I’ve got quite a few irrational fears. Spiders, swans, and sparklers to name a few (alliteration is lovely).

My main one is a bit more specific. I’m irrationally afraid that someone will break into my room via my bedroom window, and murder me. I live in a very small village, consisting mostly of young families with small children and retired couples. The crime is near non-existent. Of course we have more mild crimes such as shoplifting, but murderers aren’t exactly common.

When I told my parents about this irrational fear, they tried using the above reasoning. And often, working through something logically can help me. But irrational fears cannot be fought with rationality.

I wasn’t sleeping because of this fear. I would lie awake, terrified, and would periodically go and check the window was locked. I would check multiple times every night, because ‘what if I was wrong last time I checked?’. Checking the locks reduced the anxiety temporarily, but it appeared again a few minutes later. I would refuse to leave the windows open or unlocked, even in the middle of summer. The only time I would allow them to be open would be when I was home with my parents, in the middle of the day.

I had a dream that made this anxiety even worse. In this dream, I was dreaming. I then ‘woke up’, went over to my window, and found a strange man staring back at me. I couldn’t scream as he opened the window, but then I properly woke up.

I was terrified every time I went to bed, or was home alone. I would insist my brother stay home with me whenever my parents went out, even at age 17. Otherwise, I would be in a state of anxiety and panic the whole time they were gone, and would sit with my dog with the TV on, listening for any tiny noise that would indicate someone was here. I’d check the door was locked every time I passed it. I would ensure each window was locked and the curtains closed, usually twice. I’d close my parents windows, even though they usually leave them open overnight.

I’d like to note, I don’t have OCD. People with OCD experience even more extreme versions of these behaviours and fears. OCD isn’t just wanting your pencils to be neat, or alphabetically organising your books. It’s panic and fear over things others barely consider or think of.

But anyway, my parents couldn’t figure out how to help me. My dad tried telling me that if someone was going to break in, they would use a different window, not mine (this didn’t really help! But I don’t think he understood just how scared I was, and was trying to make a joke out of it). My mum told me that the village was so safe that I didn’t need to worry about it.

Yet my thoughts still stuck on ‘what if?’. Even if the village was safe, what if I was the one person that was murdered/burgled? What if I left my window unlocked on the one day an opportunistic criminal was strolling past? What if, what if, what if?

Eventually, I managed to control this fear. I was out of ideas, so I decided ‘this is an irrational fear, so I’ll come up with an irrational solution’. I decided that as long as I had two teddy bears on either side of my pillow, they would form a force field that no evil person could get through. It was completely illogical, and of course I knew it wasn’t true. But by telling myself this, I managed to start sleeping again. The fear slowly decreased, as I now felt I had more control. I was able to stop myself from checking the window over and over. This was incredibly terrifying at first, but the anxiety decreased over time. This is similar to ‘exposure therapy’, where a person with a phobia is exposed to the phobic stimulus in a calm environment over and over until the anxiety decreases over time (this is a very simplistic explanation but the post is getting long).

Now, I check my windows once, close the curtains, and usually don’t think about it again for the entire night. Sometimes I do get anxious about it, but I don’t let myself check again. And I’ll reassure myself that the teddy force field is still in place, so I’m still safe.