296: What if you were haunted by the living and the dead?
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This Is Actually Happening features real experiences that often include traumatic events. Please consult the show notes for specific content warnings on each episode and for more information about support services. I seriously don't know what's worse: being stalked by someone you can see or stalked by something you cannot see but you know is there. And you're left questioning your sanity. Is this PTSD? Am I just reliving trauma? Am I insane?

From Wondery, I'm Witt Misseldein. You're listening to This Is Actually Happening. Episode 296. What if you were haunted by the living and the dead?

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I come from a large family of German immigrants. And my mom and my dad met young. I think they were married by the time my dad was 21 and my mom was 20.

They had my sister pretty straight away, and they had a really happy marriage. And when my sister was about five years old, they had really wanted to have a second child. My mother had gotten pregnant and unfortunately had a very severe miscarriage. The doctors basically told my mom they just didn't think she'd ever have another child.

So my mom finally decided to get her tubes tied just to kind of accept another child will never happen. As my mother went to the appointment to speak with the doctor and they did the exam, the doctor kind of laughed at the end. He said, well, great, we can work on tying your tubes, but I just want to know, do you want to have the baby you're pregnant with first? And my mom just was stunned. And she said to him, what do you mean? And he said, you're pregnant. And my mother could not believe it.

At that age, my sister was almost nine years old, so I was definitely more than unexpected. My memories of early childhood, for the most part, are happy. My family jokes that because they had all wanted a child so bad in this house that when I came, they treated me like a little princess, and so I was a little bit spoiled. My mother had made it clear to me, and so did my father, that what we'll call abilities ran in our family.

We had more strange paranormal encounters and just things happen that were not normal to your average family.

You know, a great example, my dad was driving down the street. I must have been about eight or nine years old and I was in the passenger seat with him. We were driving down this long road that was a very busy street. Everybody drove really fast on it. And I was sitting there and I just said to my dad, when we come up to the stop sign, you're going to want to slow down because a little girl is going to run out into the road and she's not going to be paying attention and we're going to hit her.

And so we get about maybe like 20 to 40 feet from the stop sign and my dad slows down the car. And as we're crawling up to the stop sign, out of absolutely nowhere, a little girl holding stuff in her hands comes running out in front of our car. And my dad just kind of jumped in his seat and we pulled all the way up to the stop sign and we stopped there for a second. And he said, how did you know that? And I said, because I saw it in my mind.

And he said, OK, in our family, people can do this sometimes. And it's a good thing. And thank you for telling me. So being able to kind of see the future or experience things was really a common thing for me. But I was very choosy about when I would bring it up because I had learned that it really did bother people. It really did frighten people.

I remember having a really loving household. My parents were hilarious and so much fun. And my sister, I remember thinking of her as almost a second mom. And my sister was just incredibly devoted to me.

But at times it felt like she had ownership over me and it became very controlling. And it was something that for me, I learned I have to get distance from this person and this relationship because I'm recognizing it isn't the healthiest.

It became a very uncomfortable dynamic for me because my sister was really pretty. My sister was really popular. My sister got the best grades. My sister was the best at sports. And it was so difficult for me, being a decade younger, having to live up to those expectations.

I was not like my sister. I didn't get the best grades. I wasn't the best at sports. And in fact, I was really bullied horrifically in school. So it really confused me as a child to live in a home where I was being told that you're the best and you're the most beautiful and you're just like your sister. But as soon as I walked out my front door, the world told me, you're a loser and you're ugly and nobody wants to be your friend.

And my family was only trying to be positive. I just think they didn't realize how bad it was for me. Not only was I bullied by my peers, but I was actually bullied by my teachers. One of the jokes during elementary school was that I was uglier than a dog and kids would all woof and bark at me. They'd knock books out of my hands or trip me. But I can't fully blame them. I was a different kid. I did stand out. I didn't mean to. It's just the way I was.

Sixth grade going into seventh grade summer, I decided I couldn't take the bullying anymore and I couldn't take hiding from my family that I was so unloved by the world. I should figure out how to fit in. I made my mom take me to the mall and buy me a whole new wardrobe. And I knew that my first day of seventh grade was going to be at a new school. So this was the opportunity for me to rewrite my story or start fresh.

My first day of seventh grade, homeroom, I remember sitting in my desk and this boy who had been one of the most popular boys in my elementary school walks up to the front of the classroom because the teacher had not come in yet. And he points at me and everyone in that classroom turned their heads and looked at me. Kids who didn't know me, kids who did. He said, look at her. She really looks good, doesn't she? Look at her hair and her clothes. Wow.

