Dark-Haired Woman

I have always considered myself a little sensitive to the paranormal. I have many stories I could spout about what I’ve seen and gone through. My mother told me that she had never experienced any paranormal phenomenon until after I was born. Her theory is that I’m a portal to that world. Not exactly a medium per se, but a portal.

There is one consistent spirit that has been stuck with me for years. I never really realized it was a problem until a year ago. I always saw it as something that was just happening but I’ve been really thinking about it lately because I have been home alone lately.

When my son was three (8 years ago), we were staying with a friend and shared a room. One day after shopping, we arrived home, put away groceries and went to our room. When you walking the room, there is a TV directly across from the door. On the other side of the room was our bed, a computer chair and a closet. I went to set my things on our bed as my son tries to figure out how to turn on the TV. He giggles and says, “Mommy, there’s two of you!” to which I reply, “Yeah, that’s mommy’s reflection.” He giggles more, points me out on the TV, and says “You’re there AND you’re in the chair. Haha, silly mommy.” I go to look at the chair and see nothing, but the hair on the back of my neck stood up and I instantly panic. Acting coy, I insist we go for a walk. He obliges. We stayed out for hours before I felt comfortable enough to step foot in my room again. Sleeping that night was not in the cards.

One year later, I had bought a fixer up trailer. While fixing it up, I couldn’t sleep in my bedroom because I had no bed and was trying to repaint. Because of this I slept in the living room on the couch. There wasn’t much of a divider between the living room and kitchen due to renovations, so it was all very open; my couch a foot away from the kitchen. Every night while sleeping, I was awakened at 2:30 in the morning, by footsteps. When I first heard it, I assumed it was someone on my porch. Freaked out, I would get up and double check that my door was locked, peek out and try to fall back asleep. On my night off, I stayed up late watching a movie. This time at 2:30am I was already awake and heard the footsteps again. Now coherent I realize it’s coming from the kitchen and keeps walking closer to me. Then every night after that, the footsteps would get closer and closer to me. It got to the point that I was so panicked I started to take sleeping pills because I couldn’t get myself to sleep and had nowhere else to sleep.

I had a friend over one night and explained it to her. She also believes in paranormal activity and so to help each other out, she asked if she could move in for a bit. She needed a temporary place for her and her boyfriend to crash, (and cats) and had a bed I could also use. I agreed because I was fiending for a bed and some company by then. I also knew her cats would make me feel better too. A few weeks go by after she moved in and I hadn’t heard anything. Feeling better, I was sleeping again without sleeping pills. By the fourth week I had realized that my friend and her boyfriend hadn’t been at my place. When I asked her, she only replied, “We’ve been staying at his dads house for a little alone time.” Totally understandable. I moved on because I was grateful, I still had their bed. One night we were drinking at my place and she made a confession to me. She said she hadn’t been sleeping at my place because one night she woke up to a very angry, middle aged woman with brown hair in her face. The woman had told her to leave. So, my friend did just that. She was too afraid to tell me because she wasn’t sure how I would react. Which, was horrified. I was very horrified.

Another year later, I had given that trailer to my sister who had two kids and needed a place to stay; yet again buying another fixer upper trailer. My son now 6 had his own room and we had a blast. We were very happy and never noticed anything paranormal. I felt I could breathe again! One night, I was up late watching TV. My kitchen next to my living room again, I’m sitting on my loveseat and see out of the corner of eye, my ceiling fan moving. At the time I had three kittens. They also jumped up quick and ran to the kitchen to stare at the ceiling and mewing at whatever was there. I didn’t panic as much this time because at this point my thought was, “Here we go again.” Even said out loud, “Welcome back.” Hoping it would seem assertive, like I wasn’t afraid.

