Very Frightening Childhood Experiences

Since I have never posted on this (or any 'supernatural' forum) before, I will first introduce myself. I am a twenty nine y/o female living in the UK and have been a front line soldier and a hospice nurse, and in these areas of work I have witnessed, along with my colleages, many 'unexplainable' phenomena, to the point that such occurances came to be an expected part of the job. Very few of these experiences have been truely frightening, though some have been un-nerving,but the experieces I recount now occured from when I was around seven until I moved to a different house aged thirteen, and for me were truly terrifying.

First I will tell you my family situation, because I have heard that negative circumstances can contribute to horrible spirit manifestations and that children are more perceptive to these presences, whatever they are.

I was a very confident child and not easily scared. My dad left my mum when I was a toddler but I remained in regular contact with him and was very close to him. I couldn't live with him as he was a truck driver doing long distance runs at the time, but I was happy living with my mum.

My life changed dramatically for the worst however when my step-dad-to-be came into it. He was controlling, violent and abusive and soon reduced my mother to an obedient, brain-washed skivvy who refused to intervene, or even aknowledge the situation we were in.

He ensured my silence by telling me that if I told my dad, my dad would 'kill' him, and end up in prison, which I knew was likely to be true, and so I kept quiet and my life became a living hell. My mum and I moved in with him and I was given a small room on the ground floor, which is where the strange occurances began.

It started with quiet 'rapping' noises from the wooden furniture in the room, not the random creaks and thuds of wood that might occure by tempreture change or vibration but a series of six even 'knocking' sounds, like someone knocking on a door, these soon got louder and moved around the room starting from the far side and moving closer, culminating in a very loud rapping from the bedside table right beside the bed.

I opened the cupboards and drawers but never located the source. The house was very quiet apart from the noises in my room, but as I was alone on the ground floor only I heard it, and as time went by these episodes became more frequent and more terrifying in nature, louder and apparrently aware of me, as it would begin as soon as I turned the light off, stopping abruptly when I turned it on, making me dread bedtime.

This soon developed into other sounds, like muffled voices, breaking glass, plastic bags rustling and a sound like a cat scratching energetically on furniture. There was a cat in the house but never in my room, I am allergic so would have known if the cat had been in, but he never had any inclination to venture into my room anyway.

Then one evening, after we had all been out, we returned home to find lights on in every ground floor room, and that night I saw the 'thing' in my room for the first time. I woke in the early hours when my room was in total darkness. I was facing the wall and turned over to switch on the light on my bedside table. There, right next to my bed was a tall, solid black figure. ''Mum?'' I asked, though I knew it wasn't her, no human could fit in the tiny space between my table and bed, besides which this figure, darker than the darkness of the room was cleary sillhoetted, apparrently in long cloak and with hair piled in a 'bun' on top of the head, much taller than my mum. I reached out and my hand went through it.

I have never been so afraid in my life. I pulled the covers over my head, curled in a foetal position and didn't dare move, my heart racing, sweating with fear until well after daylight.

I did tell my mum, who responded that it sounded like her grandma (the cloak and hair style) and was probably just 'watching over me' although I felt it was there to frighten me. I was about 13 at this time and the wierd noises in my room had become something I was accustomed to, so this escalation seemed deliberate, and I was once again terrified to be in my room, even by day, still I was made to spend the nights in there, and began to see dark shapes moving in the darkness, when I dared look, as the knocks grew louder and persisted through the night, whether my lights were on or not.

The final incident that I recall was shortly after the first appearence of the dark shape and just as scary. Following a night of lots of knocking sounds moving round my room, I heard the 'cat scratching' sounds coming from right under my bed. They were very loud. I lay still, too afraid to look when suddenly I felt the weight of something 'jumping up' onto the bed, and the scratching noises turned into something clawing at the duvet. There was nothing visible, I was wide awake and my bedroom door was shut. The light was on. I knew the cat was out. I jumped out of bed and fled to the lounge, where I remained, terrified for the rest of the night. When my mum came downstairs in the morning she checked my room but could find nothing.

I moved in with my dad that week, since he had finally stopped long distance driving, refusing to ever sleep in that room again. I still get chills thinking aout these events to this day.

So thanks for reading, these experiences left me very afraid for a long time.