Have you ever been so frightened that the experience of that trauma would change how your daily routine would be impacted? And did this experience happen when you were just a kid in your age of innocence? Or did it happen when you were a young teen? Well, my bedtime routine was dramatically changed when I was only eight years old, and during my age of innocence. I had what I still think of as a real-time living nightmare that changed how I would go to bed for many, many years to come. I also think that this event started to turn me inward and maybe started my shyness episode.
My bedroom was off the end of the hallway and the end of the house. It was a corner bedroom with a window facing the street and a window facing the driveway that went down to the basement garage. My bed was placed where I could visually see the hallway through the door opening when I was lying in my bed. The door to my bedroom was always open, even when I was in bed sleeping.
On night when everyone was asleep, I woke up and saw a light in the hallway, and there was a shadow in the light. This light was eerily bright. Was it my mom walking down the hallway to her room? Was it her boyfriend who sometimes stayed over? I didn’t know but the shadow was getting closer, and the light was getting brighter. I sat up in my bed and was beginning to feel a strange emotion of fear overtaking my body. Suddenly, the shadow disappeared, and a figure appeared at my bedroom door.
I was shaking and tried to scream but I couldn’t. Only silence filled the room along with this strange bright light that began to illuminate something resembling the shape of a human. The human figure came through the door opening into my room and stood just inside the door opening with that bright light shining behind the figure. I could see beams of light moving outward from the silhouette of this human figure. I couldn’t move, I was frozen and so scared that I thought I was dying. Was this figure here to take me away.
I finally was able to scream, this time with sound coming from my open mouth, and that is what I did. And I screamed very loudly, a blood curdling scream. A scream so loud that I was sure it could wake the neighbors. It was a scream of pure terror. A few seconds after I put out this scream my mom came running into the room. I was shaking and I was crying both at the same time. Even with her there in the room with me I could stop. She grabbed me and held me tight trying to comfort me but that didn’t work.
I was experiencing a new feeling deep inside my body that would not leave me for years to come. At this moment in time, I had lost the ability to be comfortable in the dark. No longer would I ever want to be in the dark again. The dark brought images of creatures to haunt me. I could no longer sleep in the dark. Darkness was my foe.
This real time nightmare happened a few days after going to the movie theater to see that movie I could not watch. And it was a nightmare that changed how I would sleep. That night was the night I began to sleep with the light on, and the door closed. And I am not talking about a night light. I had to have the full brightness of a real light bulb burning at the highest wattage available at that time for a lamp bulb in a bed lamp that could be placed next to my bed. Bedtime was now a new fearful time for me. I know longer felt comfortable going to bed, let alone going to sleep.
And because my bedroom was at the corner of the house, everyone in the neighborhood could see the light on in my room and it didn’t go out at night. I was so afraid that the boys in the neighborhood would now tease me if they knew what had happened and why my bedroom light was on all night. Being afraid of the dark was not good, especially if you were a boy in Western North Carolina in the early 1960’s.
So, during the day I was a normal eight-year-old boy, but at night I was now a whimpering child that feared bedtime. Sleep became a challenge. And I thought that I would now forever sleep with a light on no matter what age I am. I felt that this fear would never leave me. I felt like I had no one to protect me.
And guess what…
“Follow my story for new vignette chapters”