Since I Was A Young Girl

Ever since I can remember, I have never felt safe in my mother's house. It began with paranoia - every time that I was left alone, be it when I was six or sixteen, I could swear that there was someone there, watching me. I could swear that I saw reflections of dark figures behind me whenever I walked past a mirror or a window. Sometimes I used to wake up at night, and see a dark figure in the corner of my room, and then I'd blink and it would be gone.

When I was eight, I got too scared to leave my room at night and started peeing in an old drinks bottle or making a habit of staying up really late just so that I could go to the toilet just before my parents went to sleep and turned the lights out.

I got really interested in the paranormal when I turned twelve years old and strange things started to happen. My belongings would disappear, like pens when I put them down for a second even though I was still using them. I'd search top to bottom and wouldn't find them until the next day where they'd be in a weird place like on the coffee table in the living room. I'd ask my parents, but they wouldn't remember ever seeing it or using it.

I started having strange dreams about being chased by black shadowy figures and then flying down the stairs to get away from them - occasionally I woke up at the bottom of the stairs. Then when I'd go downstairs, I'd feel a kind of pressure on my back - like something wanted to me to fall or fly (like in my dream) but I don't know what it was. Sometimes I'd feel like I was being chased whilst going UP the stairs and would feel so terrified that I'd just run and then I'd get upstairs and have no idea what I was running from.

I'm seventeen now, and I moved out of my parents' house to live with my boyfriend four months ago. The feelings stopped and my paranoia and terror disappeared but in the last two months it has come back as bad as ever. If I'm awake at night and I need to go to the toilet I have to ask my boyfriend (Luke) to escort me as I'm too scared to go alone.

I need to know what to do. I've spoken to my doctors and haven't been diagnosed with any mental health conditions - they think I just have an overactive imagination. I have contemplated using an Ouija board or an Angel board to try and communicate with the presence that I've been feeling but I'm too afraid. What should I do? I want to know what is going on because it is affecting my life in a truly negative way.