Night night, sleep tight, don't let the dark dark fright...

It's time to address a new issue in my "Fear is the heart of Hannan" series. Last time we looked at my fear of the ocean, and before that my fear of spideys. I wonder what will be next!? Here we go...

I like the world and all it does. I like the spinny way it makes the sunrises and sunsets and the way it dances around the sunshine to make seasons. I love seasons. But it does present me with a problem at least once a day. It makes the night time happen. And the night time is often dark...

Achluophobia (Fear of the dark)

The dark... even the word 'dark' sounds aggressive to me. I have never felt safe in the dark. It feels heavy on my body. I can literally feel it is dark before I even peep out of my bed to check. Also, in the dark I can't see the spiders crawling along my bed, and if you're wondering why this would be a problem you need to read my blog "Spideyphobia" a couple of entries back.

I enjoy an exciting imagination, which is great when I have to tell stories to children, or explain to Megatron and Optimus Dad why I couldn't phone them, ("I swear, I had to help Crazy Meg find Dumbledore and get her remembrall back from him because she borrowed it from Voldemort and he needs it back because he forgot why he needed to kill Harry Potter, and in all the excitement, I let 4 days go by without phoning the Mother Ship...and I'm sorry"). However, this imagination becomes my foe when it's dark. A dripping tap in the day time is a dripping tap that needs to be switched off. A dripping tap in the dark time is the tears of a zombie crying with excitement about destroying me, or a witch tapping her green fingernails on my sink, or a baddie spitting repetetively at the end of my bed...

In Big Oaks where I live with Crazy Meg, I go into my room and switch the landing light off, and I have to stand in my room and reach backwards to switch it off without looking, then quicklyquicklyquickly run into my room and shut the door before the light falls out into the hall, or worse, the darkness falls IN to my room...

I cannot leave my room then. Not until Crazy Meg is home to turn the light back on. If I have to go out, I have to close my eyes and reach to turn the landing light on...this sounds strange to me though, because closing my eyes makes it even darker...

I think what I am afraid of is actually baddies hiding in the dark. I have watched the films where the killer is hiding in the dark behind the sofa, or hiding in the dark in the wardrobe. They are never sitting in the house with all the lights on and wearing a hi-vis vest. I genuinely get The Boy to quickly search the flat before he leaves me of an eve, and even then once he's gone, I fear the moment I have to turn the lights off and let the darkness do it's creepy thing.

Having said all this, it's very rarely DARK dark where I live. There are a few times in my life when it's been DARK dark and it's bizarre. My eyes open really really wide desperately searching for the slightest scrap of light, and I can't stop them doing it! I try to close them a bit to normal size (my eyes are bigger than average in resting mode, so in the dark they must look terrifying!) but I can't stop them almost opening back over my head and peeling my face off.

Freud reckons a fear of the dark is a sign of seperation anxiety. Maybe. I do miss Megatron and Optimus Dad an awful lot, and I miss The Boy when he goes home. But I think even if they were all in the room and it was dark and my eyes were open wider than ever, I'd still feel as though the darkness was seeping into my life and darkening my happiness.

So this is what I have to say to the Dark....Dark, there is no room in my life for you. You are the tool of muggers and bandits, the friend of Burglar Bill and the family out of Funnybones and I don't like you. I'm keeping my nightlight on.

Night Night.

Love Hannan xxx