I have always had trouble sleeping. Not as bad as some other people, but it takes me about 45 minutes to an hour in order to fall asleep and usually two times a week I randomly wake up at around one in the morning.
However, this past week has been… Different.
To create some context, I have ADD, depression, and anxiety (all diagnosed). I have just recently been making big strides in mending my mental health and have had little to no problems with it for about two months now. I have no idea if this somehow applies to what I am about to the things I am about to tell, but it could possibly be part of it.
It started on Sunday. I have set a good sleep schedule for myself in the last month and have only woken up twice in the night and gone back to sleep easily, but for whatever reason, I woke up at one in the morning on the dot. I thought not much of it and went to sleep. I wake up; two in the morning. On the dot. It continued until five in which I decided to just start my day and get up.
Monday is where it starts to get scary and unexplainable. As you are reading this, please do your best to believe me here, as it is not going to sound real but is exactly what happened and one hundred percent true. Honestly I don’t think I would believe it if someone told me. Anyways; I woke up at one in the morning. I found it strange because I went to bed an hour and a half later than I usually do just to have a better nights sleep. I am a side sleeper and constantly shift sides about every few minutes. I was going to shift to the right side of the bed that faces the shelf and is perpendicular to the walk in closet when I heard something strange. I heard a ticking noise. I started to become more aware and awake, and recognized it as the sound of a watch. I sat there not moving for five minutes just listening. I do not own a watch. I was scared and a little paranoid of the situation, but I finally decided to sit up and look where the sound was coming from. It was from the hall. I got up and peeked out of the door frame. The sound of the watch echoed through the hall. I opened the door fully and stepped out into the hall to see what it was, but then it suddenly stopped. I turned on all the lights and turned the house upside down looking for where the sound could be coming from, but there was nothing. I went back to sleep, and similar to what happened on Sunday, I woke up every hour on the hour.
On Tuesday was when it started to escalate. And I mean severely escalate. I woke up at god knows what time, probably one in the morning based on the pattern I was in. I was in a pretty comfy position and did not feel like getting up, so I just layer there and tried to go back to sleep. As I started to become more aware, I heard a faint sound. It was on the opposite side of where I was facing on the right side. I became curious and started to think more and focus in on what the sound was, and as I was becoming more and more aware is when I realized what it was.
Breathing.
It was a kind of heavy mouth breath, the kind you would do while running. It sounded like that but was not too loud, whoever was making the sound was trying to be quiet about it but still breath like that. I lay still with my eyes closed, now fully awake, trying to figure out what to do. I decided on waiting there for a while and wait for him to leave; I am a small little gay guy that can’t really do anything if I get in a fight. I waited what I think was about an hour before finally deciding that I needed to jump up and punch whoever was the right in the face and get him (or her, by the way it sounded probably him) by surprise. I built up the courage to do it and sprung up and thrust myself forward using all of my energy to take down whoever was there.
I fell flat on my face.
The breathing faded out. Not disappeared, fades out, like it got farther away. I scrambled to the light-switch and turned it on. No one was there. I literally flipped my furniture and tore up my house looking for who was there. I called my mom and told her, to which she told me to look and see if there were any points of forced entry. There were none. Not a trace. Nothing stolen. No points of entry. Nothing.
I went to my boyfriends house and slept there for the night and told myself to clean up tomorrow. I stayed at his house Wednesday and had no problems. I went back and cleaned Thursday and just woke up a few times during the night.
Then Friday happened.
I woke up (probably at one) to the sound of a clock. Not a watch. A clock. I darted up and started to look around, panicked. I couldn’t recognize where it was coming from, until it dawned on me.
It was coming from the bed.
I looked underneath the bed with a flashlight and tore the sheets off the bed, I lifted up the mattress to try and find it. Nothing. I still heard the noise, so it had to be somewhere. I looked around and recognized the point of where it was coming from.
The bare mattress on the bed. I grabbed a knife from the kitchen and came back in the room to cut it open and find the clock or whatever it was in there and make it stop. Just want to say the clock was much louder than a usual clock you would put on a wall, it still sounded the same but was just louder. As I came back in the room I saw that the ticking stopped. I still was panicked and tore open the mattress and searched the entire thing.
There. Was. Nothing.
I drove straight to my boyfriends house and sobbed to him. He is letting me stay for a week and we are making plans for us to move in together. I have no way of explaining what happened to me and I don’t know if there ever will be, but I know for sure I am not crazy. I am scared out of my mind and don’t know what to do, so that’s why I came on here. If any of you can help give me an explanation as of what happened I would really appreciate it.