But none of us will ever forget that she is a dog. And he just went, woof. And everyone started barking. I remembered sitting there and just devastation washing over me as everyone was barking at me and throwing balled up pieces of paper at me. I didn't even cry. I just remembered thinking, so it continues. So I have to try to survive every day.

and then go home to parents who think I'm this amazing person, and I'm not. I was a loner. I had only one friend. No one wanted to talk to me. I got into drinking way earlier than most kids. And then I got to ninth grade. And it's my first day of school at a new school.

And I went and got clothes that I liked because I realized trying to fit in didn't work out so well. So I was going to just be myself. And I had on this great outfit that I loved and I couldn't find my way to my classroom. And I'm walking around the school and I see this other girl walking towards me. And she takes one look at me, grabs me by the head and slams me into lockers and says, welcome to high school, bitch.

I fell to the floor and stood up and held my head. And I thought, so it continues. This girl was a member of a group of girls in this high school. And they did nothing but beat me up every day.

It just got to a point where one day I came into school, they went to attack me, and I just threw down my books and I put up my hands because funny enough, my father had taught me how to defend myself and I just never wanted to. And I just threw up my hands and I said, you want to fight? I actually know how to fight. Let's do this. And a huge circle formed around us. And this girl looked at me and saw the look in my eye and she took off running.

And from that moment on, I went from being the person that everybody made fun of to being the person that everyone was afraid of. One day I was in class and this girl was crying and she told me, well, these four girls told me I have to meet them by the bathrooms after school and they're going to beat me up. And I said, well, you're not going to go.

And so I showed up instead of this girl. And I said, well, I heard that the four of you were going to hurt her. So what we're going to do now is I'm going to fight you for her. And they all threw up their hands and said, we don't have a problem with you. And I said, good. So that means you don't have a problem with her anymore either, right? And they said, not at all. Problem solved. I said, great. And so all through high school, I just continued to do that.

I never even threw a single punch. I didn't have to do a thing. I just stood up and used this newfound fear people had for me to help others. But it was hard because I never got asked to school dances. Nobody wanted to be with me. It was really difficult to just feel so left out all the time.

But in high school, I was a lifeguard, actually. And so in the summers, I kind of got this break from my school life and I got to be with these people that knew me and got me. After high school, I went to Kent State University. I go into my first year living in the dorms, which was a co-ed dorm. I was basically a goth. I always just wore black clothes and dark makeup. It's just kind of a big part of who I've always been.

Even in college, I didn't necessarily fit in. But what's nice about being at such a big school, everybody's different. So I was in my dorm room and I was just working on some homework. And I just see this guy walk by really fast and think nothing of it. And like two seconds later, he's in my room. I didn't hear him come in. I didn't see him come in. He's just standing next to me. And I turn and he stuck out his hand and he said, I'm Jack.

And I said, okay, nice to meet you, Jack. And I shook his hand and he asked me my name and I gave him my name and he was like, okay. And then he just turned and walked out of my room. It was just odd in the way he did it. But it was also weird that he just came in my room, but I don't know, he was this good looking guy and he was really muscular and certainly not the typical kind of guy that would ever talk to me. Well, later that night, I get this message from this guy named Jack and

And at first I thought, well, that's really weird because I didn't know how he found me on AOL InstaMessager. And he just was basically like, hey, how you doing? I'd love to get to know you.

I was just like, wow, this is so different. Guys typically don't pursue me like this. And I didn't have a very long dating history. I'd had one boyfriend when I was 18. And then I had had a second boyfriend, Eric. But this Jack guy was different. He was looking to connect with me.

We probably messaged on AOL Messenger for hours that night. And then shortly came in the phone calls. And it just turned into this thing of like, he was always there and he was always flattering me and he was always interested in me. And I didn't have a cage for this because all my life, no one had ever been interested in me and talking to me and asking me personal questions or any of these things. It was exciting to have somebody always talking to me and always checking on me and always wanting to be around me.

But slowly I started to feel like the sense of control. He very smoothly would make comments like, you know, your hair would look so beautiful if you like grew it out and it was blonde. And he would say it in a way that didn't make me feel uncomfortable. He said it in a way that made me think, well, maybe he's right. Maybe that's what I've been missing all my life. Everybody thinks I'm ugly and he thinks I'm beautiful. I should listen to him.

And then he would do little things like, you're so beautiful just the way you are, but you should go to the gym with me and work out. And I bet you would feel more comfortable. And so I did. So the next thing I know, I now have blondish hair. I'm wearing clothes that I would never wear. I have dropped about 25 pounds. And I just remembered this night looking in the mirror and thinking, I don't look like myself.

