This is my first post to YGS. It has taken me a while to submit this story as I was not sure how to put it all together. I was very young when all my supernatural experiences began and it is difficult for me to write about occurrences which span a number of years of childhood horror and to keep it all as short as possible and to the point.
However I feel it is important that I start at the beginning so that readers will know where I am coming from, so to speak, bearing in mind the later stories which I would like to post. That said, I'll try to keep everything as coherent and concise as possible.
I lived with my parents, four sisters and brother in a fairly large double-storied house. I lived in that house until I was 14 years old. The two eldest sisters were half sisters, my father's daughters, not my mother's. To the rest of us kids of course there was no difference as they were there when we were born. My father was a widower when he married my mother. My father passed away when I was eight years old. I was the second youngest in the family. That is just a bit of background to let you know the circumstances under which I was raised. I definitely did not have a quiet and cossetted upbringing; it would have been impossible in a family that size!
Firstly, I totally accept that when I was toddler age much of my screaming at night was due to normal childhood reasons, things which I could not express such as feeling ill, thirsty or whatever the case may be. You know, the age when you cannot communicate your discomfort and mommy has to guess!
Also even after I could communicate, nightmares could at times have been the reason for my bloodcurdling screams. The term "bloodcurdling" in fact comes from my family members. I have no idea what I sounded like but I can believe it must have been pretty bad. Nevertheless I was always told "go back to sleep, it was only a nightmare", or "you imagined it".
Well now that I have finished the lengthy introduction (sorry about that), let me relate some experiences: I cannot give years or dates but from a very young age, perhaps four or so, I no longer believed the nightmare theory. I feel pretty certain that sleep paralysis was not involved either because I actually used to see faces peering at me and I heard footsteps around the house when everybody was in bed. I could move and believe me, I could scream! This did not happen on a nightly basis, nor can I say how regularly it happened at that age because quite frankly I cannot remember. Neither do I remember whether I was touched physically by any entity.
By the time I was plus-minus six years old I stopped telling my family about what I saw and heard. I also tried to stop screaming but every now and then I simply couldn't help myself and I screamed. Hats off to my family though, especially my mother, as I was never chastised for this. Then again, neither did I get much sympathy as they quite simply did not believe me. I must say it was a bit of an embarrassment when we had guests staying over, which happened quite often as we lived at the seaside, within walking distance from some really lovely swimming spots, especially for kids. "Shame, you know, D (me) gets very bad nightmares." End of story.
By this stage I was terrified of going to bed at night and when I did fall asleep it was purely accidental.
As mentioned, my father passed away when I was eight years old. One of the most horrific times of my life as I absolutely adored him. After this event the activity escalated. I started seeing more shapes, not simply faces looking at me. On a few occasions there were two ghosts, not in full bodily form but grey-white in human shape. One was taller than the other and I simply assumed that one was a man and the other a woman. Don't know why I thought that as I am quite sure I could not distinguish the gender of either. Also the poltergeist activity started. I could hear crockery being broken in the kitchen downstairs, cutlery thrown around, furniture being moved around. However, in the morning everything would be absolutely normal, nothing broken, everything in its place.
It was round about this time that I started pulling my eyebrows out. I looked a total mess. I had thick, very dark eyebrows, so try to imagine this, bald patches and bloody marks as I ripped relentlessly at my eyebrows waiting for the nightly entertainment to begin! My eldest sister eventually cured me of this. She was approximately 13 years older than I was. She was married, pregnant with her first baby and living in Port Elizabeth. Fortunately it was school holidays. She and her husband came to visit for a weekend. We lived approximately three or four hours' drive away. She simply took things in hand (as was her want) and told my mother she was taking me home with her for the rest of the holiday as obviously I needed some attention. During the holiday she made me promise that I would never do that to myself again, i.e. Pull my eyebrows out. Of course she did not believe that I saw or heard ghosts - nothing new about that. Needless to say I kept my promise to my sister and only plucked my eyebrows when I was a lot older.
I also believe I saw my father once and he was trying to talk to me - I saw his mouth moving but heard nothing. I was not frightened. This is quite funny actually. Somewhere in my little mind it dawned on me that he was speaking French. My father was not French but his father was. I don't even know whether my father could string a sentence together in French! Maybe a dream, maybe reality. At the time I thought it was real.
Now I want to relate the worst experience that I have ever had in my life. We had guests again but I honestly cannot remember which family members they were. The only reason I know we had guests is because I had to sleep on the spare bed in my sister's bedroom. Her bedroom was also upstairs and there was a door which led onto an L-shaped balcony. The door was open so it must have been sometime during the summer months. I was about 11 going on 12 at the time. Actually I hated that room, I found it dark and spooky even during the day. It was originally the master bedroom where my parents had slept but for some or other reason my mother moved out of the room and my sister moved in.
My sister was fast asleep. To this day it virtually takes a bomb to wake her up. Anyway I heard her bedside lamp cord knocking against her headboard for what seemed to be an endless period of time. Shortly after that the furniture on the balcony started moving around. I called her but she didn't wake up. Now remember I was awake, totally one hundred percent. The next thing the most horrible looking creature I have ever seen in my life came gliding through the door from the balcony directly towards me. I shall try to describe it as follows: It was short, it seemed to be looking me straight in the eye as I was lying in bed, although it seemed slightly hunched. It was broad and appeared to be furry. This creature was blacker than the dark bedroom and believe me it was almost black in that room. It had shiny red eyes and it gave the impression that it was smiling at me but not in a nice way at all. It was having a great time scaring the hell out of me. I do not remember seeing teeth although they might have been there. The face was almost like a snout. I cannot say for how long it stood there but it seemed like forever. I thought it wanted to kill me as I could not breathe. Only years later did I realise that I could not breathe because of the absolute terror that I felt. Then it started backing away, still facing me, out to the balcony.
You guessed it, another bloodcurdling scream and I think this time the most bloodcurdling scream they had ever heard from me. That was the only night my mother allowed me to sleep in her bed. I think she was beginning to accept that my life was not as normal as she would have liked it to have been!
There is more that happened in that house but will have to put it in a second post. This story has already become too long. (Please don't say "oh no, that's enough!") I hope I have not bored people to tears with this long post. The next one will be shorter, I promise.
I look forward to hearing your comments.
Melda
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