Paranoia

Thinking that something was out to get you at night is extremely common amongst all kids. I was of course one of those kids who was scared of something under my bed or in my closet. These irrational fears however seemed to creep back into my life around 7th grade. For about 6 months I couldn’t sleep and would have to try to sleep on my parents floor to feel any sense of safety. Every night I would look at my hall and convince myself someone trying to kill me was going to turn the corner. Every morning I would feel so dumb and beat myself up, since I knew “I was too old to be having these feelings.” These eventually went away, but this same thing happened from freshmen-sophomore year of high school for about the same time span. Every night I convinced myself someone or something was out to get me and I couldn’t sleep until I was absolutely exhausted. I again constantly beat myself up over it, and was embarrassed of these feelings. They went away with time and I guess is sort of just learned how to deal with them at night. Some nights these same feelings come back, but less frequent then they used to. Looking back I think these times were linked to extreme stress or something of the sort, but I still don’t know and that’s ok. I’ve learned to be ok with the fact that those times happened, and when they happen again I try to be less embarrassed and try to beat myself up less but it’s still hard.