Scared

I am afraid of the dark...totally and absolutely afraid of the dark. I won't put the trash can out on the street at night. When David is gone I have to sleep with the lights on and even then I don't actually really sleep. (Okay I'll be honest, after one night by myself very early on in my marriage, I just go sleep at my mom's house now. I'm so grateful my husband is hardly ever out of town.) I refuse to go to the dumpster at the church by myself. I've been afraid of the dark for as long as I can remember. But it was never about monsters under my bed. Well maybe it was and I don't remember that part. I'm afraid of bad people doing bad things and hurting me or my family, that's why I'm afraid of the dark. My friends tease me because I lock them inside of my house. Ever door and window of my house (including the garage) is locked at all times if I'm there or not. I am not paranoid just prepared. When we first moved into our house I use to lay awake at night scared because I hadn't figured out the best way to get to my kids if something happened like a fire or an intruder or whatever. I hate that I have children in two different bedrooms now because if something were to happened I'd have to go grab Matthew before I could get to Jacob and Adam and what if I can't get to them all? Okay, so anyway enough of my neurosis, I really do have a point. A few weeks ago Jacob saw part of some pre-teen movie (iCarly) at a friend's house and then had 2 nightmares that night. He's been terrified of the dark ever since. As in, when the sun goes down he follows me around the house and starts whimpering if he's left alone. The door to the basement has to be shut at all times and he refuses to play in the toy room in the basement. He sends Adam to go turn on lights, shut doors and get his toys from downstairs. Adam now says things like "It's okay, Jacob. I'll be with you." Or my favorite "FINE....I'll go get it (or do it) for you." He sleeps with the lights on and Primary songs playing. The music keeps Adam awake so we're struggling with that too. Jacob wakes up 3 and 4 times a night and while I won't let him start out on the floor next to my bed he always ends up there sometime during the night and now Adam wakes up and comes sleeps next to him because "it's not fair that Jacob gets to sleep in Mom's room." I was so happy when we finally broke Jacob of the habit of waking up in the middle of the night and coming to sleep on my floor and that finally happened less than a year ago and now we're back to it. However I feel really bad for Jacob because I know has he feels. He's scared of monsters and aliens and some big brain that lands on him in his nightmares. He's always praying that he won't have bad dreams and won't think of them. He actually asked David for a blessing and requested that we take him to the temple because he would be able to feel the Holy Ghost there. Very sweet but he's still scared. Because I am an adult and am still scared of the dark I have to force myself to do things and control my thoughts. I had to go get something out of the YW closet yesterday at the church at like 9:00 in the morning and yes, I had to sing I am a Child of God to myself while I walked through an empty church all by myself. At least I was hoping I was all by myself. But how do you teach a 5 year old to force himself to go into the basement? Do you think that we really pass our neurotic behavior on to our children? If so my poor children are in for a whole heap of bad psychosis.

Now that I have told the world of my biggest fear, it better not come back to bite me! You guys like me, remember?!?