Paranoia

I'm getting paranoid.

Well, I guess in some ways I have been for quite a while.

It all started with a dream I had when I was a kid. The two bad guys from 101 Dalmatians were under my bed and I knew they were there so I had to make a dash for the door, but when I jumped off the bed one of them grabbed my ankle and they pulled me back into the room and they were going to kill me.

Ever since that dream I have slept with my door closed and locked so that I could hear if someone was coming in to kill me. I also went through a phase were I had to sleep with covers on no matter how hot I was because I felt safer under the protection of a blanket. Since then I've wanted a giant alarm system to give me some peace of mind.

I never thought I would live alone because I figured I would be too terrified. But it turns out that living on the second floor made me feel incredibly safe. I don't know if I actually was or not, but it looked pretty difficult and hopefully not worth the effort for someone to climb up onto my balcony. I even discussed it with my neighbor to see if she could think of any way someone could attack us on the second floor. We determined it would be next to impossible since the trees were so flimsy. And so I felt safe and even slept with my window open. I still locked my bedroom door though, just in case.

Now, however, James and I live on the first floor, and even though I have a bat next to my bed for protection, it is not uncommon for me to wake up in the middle of the night to some strange sound out in our living room and to wake James up to go check it out. Usually he just rolls over and says he'll protect me and then goes back to snoring. Not that I don't appreciate his manly toughness, but having his arm across me while he's in a deep sleep doesn't quite give me the same sense of security as if he were to...I don't know...stand watch? Am I asking too much?

I've stopped watching true crime shows in order to hopefully make me less scared, but when James is gone for the night, I still bring a chair into my bedroom and prop it up against the door for some extra security. The last time that he was gone for a few nights it hit me that if someone were to knock out my power (or if we were to have a normal kind of power outage) I would be pretty helpless and terrified. That time I lit lots of candles to make myself feel a little better. The next time he's gone I'm going to buy a Maglight. A flashlight and weapon in one.

Am I the only one who is terrified to come home to a dark house? The only one who calls either my parents or James when I get home so that I will have someone to hear my screams and call 911 should I get attacked while doing my nightly apartment check (you know, looking in closets, under beds, and behind shower curtains)? Am I the only one who watched Conspiracy Theory and then seriously considered some of Mel Gibson's methods for keeping out the bad guys? Maybe the real question is do I need an alarm system or just some mental help?