Scared of the dark as an adult - anyone else?

[Mummy2022FT]

I'm genuinely interested. And this isn't a joke

If you were to get a glass of water in the middle of the night for example, would you be able to just walk in darkness? (Obviously provided u can just about see where you're going lol) I personally have to turn on every light that comes my way.

I think what made my problem worse was doing night feeds when DS was newborn. (He's 9months now & sleeps through the night luckily) but being up as a single mum at like 2/3am was a bit... eery.

I definitely think some horror films that i watched when I was younger have stayed with me.

If I hear a noise from downstairs in the night I freak. In the day time i wouldn't even think twice about it.

And what reminded me to make this post is it's dark now at 22:45 and you guessed it... I'm freaked out!

I had no idea that so many adults were terrified of the dark. Do you all have particularly vivd imaginations?

I just cannot sleep with any lights on. I can't even sleep if DH is charging his toothbrush in the room. The green flashing light would keep me awake.

Funny I’m the opposite of you OP, I used to be scared but years 😭 of getting up with the DC in the night has inured me to it. Definitely no option to turn the light on if trying to get a baby or child back to sleep, they’d be wide awake.

I still don’t like looking in mirrors in the night thought. And I avoid horror movies.

I have nightlights in the hall so I don't need to turn a light on to use the bathroom, and it means I'm never in complete darkness. I used to need complete darkness to sleep; now I'm the other way. I have blinds and curtains adjusted so I can see the dawn coming up. But I have a long garden that is pitch black at night - anything could be prowling around there.

No, I love the dark. I love the world being shut out by the dark.

And I never turn lights on if I need to get up at night, no.

Fuckin terrified. I've slept with a lamp on since I was 12 after watching the exorcist. I'm now 37 with a 9 month old who sleeps through the night with a night light on..... because of my fear of the dark

Yes when I go to the toilet I turn the light off last and scuttle back to bed as fast as I can like some kind of spider. I would turn on my room light but I don't want to wake my husband.

All good in my house, but not in the garden. Putting the bins out, I run back to the kitchen door like my bum is on fire!!
So many scary monsters out there, dontcha know.
Anyone else scared outdoors but not indoors?

Listening to true crime podcasts is what made me such a scaredy cat.

I have a friend who's scared of the dark. He has a Yiddish song about 4 angels he learned from his mother, and you can hear him singing it to himself if he goes to the loo at night. It's quite sweet!

I’m not scared of the dark and if I go downstairs I won’t put any lights on but I do often rub back upstairs in case something is chasing me! 🤣

*run!

Neither do I. It hurts my eyes to go from the dark to sudden bright light.

On the whole no I don't turn the lights on, but I love horror and manage to freak myself out sometimes. I watched Conjuring 2 last weekend, got up to go to the toilet middle of the night, then suddenly remembered every freaky scene so ran back to bed

I'm quite funny about the whole witching hour thing too...I deliberately don't look at the time during the night in case it's 3am as I always freak myself out. I don't believe in ghosts rationally, but still find it freaky middle of the night when I'm the only one awake!

Oh and yes can't look out a window in the dark!

But I can't sleep with ANY lights on. Usually wear an eye mask.

The dark doesn't bother me in the slightest nowadays. It did when I was a child and even as a teenager - back then, being alone upstairs at night (in other words, before my parents went to bed) without a light on terrified me, but at some stage, I grew out of it.
If I have to go downstairs in the night, I only turn a light on if it's too dark to find whatever I have gone down for.

I live in the countryside, and would happily walk across the fields and even in woods in the dark too.

No, I'm not afraid of the dark and never have been. Happily wander around the house with all the lights off in the middle of the night.

Our landing light is always on due to sleeping dog and, previously, sleeping cat. Don't want to trip over.

I hate the dark but have a reason for it. When I was a very young child I was sexually abused (not raped, thank goodness) by a neighbour's nephew. He said that if I told anyone he would come in the dark and kill me. I told nobody for years but ever after, and I am now 72, I have hated the dark.

@Alleycat1 I am so sorry that happened to you. What a thing to have carried for so long and not be able to tell anyone. It makes me ashamed that my own fear of the dark is so irrational.
Away to put the lights on!

I’m 32 and still terrified of the dark. The landing light is always on in my house and I sleep with a dim lamp on. Like you in the day I’m fine to tackle anything, but at night everything seems just awful and 100x worse. I have those bulbs from Amazon you can turn on with your phone or the Alexa. So I turn them all on from upstairs before I go downstairs.

It's perfectly reasonable to be a bit scared of the dark. https://www.sciencealert.com/here-s-the-evolutionary-reason-why-we-re-afraid-of-the-dark

Not me but my friend is and her abusive ex once turned of the lights at the fuse then broke her glasses so she could barely see. Absolute cunt of a man. She had told him her fear of the dark that started after her dad died when she was young.

I have a rock lamp I love