone out for the night, so I allowed all three of the kids to hang out in the den with me to watch a movie (and stay up a little later past their bed time). The kids all had their own stories of strange things happening. The youngest was so scared that I made up a story about how I was friends with the ghosts to comfort him. I told him that since we were friends the ghosts wouldn't hurt him. So, on this particular night, all four of us got into a tickle fight. We were laughing and having a good time until we heard a scream come from the other room. The girls heard it at the exact same time I did. Their faces dropped and the oldest said, "Did you hear that? What was that?!" I lied and said it was me. The oldest was too smart and called me out, but I insisted it was me so the little ones wouldn't be scared. After that, they asked if they could sleep next to me on the couch, and I had absolutely no objection.

So there you have it! My "unexplainable" stories. I don't know with 100% certainty that ghosts are real, but I do know some weird things have happened. However, if we are all made of energy... and energy is neither created nor destroyed, then is it really all that far fetched to believe ghosts could be little collections of energy?

... And I still wish I found that picture.

If you have any ghost storied of your own I would love to hear them!

Being Human.

Twenties have been interesting. And hard. And stressful. But after reading a few other blogs and articles it seems as though this might be normal. I had this image of what a 20-something was supposed to be like. Even entering my 20s I expected a great many things from my future self. Older me was going to have her shit together. All my mental and physical struggles were going to be fixed and figured out! I was going to be awesome! However, I put too much faith into time. In time I would fix it - just give it some time and things will work themselves out. I put some half-assed effort into fixing myself, though that turned out to not be good enough. But a strange thing starts to happen in your 20s - time suddenly doubles in speed. Then after 25 it quadruples. And before you know it you're staring 30 in the face while wondering, "What the hell happened!?"


But seriously, what the hell has happened? I am no where near the person younger me thought I would be - which is simultaneously depressing and relieving (younger me had some stupid ass ideas). I know I've talked about this before on here, I may have even talked this to death, but the journey through 20 has been eye opening. I gain a new perspective with every passing year (or week or minute for that matter). So I feel the need to document and pass on this information.

I know I had said I was no longer going to write in here. I've been going back and forth with this thing for a while. I've been afraid of being judged for putting my depression struggle on display. But I thought about it and decided - I don't care. I almost want people to know because explaining this is real life can be difficult. Especially now when I feel like I'm losing friends because of it.

For a very, very long time now, I've been stuck in a hole. I think I'm looking at 2 years of being in a pretty steady state of unhappiness. I'm not completely sure why - as I've tried changing my environmental stressors quite a few times. Ridding myself of things which cause me an excess of negativity. And for brief periods of time it's caused me some relief - but I still live in this fog. I have this terrible monster looming over me, and a separate one tucked away inside my soul. I can't shake them, and I'm not sure what it's going to take to rid my life of them. To some degree, I think I will always carry them with me - one of the lovely new realizations my 20s have brought me (much to the dismay of my past self who thought it would be over by now). I just need to know how to live like a normal human being while they try to suck the life from my body.

That's what I think I've been failing at - being human. Living like a normal person. I've started avoiding things. Stupid, normal things stress me out. I started coping with this in unhealthy ways - successfully bringing myself a whole new cart of baggage to deal with and sort through.

I don't think it's any secret to most people I've become extremely antisocial. I host parties, yes, but I don't think many people realize this is where I see a pretty large majority of my friends. I've become very good at being a hermit. In some ways, I'm pretty proud of myself - in my early 20s and teens I never wanted to be alone. Now, I am totally stoked to sit at home alone. To go shopping alone. To drive long distances alone (with the exception of my dog's company for most of these things). When the hell did this happen?

However, I attribute some of this to the depression. Everything exhausts me - being human totally exhausts me. Socializing? Oh man. I'm incredibly introverted and shy, and now with the increased depression, using my limited social skills has become quite the task. Sometimes when people ask me to do things, and I've had a particularly exhausting day of battling my monsters, I literally don't have the energy to force myself to be around people. There's a small group who I can just say that to and they understand, but I know after a while of the same excuse people start to question whether or not I'm telling the truth - maybe even start to think I don't like them. This is not the case at all. I'm just exhausted - and have been exhausted for a very, very long time.

I keep doubting myself and have been incredibly mentally self-abusive. The inside monster likes to tell me how awful I am. She likes to remind me on a regular basis that I'm nothing, tells me everyone hates me, and remind me about everyone else who has their shit together. This same monster has made drinking become an issue - as I use it as a social crutch. It has recently come to my attention that I become this monster from time to time. She loves to manifest herself after a few shots. After foolishly thinking I could some how figure out a way to enjoy alcohol and still keep her at bay - I'm finally admitting defeat. I'm failing at being a human - what made me think I could drink like one?

I'm now starting to have to think about school again. I've had a nice long break - which flew by and was barely long enough. I have to keep reminding myself it's almost over. I'm so close to a bachelors. On a positive note, school can be a nice distraction. AND since I'm a human development major (psychology) the coursework can be a fantastic way to learn how to cope with myself (and the monsters).

I enjoy learning - especially this subject - but I often have doubts. I'm terrified of the debt I will have to pay. I'm scared I won't be able to handle the workload in the Masters program that I'll eventually have to enter into - never mind the rest of the workload to get my bachelors. I'm scared I wont like my field just like how I didn't like graphic design (though in my defense I never liked it). I get too caught up in "what-ifs." Sometimes I have to be reminded (mostly by Corey) not to get too caught up in them - but the monsters don't like optimism.

Even though I'm trapped in my own mind, blinded by the fog, and dragged down by my hypothetical monsters - I still feel happy from time to time. Sometimes I just need to be alone with myself for a bit to recoup - to re-energize myself into normal human functioning - which is sometimes why my hermiting is a beneficial thing. I'm trying not to be so reclusive that I lose all my friends, but explaining all this to people (some of whom don't totally understand depression) makes me feel a bit pathetic. And that's how this struggle has made me feel - completely pathetic.