When I was in the hospital I was frankly told “No one can help you” when I became desperate that the one voice wouldn’t stop, that the meds never made it easier, only harder to not listen to. It was during my hospital stay at 16 that I decided I had to live with it and deal with it like I would with anyone or anything else that made my life harder, instead of just trying to make it go away. Things got steadily better after that. I was able to deal with the anxiety and depression surrounding it, and move on, got back in to school, worked, ran a business during the summers. In the next couple years I had to stop my medications (Seroquel at the time) because the negative side effects were so bad. Through all this, my mood became more and more manageable, and the voices were always there, I just learned to deal with them better and better. I was just seeing a therapist at this point, who one day handed me some information on exorcism. I was furious, and stopped seeing him as promptly as I could. Not long after, I talking to a friend of my now-fiancee. I had heard him talk about ghosts and stuff before in passing, but one day he told me he could see a ‘being’ standing over me. I asked him to describe it to me, and when he did I just started shaking. I went to grab a sketchbook I had packed away (keep in mind, he was never in the apartment alone long enough that it would take to find this), and showed him a drawing I had done of that one particular ‘thing’ I could see and hear. I had not told him about it, what it said, what it looked like, that I even had hallucinations. He could just see it too, this thing I had spent half my life fearing, running from, ignoring, and dealing with. A lot about my life changed right there.

13. A Warning In A Dream

Wish I could make this up.

Think I was about 13 or 14 and I had a room in the basement. Not super relevant, but the house was old (1900ish), no AC of any kind and creepy as all get out. Had the window open (ceiling level inside, ground level outside) with a screen put in. Bed facing the window.

Had a scary dream that someone who was wearing a headmask had a knife and was trying to kill me. All I remember now (and from what I journaled), is that he was chasing me in some silly zigzag pattern. Woke up abruptly to see someone looking at me through my window. Screamed my lungs out and he vanished (most likely ran away).

Parents woke up and came down. Skeptical dad said I was probably dreaming until he noticed the window had been pried. Took the maglight and the colt 45 (not being dramatic, just reading my notes here), and went out side. Turns out there were prints or something there and he had left some tools, as well as the gate door was wide open. Promptly the police were called.

14. Shadow Person

My family just moved into a dormitory house (graduate student housing for families), and since we were all jet-lagged after flying across the Pacific, we all went to bed early. I slept with my brother and sister in one room and my parents in the master bedroom down the hall.

I woke up around 4 or 5 in the morning to the sounds of snoring from my parents’ room. My siblings were sleeping soundly next to me. I was wide awake for some reason and swept my eyes around the room. Suddenly there was a shape that seemed like a human male wrapped in a cloak, standing next to the window. I couldn’t believe my eyes, and I distinctively remember trying to make sure that it wasn’t my dad (he was still snoring). The figure then turned around to face me, and I tried to look into its face, but it was just a deep, black hole. I wasn’t exactly scared, just weirded out. Thankfully, the figure disappeared as sunlight came in.

15. A Father Makes A Request

When I was very young, we lived in a house that had the usual “ghost” activity- hearing footsteps, hushed voices in the next room, etc. But the really cool thing was the basement door. It would open on its own, I’m not talking open an inch or two when you closed another door nearby, I mean it would swing fully open like someone was walking through it. My parents tried locking the door and it would still swing open on its own.

By the time I was learning to walk, my dad was concerned I would fall down the steps, so he went down into the basement and just said, to no one in particular, that he had a young daughter upstairs and could they please be careful with the door. Ever since then, the basement door would open, and then slowly shut on its own.