I've been wanting to talk about my experience for a long time and this seems like the right place to do it. I will have to limit some of the details quite severely as the site says it won't publish accounts that have certain aspects to them as they attract the wrong kind of people and create discord between members. Consequently, I can only give a partial account of my experiences as I don't want to displease anyone. I will consider posting a more full account elsewhere, but it is hard to find sites that appear interested in collating actual ghost experiences. So far this is the most reliable one I have found.
I grew up in a small house in Auckland, New Zealand. There were no problems until I was about fourteen. Events started gradually, becoming more pronounced over time. The earliest signs of something amiss were simply feelings. It's hard to explain, but it just felt like there was someone in the room with me. Initially these feelings only occurred in my bedroom (later I occasionally got them in other parts of the house and in altogether different location). It felt scary, but I did not believe that there was an actual presence at first. I thought I was imagining things.
As time went on, actual physical contact starting taking place. The first few instances felt like fleeting and fairly insubstantial touches and were fairly infrequent. These were harder to dismiss as imagination, but I still managed it for a time.
I started to notice objects in my room were sometimes not where I had left them. Again, I blamed my imagination.
As time went on, the physical contact became more frequent and more substantial. By now I knew something was seriously, seriously wrong. I would usually flee the room. But on one occasion I just couldn't get the door open. At the time I was certain that the presence was somehow stopping it from opening. But now I wonder if in my panic I was maybe not turning the knob fully. But either way, the result was that I didn't get out fast and experienced a sudden, sharp pain on my leg. Then I got the door open and got out. I had a visible bite mark on my leg at the exact spot at which I had felt the pain. The mark appeared to be a human bite. This was the first actually violent contact. I can't describe how terrified I was.
I confided in my parents what had happened. I knew they probably wouldn't believe me, but thought that maybe with the bite mark they would take me seriously. They didn't believe a word I said and believed that I must have got the bite under very different circumstances, shall we say.
My parents are very strict and my punishment was pretty severe. They thought I was doing something I shouldn't have been at my age (which was not the case!) and really, really really wanted to make sure I desisted.
Further escalations included several instances in which I saw objects in my room move on their own. The most serious incident of this nature was a drawer flying open and the items of clothing in that drawer just sort of threw themselves out in a clump.
Physical touches were in the form of sustained pressure (like a hand on me not moving), rubbing, single stroking type contact (such as the feeling of a hand stroking once down my hair) and so forth.
Physical touches and the feeling of a presence continued. The physical touches evolved to include occasional slaps. These were mostly pretty light and felt almost playful in nature.
A friend who came round once felt a hand running down her hair and was then slapped when she jumped away. On another occasion, I was at a sleep over at a friend's house with three other girls. I experienced both the feeling of presence and a prolonged touch to my leg whilst there. The other girls all had the same ominous feeling of presence but were not touched. Given that others had experiences when I did that strengthens my belief that I wasn't stark raving mad and imagining everything. The fact that the latter occurrence took place away from the house suggested to me that the "problem" was not my house per se. I started to wonder if I was being haunted rather than my house being haunted. Later events seem to confirm this.
I started hearing what sounded like distant whispers. I can't remember how early in events this started, but it was definitely some time after the bite. These did not appear to emanate from any particular direction. For a long time these were entirely indistinct. But as events progressed over time some parts would be intelligible (usually only a word or a few words). These were often words that had connotations of ownership. I found these really ominous and in some ways they frightened me more than many of the more tangible events.
Another development over time was that from time to time I started having prolonged downward pressure on my shoulder or head when standing. These were always accompanied by the feeling of presence and felt like a hand pushing me downwards. The pressure would start increasing dramatically and the feeling of presence would start to take on an angry sort of seething feel to it. I found that if I sat or knelt down the presence would seem to calm and the pressure on my head or shoulder would abate. It would start up again if I tried to get up too soon. I found that if I waited a good half hour or so it would be okay to get back up. I didn't understand at the time, but on reflection I think that it may have been a display of dominance of some sort.
When I was sixteen I had a development in my personal life (which took place away from my house). Early the next morning (at home) I awoke and found myself basically held down hard (there was no one in my room of course). I felt the presence and it felt enraged. I got an intense pressure squeezing my throat and couldn't breathe. I was in a complete panic and struggled like mad but couldn't free myself. I think I was close to passing out when the pressure just let go and I got a hard slap to the face. The next day there was a visible red mark on my face.
This was by far the most violent attack I had experienced at that point and I am certain that it was motivated by jealousy or similar. It's hard to describe the rage that I felt around me during the attack. The presence was just so angry with me, it felt like it hated me with such intensity.
My parents saw the mark and quizzed me about it. I again made the mistake of telling them the truth and again was not believed and punished severely for it.
Incidents didn't seem to follow any particular cycle but the frequency would vary widely. Sometimes I would have multiple incidents in a short space of time. Other times I would go a number of weeks without anything at all happening.
When I was seventeen I went to university and lived in the halls. The incidents continued (although they seemed generally less frequent). This proved to me that the presence was most definitely linked to me rather than to my house.
In my second year I made the mistake of allowing another "development in my personal life". This took place several miles from the halls (I would never have let it happen in my room with everything that was happening). The night after (in my room in the halls) I was again attacked by being pinned and strangled. I swore right off personal life developments. For the next week or two incidents became frequent but then began to taper off again.
The older I got the more things dropped off. The last incident would have been when I was about 23 or 24. I am 27 now. I have been in a relationship for nearly a year now and even this hasn't prompted a jealousy attack so I think that whatever the presence is, I am probably free of it.
I have been researching lately and am unclear as to what the nature of the presence was. I speculated that it may have been a poltergeist which I understand to be an internally generated thing rather than a spirit. Things started at the right age for this. However, some events such as the bite and the whispering do not track with this theory.
I never saw an apparition or anything that would approximate one. At this point I believe that most likely the presence was a spirit/ghost that for some reason took an interest in me and latched on to me. I do not know why it eventually left me alone. Did it "move on" to some "other side"? Did it just get bored? I really don't know.
If anyone can offer further insight I would be very grateful as I would like to properly understand all of this as it had such an impact on my life for so long. If there is any danger of it coming back later in life, I would be so so thankful for good, sound advice on some way of preventing it.
Please post my account, I would really like to get some help understanding what has happened.
-Emma
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Without getting too personal, I can take a good guess as to what the omitted parts might relate to but I still can't help thinking along the same lines as Mazzmarach with this.
As a fellow NZer of the same age, I've known parents like yours and get the feeling they we're well-meaning but very strict (religious?) and didn't understand the impact their attitudes could have on you. I apologise if this is too personal but I wonder whether a certain event for a young woman first occurred around 14? And that maybe that sort of thing was seen as unclean or maybe just kept hidden and secret in your household? Could that have possibly been the catalyst for the things that started happening?