My son and I’s rooms were on separate ends of the trailer. We had train tracks behind the trailer, so my thought was if a train derailed, he’d have a better chance of surviving. Grim, I know, but as a parent you overthink situations like that. However, I didn’t think about what would happen next. From my room to my sons' room was a hallway that led to the kitchen, that led to the living room, that led to his room. One night, my son comes running into my room hysterical. Bawling he explains that he was awakened by something breathing in his ear. I tried to think of reasons that he could have mistaken something else for that. Like, maybe it came from the cats. Or it was wind outside and he thought the sound was closer. However, all of the cats were in my bed and the night was still. He said he felt the breath on his ear and neck. Trying to remain calm to him, I let him lay in my bed and panicked hysterically on the inside. I never really thought that the spirit being in the kitchen would have gone to his room. I left the hallway light on that night and every night after that. We never sleep with it off anymore.

My son had gone to his dads' house for the summer and so I was alone. I kind of ended up losing my grip on reality at that time. I had gone through a lot of things aside from the paranormal activity. Because of this I lost my two jobs and my trailer. So yet again, I moved. This time moving in with my best friend. I slept on her couch in the living room; in the living room were her children's toys. There was a talking learning puppy I had gotten her son for his first birthday, and he slept with it every night. It was his favorite. He was two when I moved in with them. I’m not certain how long I was there before the first time this happened; one night my best friend and I were watching TV and her son was at his grandma’s house. He forgot his puppy. While watching TV, the puppy randomly turned on. Scared the ever living crap out of us. We laughed about it at the time, but then it happened a few times more. One night, it happened while he had it in his room. I got up because I thought that maybe her son was not asleep as he should be. I walk in and he is sound asleep, the puppy across the room on the floor. Panicked, I slowly walk away and lay back down, falling asleep with the TV on.

A week or so later, my best friend gets up in the morning and we get breakfast started. She tells me she feels disturbed because she didn’t sleep so well. I asked what the problem was. She said she had disturbing dreams about someone trying to murder her. She couldn’t see who it was or knew why they were trying to. She startled herself awake and noticed in the corner of her room it was darker than the rest of her room. There was a woman in the corner ceiling area just watching her, angry. She said she tried to wake me up to tell me but couldn’t wake me up. This happened to her a few more times during my one year stay with her. She hasn’t experienced anything since.

After my year there, I found my own place again; I got back on my feet. The building complex I lived in had three buildings standing next to each other, but with little sidewalks in between. My apartment was on the corner of the building, outside of it. However, because of this a lot of people tried opening my front and side doors thinking they were the entrance to the building. I lived in a bad neighborhood, so it was pretty scary. I worked at a bar whilst living here, so I came home around 3am. One night I walked up to my stoop and saw my window was open and in the peeking through the screen was an angry woman with dark hair. Mind you, at this point, I had never seen the woman everyone else was seeing. I was shook. I stopped dead in front of my stoop trying to decide if I wanted to go in because part of me was afraid to face this spirit, while another part of me thought maybe someone had broken into my apartment. I looked around me outside realizing it was three in the morning, in the hood, and made the decision that it was definitely safer inside. When I looked back to the window, the woman was gone. Since the window was directly next to my door, if I had opened it, whoever was in my house would easily be able to attack me the second I opened the door and walked in. I slowly walk in and see no one is there. My cats walk up to me, completely unaware that anyone had been in the apartment.

One of my best friends lived in the building next door to me and from her living room window, she could see into my kitchen window. That always made me feel safer because I felt like I had a safety net. One night we were hanging out and I thought to ask her if she ever saw anything weird in my apartment. She quickly responded with, “Like a dark-haired woman? Yes, I see her every night around 2:30am pacing your kitchen.” Immediately I had goosebumps and explained to her what had happened. Freaked out I explained to her all of the incidents that had happened. We tried to figure out how I could possibly know this woman, or why she would possibly be following me.

It’s been 8 years now and that was the only time I had ever personally seen her. However, I can feel her presence shadowing me often. Though I know there are others around me, she is the one I feel the most. I just don’t know what she wants. She now hides in my closet that is a couple of feet away from my bed. My eldest cat, Mary, goes into my closet every morning at 4:30 and yowls. She hasn’t bothered my son in 5 years, but she’s always a few feet away from where I sleep.