So he was being very controlling about where I could go and what I could do. And on this night, I had been invited to a party with just girlfriends. And I said, I'm going. So I show up at this party. We're drinking. We're having an absolute blast. But he keeps calling the house I'm at, which was really weird because I don't even know how he got the number. Well, I'm in the party. And all of a sudden, I hear somebody say, hey, Jack's outside. And I looked at my friends and I just knew my night's over.

As soon as I saw his face when I got outside, I saw something in him that I have never seen in another person. His eyes just did not look like his eyes. He wasn't saying much. He just grabbed me by the back of one of my arms and he was so strong and he was pinching my tricep and he was dragging me and pushing me. And I just kept saying, let me go back to my dorm. You do your thing. We'll talk tomorrow. I've left the party. Clearly that's what you've wanted. But he's not saying anything.

He's just looking straight ahead, squeezing my arm and dragging and pushing me. And I started to go from let me go to my place to just let me go. He kept pulling me and pushing me. And that let me go started to become this panic of I think he's going to hurt me. And I started screaming for help. I remember we had gotten to his front porch. And when I saw his front porch, I just thought if he gets me inside this house, I think he's going to do something to me.

I tried to fight him off of me. He kind of grabbed me by both arms now. He still isn't talking. And he gets me up on the porch. And I just started screaming, help me. Someone help me, please. Because the look on his face, he just didn't look like himself.

As soon as I screamed, someone help me. He looked at me with this dead look and I'll never forget. I tried to kind of push him off me and he cocked back his hand. And as he went to hit me as hard as he could, I leaned my head backwards so that his knuckles just kind of grazed my forehead. And I was leaning over the stairs of his house and he let go of me. I felt myself falling and he reached out with both arms and grabbed me and then pulled me back in.

And I just at that moment knew, do not struggle anymore. Whatever you do, comply because no one's coming to help you. And this person is having some sort of break. He scooped me up in his arms like you would carry a bride over the threshold. And he walked me into his house and took me upstairs to his room. And I pretended to mostly sleep that night.

The next morning, he was being so sweet and so wonderful and talking to me. And he is now acting as if none of that ever happened. And I just thought, I think I'm in big trouble here.

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In the weeks that followed, he was less intrusive in my life. He was giving me a little space. He made me feel like things were okay. And I just thought, you know what? Maybe it was a bad night. I was drinking and he was mad. It's not like he really hit me. He tried to hit me, but he didn't really hit me. But it didn't take long for him to recognize, oh, hey, I got away with that. So let's do the next thing.

I remember being in his room and I said something back to him and he picked me up and threw me through his wall. And I don't mean like kind of left a dent. I went into his wall. Like I fell out of his wall in this house he was renting. There was a hole for my head and my whole upper body and torso. And I fell onto his bed and immediately he grabbed me and was like, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to do that. Are you okay? And I just thought, oh my gosh, this is getting really bad.

The next thing that really triggered me that this is getting worse is he came over my home and my really good friend Amber, he picked her up by her ankles and hung her over a second story railing at our house. And I remember him just looking at me with strong eye contact, laughing. And my friend is screaming for her life. And the look he was giving me was like, I could drop her if I want to. You better listen to me.

And I just begged him, please bring her back up. Other people came out on the porch. Everybody had to talk him into bringing her back up. And he acted like it was a joke. Up until that point, he had always insinuated, if you ever leave me, things will happen. But I chose to break up with him. I thought, I have to take a stand here. I've been dealing with bullies my whole life. I'm not going to get bullied again. So we were having a party and friends from my high school decided to come down to visit.

These were friends I made my senior year. One of the people coming was my high school boyfriend I had when I was almost 18, Rob, who just happened to be coming to this party. And Jack and his best friend showed up. I eventually just very politely, trying not to make a scene, said, look, I need you to go. You weren't invited to this party, and we're not together anymore. All of a sudden, I heard from somebody later that evening, there's somebody upstairs smashing all your artwork.

Well, Jack had snuck back into the house and I was an art student, so I had sculptures and paintings. And when I came upstairs, I'll never forget, he was sitting alone in a chair and I just knew, get out of here, like run. And I ran down the stairs and I went into my garage. People were playing flip cup and games. And one of the people in there was my boyfriend from high school, Rob.

Jack just came through that garage door. He picked me up by my neck. He hit me and then slammed me against the garage, and I went unconscious. Rob was a wrestler, and they just said, it's on. They chased him out to his car. He almost ran Rob over with his car. By the time I came conscious, there was blood all over my driveway. My house was trashed. It was horrific.

