paranoia

I couldn't tell you when it started to happen, but as I got older I started getting a lot more paranoid. Some of the things I do are common sense, like checking over my shoulder when I'm walking alone, keeping my purse tucked tight under my arm (if it has a shoulder strap, then I wear that across my body), and never carrying more cash/cards than necessary.

It's when darkness falls that my paranoia spills over into borderline-crazy territory. The wall of my room that separates me from the outside is also what makes me feel so exposed to it. I keep the window up just to let in some air at night, but then the leaves in the alley rustle and sometimes I swear they start to crunch as if someone's stepping on them. Most likely it's just a stray cat or something, but still.

Several nights ago, just when I began to drift off, I thought I heard a noise in the living room and then footsteps outside my door. I bolted up and strained to listen, then convinced myself that it was nothing but couldn't shake the unease. I spent a couple minutes laying in bed deliberating over what course of action to take should it turn out that there was an intruder and cursed myself for not keeping something with lethal potential in my room. As it turns out, the noises just came from one of my parents getting up to pee.

I blame this whole episode of heightened freaking out on another incident that occurred a few days prior, where my land line was tied up for at least half an hour by an unknown caller. I picked up the first few times, but gave up on that when the other end only remained silent every time. Nevertheless, my mind went into horror movie mode and I started looking out all the windows to see if someone could be watching me. I finally had to unplug the line when I got tired of hearing the phone ring. Do people still actually do prank calls? But that also begs the question of why we still have a land line. Hmm.

In sum, I seem to be rather fond of self-induced heart attacks.