Greetings from the other side! Have you ever heard whispers in the dark? Do you enjoy tales of magic, mystery, and the macabre? Turn off the lights and join me for DEAD Time, where I share my personal paranormal experiences, stories about high strangeness, and interviews with experts on unexplained phenomena.
I have some interviews planned for future posts, but I would like to start this column with some background on myself and my experiences. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I married someone who is into horror movies, but he also has an interest in the unexplained, which is why we became heavily involved with the paranormal community for a few years when we first got together and moved to Virginia. None of what I’m about to tell you has ever been shared with anyone outside of my family.
Late one night in 2012, my husband, daughter, and I had what we believe was a paranormal encounter that was so soul-shaking, I left the paranormal community and have spent the last decade trying to forget it happened. I’ll tell you about that later. First, I’d like to share the things I experienced earlier in life, which led to me becoming involved with paranormal investigating and the incident in 2012. I’m not a paranormal expert. I don’t claim to have proof that ghosts, or whatever you’d like to call them, exist. I’m not a psychic or a medium; I don’t have magical powers; but I do seem to be sensitive and open to having paranormal activity around me and have had to learn how to close myself to this activity. I have a lifetime of experiences that simply cannot be explained, and I hope that by sharing my story, and other people’s stories, we can open up a conversation about the supernatural and you can make up your mind for yourself.
I’ve always been into horror movies and have been writing about them since 2016, but my journey into the world of things that go bump in the night in real life began at a very young age. My mother would tell us stories about her childhood, growing up in Nashville in a family with nine children. She and her sisters crammed into the same bed every night and one night she realized they were not alone. As she was lying in bed, her sisters all asleep beside her, an indistinguishable shape entered the bedroom, bumped the corner of the bed, and seemingly floated out the door on the other side of the room. Mom always told these stories in a calm, matter-of-fact way that somehow made them even scarier.
My mother wasn’t the only person in our family who grew up surrounded by things that couldn’t be explained. My family was only slightly religious. My parents both grew up in Nashville and regularly attended church when they were young, but we only attended church occasionally as a family when I was growing up. So, I’ve always considered myself spiritual, but not religious. Part of the reason for my personal beliefs is the fact that unexplained experiences have always just been a normal part of life for me. All my life, regardless of where we lived when I was growing up, something was in our house, and despite the fact that she never acknowledged it, it appeared to be attached to my mother.
Looking back, I realize that the unexplained activity seems to have started after my parents divorced when I was about seven years old and my brother and I moved from New Bern, NC to Raleigh, NC with my mom. I vaguely remember things from when I was child, but one incident stands out as the first time I vividly remember being aware that something was in our house. Most of the things I experienced growing up didn’t scare me, but this occurrence was terrifying.
After my mother remarried and we moved into the house on a pond in North Carolina, we encountered little nuisances, like losing an object that would turn up in a different place and lights turning off by themselves. The house had a seventies layout, with a sunken great room in the middle and bedrooms on opposite sides of the house. My brother and I had bedrooms, with a bathroom in between, on one side of the house, and my parents had a bedroom on the other side. For a long time, my mom complained about a knocking sound that came from underneath the floor in the bathroom on our side of the house, but it only occurred when she was home alone during the day. My brother, my father, and I laughed it off, much to my mom’s exasperation.
One night, my family decided to go out to dinner, but I stayed home alone and was watching television in my parent’s bedroom. Suddenly, I heard a loud banging sound and went out into the hallway, only to realize the sound was coming from the bathroom on the other side of the house. It sounded as if someone was underneath the floor in the bathroom frantically trying to get out. The desperate banging continued as I locked myself in my parent’s room until my family got home. The next day, Mom went outside and opened the door that led to the crawlspace under the house and screamed, “Get out! You’re not welcome here! Get out now!” Even though we lived in the house for a few years afterward, we never heard the banging again after that day. The banging may have stopped, but in that house, and every house we ever lived in after that, there was always the feeling that we were not alone.
My brother is two years younger than me and will deny believing in anything otherworldly, but he also experienced some unusual things growing up, including seeing what can only be described as shadow people. Everyone in my family has had their share of strange experiences; feeling like someone or something is watching you; seeing movement out of the corner of your eye; and encounters with shadowy figures. It might sound odd, but we were rarely frightened by these incidents. Weird, unexplained experiences were just a part of our everyday lives and the activity continued in every location where we lived. I don’t believe we experienced hauntings specific to the location, but like I said, I think whatever was responsible for our experiences was attached to my mother. Or maybe it was a combination of haunting and an attachment.
We’ll never know…
Check back in soon for the next installment of DEAD Time, when I will continue sharing my personal paranormal encounters, interviews with experts on the unexplained, and a lot more.
The post DEAD Time – An Introduction to Bloody Disgusting’s New Paranormal Column appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.