So I remember the sheriff showing up. He could see I had this huge goose egg on my head. And he's like, oh my gosh, how hard did he hit you? I'm like, I don't know. I don't remember. And that whole night, I just cried and thought, I tried to get out of this. I tried to stand up for myself. And look what happened.

I woke up the next day and the same sheriff who had seen me the night before, he comes pulling into my driveway. And I thought, what is he doing back here? And he said to me, I need to talk to you. The way this whole situation went down, I decided to do some digging. And Jack has a record. It's been sealed. It happened when he was younger. But I called in a favor and I got to read his file.

And he said in high school, he had a girlfriend and he literally beat her so badly she lost most of her teeth. He said, look, there's a pattern of behavior here. And this is how girls like you wind up murdered. And I need you to hear me because he will kill you. Here's what you have to do from now on. When you go to a class, a friend has to escort you to your classroom.

You are never to be alone again, ever. Do you understand? You need to double check your windows are locked because he is coming for you. I just remember standing there with this huge goose egg on my head thinking, is this actually my life? And he gave me his card and he goes, on the back, this is my personal number. You see this guy, you call me.

So fast forward a couple of days, I'm going to my art classes. I didn't take the sheriff's warning of having my friends take me to classes. And I show up for classes and he's sitting outside my classroom crying. I just basically say, look, you need to see a therapist. You need to get help. And I want you to live your life, but you won't be living it with me. And I never want to see you again.

And he just cried and asked me for a hug. And I said, no, no hugging. I'm going into class. Well, fast forward a few more days. Now, the way my art room was set up, it's kind of like a giant space. The doors were kind of open to let air in. And everybody usually either had a radio next to them or their headphones on, just listening to music. And I was painting and just minding my own business. And that's when I felt a set of arms come up underneath me and across my chest and

And they squeezed me so hard. And I knew instantly it's Jack. And I went to yell for help. And he just squeezed my chest so hard. I couldn't get a sound out. And he started to drag me, my head's against his chest, under his chin. His arms are crisscrossed. I have no mobility. And he is so strong. And I'm realizing, oh, God, everybody's listening to music. Nobody knows what's happening to me.

He takes me out the doors into the hall. We go through the front doors. I could tell where he was taking me. There was a parking lot straight across the way. And I heard that sheriff in my mind saying, if he gets you alone, you're going to die. And I just thought, this is it. You're going to die. And all of a sudden, my teacher comes running and says, let go of her. Put her down.

And Jack just lets go of me. And I hit the ground. And Jack takes off running. My teacher was like huddling over me, like protecting me. And my teacher just kind of held me in his arms. So now the sheriff's office and the campus police were now working together. They warned him. They said, you're not allowed within 200 yards of her anywhere on campus. So now my friends are on board.

My roommates had to change their whole lives for me, checking every window, every lock, literally had to coordinate how do we get her to and from everywhere. We became this incredibly tight unit, making sure I wasn't kidnapped or killed. If I testified against him in court, he was going to go to jail for at least a few years. And I was ready to do it. I was prepared to face everything that happened to me and stand up to a bully and put him in jail.

So the day came, me and all three of my roommates, we show up for my court date and we walk in and they go, you missed it. I go, no, I have all my paperwork right here. They said, oh no, we mailed something out to you. The date got changed. It happened two weeks ago. You didn't show up. What are they talking about? How could I miss this? This was my opportunity to put this guy away. So I called the sheriff. He shows up at my house. He goes, we got to talk. I'm so sorry.

Have you guys been seeing him around here? Like by your house? I said, yeah, all the time. Why? He goes, his lawyer moved the date and the court mailed you out stuff. I'm assuming you didn't get it. I said, no. He goes, he stole your mail. He goes, his lawyer probably told him to do it too. So he's getting a $250 fine and some community service. And I said, is there anything we can do? He goes, no, it's over. It was a dirty trick and it worked perfectly.

So it was absolutely devastating. I didn't get to put him away. I didn't get that finality. Surviving an abusive relationship on its own is a lot. Surviving a stalking on its own is a lot. But surviving an attempted kidnap in what I would imagine would have been my murder really did a lot on me mentally. Psychologically, I became incredibly paranoid.

Being alone caused me such anxiety. Even if I went outside for a moment in between classes, I would almost hallucinate that he was there. I had to look under my car. Could he be under my car waiting to grab my feet? Every parking lot I went into, I would survey the entire parking lot. I would run everywhere. I would just sprint all the time. I'm being watched. I'm being followed. And at any moment, something could just reach out and grab me.

