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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To be scared of the dark?

60 replies

HomeIsWhereTheGinIs · 30/12/2014 00:57

Massively ashamed of this. I rather supposed it would go away once I became a mother and most nights I'm fine but some nights (like tonight obviously), I become paranoid that there's some sort of evil being skulking around the house. Snap me put of it please - or are some of you the same?

OP posts:

Mistlewoeandwhine · 30/12/2014 22:10

I am also terrified of the dark. I lived on my own for years and never slept well at all.

GothicRainbow · 30/12/2014 22:20

I'm a bit like fluffy in that I can't stand a light on when trying to sleep but if I need to get up and move around the house then the lights all go on as I walk through.

I would never look in a mirror when its dark and would also not look out of the window. As a child teenager i used to put my hand in first to find the light switch to turn it on before I would go into a dark room. Always totally terrified that something was going to grab my hand whilst I was feeling for the light switch.

On the nights when DH is away I have taken to sleeping with a cast iron skillet in the bed next to me as a 'just in case' measure - its surprisingly reassuring!

MyIronLung · 30/12/2014 22:24

Me too. I'm scared of the dark/quiet (in case I hear something) so I always go to sleep with the tv on (timed to turn off) and the volume on low. (And I have a nightlight and I never had a baby monitor (because I would definitely hear something scary in the baby's room!)

I also don't have any mirrors in my bedroom because I'm certain I will see something that shouldn't be there and I always have my blind/curtains shut for the same reason.

I've always had an overactive imagination and its not been helped by all of the horror books and films over the years and I always have nightmares (I wake myself up screaming sometimes

MyIronLung · 30/12/2014 22:26

Just RTFT. Clearly op you are not alone (in the non-scary way )

nocoolnamesleft · 30/12/2014 22:26

Fine with the dark....but mirrors in the dark...that's a whole different matter. Creep me out.

bigbluestars · 30/12/2014 22:27

I am not scared of the dark itself, but what njury may come about as a result of walking about in it- standing on lego barefoot or walking into a door frame.

Itsgoingtoreindeer · 30/12/2014 22:30

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

woodhill · 30/12/2014 22:37

I'm scare too and when dh is away overnight I have landing light on and even reading light, I cover the mirror sometimes.

Jodie1982 · 30/12/2014 22:37

At night I sleep with bathroom light on, and run from the loo when I've flushed it, convinced the toilet monster is gonna get me!

youbethemummylion · 30/12/2014 22:41

I'm just back from a few days in the countryside where it is proper dark at night, I was so scared Im glad I'm back in my city house with a street light right outside my bedroom window.

Jodie1982 · 30/12/2014 22:41

Bulbasaur that sounds interesting. Do you mind if I ask what happened?

MrsRhettButler · 30/12/2014 22:44

I'm only not scared because I have two massive dogs in the house

ozymandiusking · 30/12/2014 23:00

Mmmm The Dark, Scary isn't it? I too hate the bedroom in total darkness.
I don't like the blind all the way down, and the trip to the loo in the middle of the night awful.

buffythemuffinslayer · 30/12/2014 23:21

You are so not alone... so slept in my mum's bed until I was 12, because I couldn't be alone at night, even with a light on I would stare at the minute cracks in the curtains.

Now, I am a little better. If DP is in the house I can have the bedroom light off (door open, landing light on). If he isn't, I sleep in the living room, facing the door, TV on, all lights on. I can't take darkness at all. If I'm alone in the house I also keep every light on. And all the curtains shut tight. I just worry that there is something in the dark.

Sometimes worry I am transferring it to DS (not afraid of the dark, and very confident and not odd about anything at all) as I keep his nightlight on, even now he's almost 4. Just can't bear the thought of him sleeping in the dark...

Thing is, I don't know where the paranoia came from. I've dealt with 99% of the anxieties that arose from my childhood, and think that the dark is the residue.

UngratefulMoo · 31/12/2014 10:09

I'm afraid of the dark! I now have a little one, so I do get on with it when I need to for her, but I still get freaked out regularly.

I love spooky stories as well, and don't know why I do it to myself - regularly read a spooky mumsnet thread in bed and then get terrified. I used to get scared going down into the cellar in it old house (tiny London coal cellar, just housed the fuse box and gas metre); I got scared the other week loading up the car at night at DPiL's house - they live in a detached house in here country with no immediate neighbours and it was dark and windy; I get scared going to the loo at night at my parents'.

Also, as a PP said, I won't look in mirrors in the the dark either. I'm not really embarrassed by it though. I know it's silly, but it's just me!

rosiecg · 31/12/2014 10:41

Yup I'm terrified of the dark too!

