And I’ve been sleeping in it for all of college because of my roommate. I keep quiet about it because I don’t want to mess up her sleep but really that’s just been sacrificing my own. I have been scared of the dark since I was like 3 years old. I never slept in the dark my whole life except when I had to at sleepovers, and then I tended not to sleep at all. I get nightmares sleeping in the dark, I see disturbing and frightening things (I was staring at a disfigured demented man slumped over on the ground, pale face and gaunt eyes staring right at me for a lot of the night-now that it’s light I see it’s just a laundry bag, a pair of disembodied leathery faces contorted in pain now I see are a pair of shoes-I call these things visual distortions rather than true hallucinations) I wake up frequently, and when I wake up I’m often distressed from the nightmares or become distressed when I see all the disturbing things in the room.
I’ve been dealing with this for too long and I don’t know how to bring it up to my roommate. I feel embarassed to still have this issue as a grown adult and I was hoping I would eventually get over my fear and become acclimated as I had to spend every night with it but that just hasn’t happened.