I just had this sensation of never-ending fear. And it just made me go from being that person that felt kind of strong for just a second there in my life to going all the way back to the beginning. I just felt small, weak, scared. I didn't know how to cope with it. And I didn't want to live alone. After everything we had been through, I couldn't live without my two friends. I didn't think I could survive.

Knowing that he knew where we were, it was terrifying for all of us. So someone we knew suggested, why don't you go check out this realtor office? They helped me find a place to rent. We get to her office. She knew in advance what we were looking for, a three-bedroom rental of some kind. We're in this woman's office for about 45 minutes, and she just keeps going on and on about how there's not three-bedroom properties anywhere.

So we get up to leave and she just says, all right, hang on a second. I might have something for you. She turns around to this filing cabinet and opens a drawer and pulls out this manila envelope. And she says, there is one three bedroom home, but the landlords are really particular. I remember looking at my friends and thinking, she's waited all this time to show us this. This is so weird.

We flip it open and there are all these pictures of this little white house. And we're like, this looks great. And she's like, okay. So now we had this opportunity to move to a new space and get away from that sensation of just being stalked and followed. So fast forward, we're going to see the house for the first time.

When we get there, the two landlords are waiting for us. Two gentlemen, probably mid to late 40s. We shake their hands and introduce ourselves. They go, okay, let's go on a tour of the house. But these landlords will not let us not be together. You even take a step towards the kitchen. They go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Get back here. We're not going there yet. And then we realized that there was a basement there.

We were like, let's go check it out. And they kept protesting. Ah, you don't need to see it. It's just an old basement. Nothing to worry about. And we were like, no, we want to see the basement. We all then go down the stairs and we turn around this one side and we see this stuff on the walls. And before we can even ask about it, they're like, OK, enough with the basement. No need to go over there. Let's get upstairs. Let's keep going.

So we finished touring the house. We didn't get the sense like, oh, yeah, we got the house after. We were kind of like, I hope we did. I don't know. That was weird. But it turned out we got the house. So great. So we move in. And the first thing the three of us wanted to do was go back down to that basement and see what they didn't want us to see. So Amber, Reeb and I go down into this basement. We turn the corner and on the wall there is this symbol.

This wasn't a pentagram like some metal band had been down there and put it up. This looked ancient. And looking at it made you feel unsafe and unwell. And we went up those stairs and turned off that light and decided for the most part that we would never enter that basement again. That very day, I started to feel the feeling that I had known so well.

I could tell that somebody was watching me. I would go into any room in the kitchen. There's somebody over there watching me. In the bathroom, there's somebody in here watching me. Am I losing my mind? Have I been so filled with fear by what happened to me that I'm really hallucinating? So I'm up in my bedroom, which was the only bedroom on the second floor, and I just could tell somebody's watching me from that corner.

And I don't know where I got the guts, but I walked over to that corner. And when I stuck out my hand, it went into something. A cold mass of dense air. Thick and heavy. And I pulled my hand out and I thought, I just stuck my hand into like whatever's watching me. So one night I go to go to sleep and I'm in my bed. I roll over and immediately I can feel that someone is standing next to my bed.

Now, my first thought is, oh God, did Jack find me? And that's when I felt a set of knees drop against my mattress. And they dropped with such force that I actually slightly rolled back towards them. And I knew Jack is in my room. And I rolled over. And as I looked in the darkness, no one was standing there.

I looked down at my mattress and I could see the indentations of that person's weight against my bed. I rolled over, I pulled the covers over my head. I was terrified and I felt the knees come off the bed and my whole mattress shook. And I knew the thing I had touched in the corner was now standing next to my bed.

And I could sense that it was really excited that I was so afraid of being watched because that's what it liked to do. It wanted to watch me. When you've been stalked for so long, you just grow eyes in the back of your head. And now I'm in this house and I'm getting the same exact feeling. And I had this sensation all the time, like is somebody watching me through the windows? And I wouldn't find a person.

And I thought, this can't be happening. I can't go from being stalked by someone I could see to now being stalked by something I cannot see. I can't do this again. I seriously don't know what's worse, being stalked by someone you can see or stalked by something you cannot see, but you know is there. And you're left questioning your sanity. Is this PTSD? Am I just reliving trauma?

Am I insane? I could try to convince myself that it was PTSD, that it was my mental health. I could try to rationalize it. But when doors are opening and closing on their own, you have to start to accept the possibility that something is doing this to you intentionally.

So it was as if whatever was in the house was feeding off of my fear, almost as if it knew I had been through something. I felt like it knew my past. I felt like it was intentionally trying to frighten me. What do you do with an energy that is mimicking what I had just been through? But on top of that, things begin to escalate. It wanted to affect others.