Sometimes I overthink it all though and can't decide whether it is better to have the lights on or off - what if I wake up one night (lights on) and see someone looming over me?! Would it be better to be in the dark where at least you can't see what's coming?

When I lived on my own I would have my mobile and the house phone in the bed with me and would leave a hall light on. Now I live with DP and he is fine with the dark so I just snuggle under the covers with him. Whenever I'm scared I wake him up and he checks everywhere for me!

MyIronLung · 31/12/2014 10:52

rosiecg the thing is, something will only ever be looming over you when it's dark. That's when they come out

Tinks42 · 31/12/2014 11:02

I sleep with the toilet light on as well.

I remember when small I stayed at a friends house and they slept in complete darkness, I woke halfway through the night and thought I'd gone blind!

I also sleep with all doors open (except the front and back ones of course ) so I know what's going on in the house. It's an "intruder" thing I suppose.

Another element of not wanting to sleep in the dark as well, what if you hear noises and need to investigate? You can't do that in the pitch black now can you.

PolkadotsAndMoonbeams · 31/12/2014 12:02

I don't mind sleeping in the dark, but if I hear a noise I'm often to scared to turn the light on, and just lie there rigid in the pitch black. I hope if I don't move, they (whoever they are) won't come in.

My worst night ever was staying at a friend's house. Her cat came in halfway through the night and I had no clue what it was! I could just hear something moving and then it jumped on me I might have screamed.

I was awake for the next hour my heart was going that fast, whilst the bloody cat snuggled down next to me and went to sleep. I could have tipped it off the bed!

MyIronLung · 31/12/2014 12:46

I also have to have my bedroom door closed. I'm terrified of seeing someone/something standing in the doorway!

After writing all of this down I'm beginning to wonder if I need professional help!

AntiHop · 31/12/2014 19:10

I'm really glad I'm not the only one! I have a cure that worked for me. I read Paranormality by Professor Richard Wisemann. It explains the psychology behind why people get scared and believe in the paranormal. Once I read it and understood the psychology behind it it helped me to rationalise.

mummyrunnerbean · 31/12/2014 19:34

So glad this isn't just me. DP thinks I'm mad but is relatively patient. Like a pp I was also loads better when I was pregnant, and I assumed had finally grown up with impending motherhood. DS is now five months and it's as bad as ever. Mirrors, windows and doorways all awful, hate standing with my back to an open door, or kneeling bathing him with my back to the bathroom door. I also left him in his crib for five minutes on Christmas Eve evening to go down to carpark and get DP's present (that required two hands) out the car, and became convinced that if I looked up at our flat windows I'd see a face looking down at me, and know I'd left DS in there- was almost sobbing by the time I got back up at just the thought of it . DP is on a night shift tonight and every light in the flat is on, as well as the radio. This is in a modern two bed flat - when we lived in a creaky rambly Victorian house I basically barricaded myself in the bedroom nights he worked .

Lilmissconcerned · 31/12/2014 22:10

I'm with you too op. My house has a street light outside so it's never dark. But when I went on holiday recently I had to leave the bathroom light on as it was too dark! ??

lucky my oh is very understandable

Topseyt · 31/12/2014 22:46

We always leave the landing light on for this very reason.

Actually I am mostly OK when my husband is at home, which is 99% of the time, but on the couple of occasions a year when he is away for a night or two I am very on edge after dark. I am sure I can hear many more noises when he is away, or perhaps I am simply in a more heightened state of awareness. I don't sleep as well as I do when I am not alone and am always relieved to get up and find everything fine the next morning.

Does anyone remember when the original "Nightmare on Elm Street" film first hit the cinemas in the mid-1980s? I was a student then and went to a late night performance of it with a girlfriend I was house-sharing with. Those images of Freddie Kruger and his knife finger gloves terrified us, and we literally clung to each other all the way home afterwards. We didn't go to bed for hours because of it, as we didn't want to switch the lights off.

I am quite aware of the dark where we live. It is residential, and although quite rural, it isn't isolated. However, the local county council in their wisdom decided a few years ago to save money by setting all the street lamps to turn off between midnight and 5 am.

FloozeyLoozey · 01/01/2015 10:20

A puzzling element for me is that if someone/something did break in or a supernatural entity appeared, none of these tactics of lights/radios/TVs/doors open would make a blind bit of difference and save any one of you. What's an intruder going to do? Hear the radio and think oh golly gosh I won't break in today? Oh a ghosty will see the bathroom light on and say oh no haunting for me today. Very irrational for grown ups.

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