Rebecca, who had been my friend for years, she went into her room, shut the door, and never came out. Me and my other roommate Amber had to start doing wellness checks. We were worried that she was hurting herself. We didn't know when she ate. We didn't know when she went to the bathroom. Her personality has completely changed overnight.

She has become combative. She has become paranoid. She has become angry. She won't stop complaining about me running up and down the stairs, whispering and laughing outside her door, doing things that I would never do. Things that she later reflected on and said, I would hear these things and you weren't even home. And yet she couldn't absorb that and realize that she just became so mad at me all the time.

My other roommate, she's a skeptic. She doesn't believe in anything. So it didn't matter what happened. I could be on the couch with her and a kitchen cabinet would pop open and I would clearly go, something just opened that and that's terrifying. And she would get up and go, oh, what an old house. I would walk up and slam it shut. I was becoming more and more fearful in this house.

My then boyfriend, Adam, was with us all the time. He was a big part of keeping me safe in the Jack situation. He could tell that something was going on. I would always make him walk me to the bathroom at night or walk me to the kitchen at night. And I just had this weird feeling like I don't want to be alone. And one night he wasn't there and I was in the bathroom and I stepped towards the bathroom door and

And I heard somebody in the bathroom walk up behind me and my heart began to race. The bathroom mirror was just over my left shoulder and I turned my head slightly so that I could see the reflection of my own back. And there was clearly no one standing there. And that's when I felt somebody walk and press their body against my body.

It felt like the body of a woman. I could feel her chest. I could feel her hips. And she was pressing her body against mine. And I felt somebody exhale on my neck. I took off running. And as I got to the stairs, I felt a set of hands grab both of my ankles. And I had been running so fast, my face hit the stairs. I didn't even stop myself with my hands. I thought I broke my nose.

I sat up and I turned around and I remember touching my face to see if my nose was bleeding. Then I remembered, oh my God, you were running from something that you felt in the bathroom and something grabbed your legs. And in that second, I thought, maybe you're making this up. Maybe this isn't real. And I looked down at my legs on the stairs and I felt a hand reach around my ankle and it grabbed my left leg.

And it pulled me so hard. I watched my leg go straight and I thudded down two stairs. I kicked my leg free. I ran into my bedroom. I slammed my bedroom door. And on the back of my bedroom door, there had been a padlock. And for the first time when I locked it, I knew why it was there. Someone else had lived in that house and they had been stalked too. And I locked that lock and I thought, oh my God, this is real bad.

This is really happening. I felt like I was being stalked and hunted all over again, but nobody could protect me this time. I couldn't call the sheriffs to come help me with this. And who was going to believe me? This was beyond any comprehension. I just felt like they would think that I had lost my mind. One night, my boyfriend Adam was sleeping in my room.

I had never told him about being chased by this unseen force in the house, but he was aware that something was happening in this house. So he got up in the middle of the night to use the restroom. And as he turned the stairwell into the living room, he could see that there was a woman standing behind the beam. She had long dark hair and was wearing a long white nightgown. The first thing he thought was, maybe there's a ghost.

Then he thought, well, that's ridiculous because I'm clearly looking at a person. That's not a ghost. The second thing he thought was there's a person in this house. I don't know if it's someone playing a prank. I don't know if a crazy person has wandered in off the streets, but I'm going to have to defend everyone in this house. He lunged toward it and it popped its head from around the pillar, dropped open its mouth and let out a demonic roar.

And he said what he saw and heard, he knew immediately. That's not a human being. That's not even a ghost. That's a demon. And he turned and he ran up my stairs, locked that bedroom door, hopped in my bed. I woke up. He threw the covers over his head. I remember he was just trembling. And I remember going under the covers with him. And I said, what happened? He said, I saw her. I saw it. There's something in this house.

Well, now that I had someone at least who was sensing and seeing this entity, I didn't have to feel so alone. Well, Rebecca ended up moving out and my best friend Lane was coming back to school. She was going to move into the house. I thought this is perfect. If anybody in the world can shift the energy of this house, if anybody can help make it better, it's Lane. But she moves into that room and never comes out.

My best friend, the life of the party, goes into a bedroom and never comes out. In Rebecca's case, whatever was in the house was using her own mind to make her not come out of the room. It was making her paranoid. In Lane's case, she had a boyfriend, and that boyfriend, upon moving into that house, was

suddenly became abusive, suddenly started acting like Jack, and he was controlling Lane's every move. He would not let my friend Lane leave. So my friend now goes into the room, and much like Reba, is never coming out. But behind that door is being physically, mentally, emotionally, sexually abused, and there was nothing I could do because Lane wouldn't talk about it. She wouldn't come out of her room. We couldn't get her help.

So my roommate Amber, the skeptic, she's starting to notice, okay, Adam and Lindsay are acting really weird all the time in the house. And now Lane's not coming out of the room? And as a pragmatic, rational person, Amber said, there is something going on here. Like, what is going on with our roommates in this room? Well, one day, she's home alone, and she gets ready to leave the house.

She gets in her car, and as she starts her car, she looks up and notices there's somebody standing in the sliding glass door. It lifts up its head, and she described it to me as having no face, and she knew immediately that it wasn't human. She floored her car in reverse, got out of there, got to work, and she was in her car.

I get home that night and the phone will not stop ringing and I pick it up and it's Amber and she's at her work hiding in the back room. And she goes, I have not stopped trying to call you. I saw it. I am so sorry that I didn't want to hear you. I didn't want to believe you. There is something in our house and I didn't want you to come home and be with it alone. And poor Amber went from believing in nothing to believing in the possibility of everything.

I had always been a horror movie fan, but I had never seen this film, The Amityville Horror. And I said to Adam and Amber, we should check it out. Maybe we can figure something out. And we're watching the movie. All these things that we experienced in our house, we're seeing in this movie going, yep, checklist, checklist, checklist.

What was weird about the home is when the entity was getting ready to do something, the air would change. It was an atmospheric change. And we were sitting there and you could feel that happening. And I looked out the back glass door and there was a green glowing light just suspended floating there.

And I said, guys, and I remember Adam and Amber turning and looking and going, what is that? And in the distance, we start to see this mist forming and it starts to roll on the ground towards the back steps. It goes up one step. It goes up another step. And then it slides across the porch towards the glass door. It hits the glass so hard you hear it.

It rolls up the glass and now this green light is illuminating the back of this mist and we're watching the mist now start to pull together as if it's becoming something. We literally ran out the front door and abandoned our house. We didn't lock it. We ran and we left and we slept in Adam's apartment that night.

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We made a rule. No one is allowed in the house alone, especially after dark. We often all had to sleep in one bed. Adam had a little studio apartment. On nights when the activity was so intense, we would go sleep at his apartment. At this point in this house, it's about survival. Life carried on. You still had to go to school. You still had to live a life. We stuck together until we could finally get out of that space.

People always ask me, why didn't you move out? I tried. You know, I called my parents and told them what was going on. They were helping me out as much as they could afford to, and they just said, deal with it. But I also had a fear that it might come with me. So of course, the next step is, let's get rid of this thing. I reached out to every paranormal group I could. I reached out to every church that I could, and nobody would get back to me.

As luck would have it, Adam's dad was becoming a deacon in the Russian Orthodox Church. I hadn't wanted to involve Adam's dad. I didn't want them to think I was crazy. But at this point, we didn't know what else to do. So I remember Adam said, let's go talk to my dad. And I sat down with Ed. And the best moment was when I told him everything that was going on. He just looked at me and said, I believe you.

here's holy water and here's what you guys are going to do. Every door, every window, everything. You're going to make the sign of the cross. You're going to say the Lord's prayer and you're going to just do every inch of this house. And then he gave me an icon and he said, I want you to hang this over your door. This will prevent the entity from coming in your room. This will keep you safe. So we hung up the icon next to my bedroom door and I couldn't believe it.

It was like magic. This icon worked. But outside my door, you could hear it scratching, knocking like let me in. So then we decide to do what Ed said as well with the holy water. So Adam and I walked around the house together, saying the Lord's prayer, doing every inch of this house. And for like three days, the house felt great.

One afternoon, Adam was up in my room watching football. I was in the living room watching TV and Amber was in her bedroom. All at once, every single object in the entire house that was hung on the walls fell off the walls. Adam came running down the stairs. Amber comes running out of our room. Adam shouts, earthquake.

We go running out the front door, expecting to hear dogs barking and car alarms going off. We look around and not a peep. And we looked at each other and realized that the entity in the house moved the entire house. As if to say, did you really think that a little holy water and a couple of prayers were going to get rid of me? We finally got to the point where it was time to leave.

Amber's parents were going to help her move out. Lane's family was helping her move out. Adam and my uncle were helping me move out. And we just said, let's not tell anyone that the house has activity. And we also were like, we don't want our parents in here because we knew that it was capable of hurting people. Once I left, my first fear was that it would follow me. And thankfully, leaving that house, nobody followed me. But I couldn't move on with my life.

I was so traumatized by what Jack did to me, by what I believe a demon did to me. I was being haunted by my thoughts, by my emotions. It was beyond my ability to understand or comprehend. Then I just started to think you have to process what happened to you.

I would just write things down at first, randomly, events and situations, just to kind of get it out of my system, but also to remind myself that it was real. Your brain wants to convince you that none of it happened. It wants to protect you. It wants to shut you off and block it all out. But I couldn't do that because I knew that it would live inside me. So I just needed to keep it real and keep it out there.

It was really hard because Lane didn't want to talk about it. Amber was very shy to talk about it. Adam had gotten a job in New England and moved away. They weren't exactly wanting to talk about it. I look at a lot of the ways that people deal with trauma and it's different for everyone. But in my family, we tend to move on by hiding it. It's like a seed. You plant it and then it could grow at any time.

I wanted to control the growth of this within all of us, but especially myself. I ended up having to see a therapist. And I remembered thinking they're going to put me in a straight jacket and that's going to be the end of me. But I knew I needed to talk about it more. I just couldn't let it go. I couldn't let it die. And I needed to get it out. And the first thing the therapist said to me was, I believe you. Objects moved. How can you explain that? That makes no sense. That is real.

And as for the other situation, you clearly have post-traumatic stress disorder from being stalked and abused. And we're going to work on helping fix that for you. PTSD is a very interesting animal. You never know what's going to trigger it to strike you. You could walk past it a thousand times and be fine. And then boom, something sets you off.

I keep having this feeling that is not my own. Like it's been encoded into my DNA and it's Jack. He's not here and it's been a decade and yet I'm still feeling him. And when it came to the entity in the house, I can't even tell you how hard it was to walk upstairs and not think about the fact that something could pull me down the stairs.

And so I had these weird traumatic responses to situations. And as I recognized them and as I worked with the therapist, the goal was just to desensitize myself.

Have people chase you upstairs. Have people walk behind you on stairs. Just desensitize yourself to the trauma you experienced. And if you do that over time, along with therapy, along with all the healthy routes you can take, it does help you to get over it. It was really a journey. It was three years of therapy to get me to a place where for the first time in my life, I didn't feel so anxious. I can walk around in a dark room and be okay.

And in fact, what ended up happening is I'm not scared of anything anymore. It's a crazy thing to say, but I have come through this to a place where I have no more fear. I channel energy now in a different way. Things just don't scare me anymore. After a lifetime of being bullied, bullied by my peers, bullied by Jack, bullied by a demon, for the first time in my life, I'm actually a strong person.

Nothing holds weight over me anymore, including all the trauma of my childhood. I don't think I would have ever dealt with that the way I have if I hadn't been through those two experiences. I give a lot of credit to my then boyfriend, now husband, Adam. He's a wonderful man and a great person and my best friend. And he has supported me through all of it. And he certainly had his traumas from it as well.

He was such a great support system. And I think together we've just navigated life going, look, other people maybe will never experience either of those situations, but we have and we have together. And if we got through that, we can get through anything. So, you know, I had always written down notes. I would remember something that happened to me in that house and I would go, I need to write this down. And I just thought I need to process it all.

I wanted to give everybody answers. I want to understand what is a haunting? What is a demon? What can cause people to think that they're in a haunted house when they might not be? I'm going to talk to specialists, neurologists, psychologists, demonologists to get as much information to understand what it was that we went through.

And it was such a healing process for me because I got answers to questions that I never even knew existed from specialists the world over. And it was a way to purge out of me every last little thing that hung over my head. It was the way to finally put it to bed. And it's finally out of me to a point that I can move on with my life now.

It really helped me to understand that I am a psychic and a medium. And I don't say that lightly, but it made me realize that that was in me. Ever since I was a child, what I have been experiencing, I just didn't know that's what it was. And what I've learned is that there is something beyond this life. Energy, it moves on. And entities are around us more than you know.

There is more than you can begin to understand about the thin line between our world and the world that is on the other side. It's a weird phenomena to live with, but now I'm open and I know how to connect. And it's wild, but it's also pretty wonderful. ♪

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I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York. I was like at my locker and she came up to me and she was like stuttering super bad. I'm like, stop f***ing around. She's like, I can't. A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms, and spreading fast. It's like doubling and tripling and it's all these girls. With a diagnosis, the state tried to keep on the down low. Everybody thought I was holding something back. Well, you were holding something back intentionally. Yeah, yeah, well, yeah.

Is this the largest mass hysteria since The Witches of Salem? Or is it something else entirely? A new limited series from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios, Hysterical.

Follow Hysterical on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery+.