I wonder if it was always there, or if my mother created it

The year 2011 is when my mom went crazy.

I didn’t realize what mania looked like at the time (I was only 18), but years later I realized she had an adult onset of Bipolar Disorder. It was unnerving.

It was the last straw for my dad and he left.

My mom was never the same.

My dad left her the house. It’s a beautiful home. There’s a big bay window and natural light. I loved it.....until the divorce.

I hated being in the house after my dad left. Her behavior became more erratic, ad the house changed along with her.

It was dark and stale. And you couldn’t wait to leave.

It got worse and worse over time and then I moved. I was happy to escape. No sooner had I moved did I get a phone call from my father. A neighbor hadn't been able to contact her, so he used his copy of the key to check on her. I'll spare everyone the details but mental illness is a bitch.

The dog was found dead in the bathroom and my mother in bed, weak and frail.

I never got any answers on what she did to the dog, but it wasn't good.

The cleaners my aunt hired to clean the house found my cat three days into the job–crushed to death between the ottoman and chair in the back room. It was that bad.

My sister and I were able to get her into the appropriate facility after some time.

But in the meantime, I was the one to clean up the house. She was a shopaholic hoarder and mental illness had only amplified it.

The first time I came back home, the house felt dark and stale—but it was empty. it didn’t have the panicked pressure that I had felt with my mother there. I cleaned the living shit out of that house.

The more I did this the lighter and brighter it became. Until it finally felt like home again.

But wait! It's not a happy ending!

One thing about the house was that the lightness could become dark in the blink of an eye. It was like a cloak coming over the place in one steady sweep. It was odd, but how can you explain it?

I had a boyfriend. Our relationship wasn’t exactly healthy to begin with. But I will say that he noticed the same things I did with the house. Nevertheless, we moved in there together and began the descent into hell.

There were three specific incidents with that house that immediately come to mind.

FIRST INCIDENT

One day, it was me, him, and his best friend sitting in the middle room when we heard the distinct sound of the front door opening. They went to go check and it was closed, with no sign of being opened.

See, the house was older and over time, the door had become difficult to open and close. In order to open it, you had to really put your shoulder into it.

One big noisy push and you were in.

But in order to *close* it, you had to thrust your body weight against it several times before it would shut.

We heard it open, but we never heard it shut. But when the boys walked into the front room--that door was shut. This was impossible.

Three people heard the exact same thing.

SECOND INCIDENT

My ex and I were sitting in the middle room once again. We were in our office chairs at our desks talking about something when we both distinctly heard several creaks overhead and then.....a sudden SMASH–directly over my head in the attic.

It was as if someone took several steps until they were overhead and had thrown a casserole dish or a glass bong and threw it with great force. It was that very specific sound of heavy glass shattering. The sound was so incredibly clear.

My ex and I locked eyes with each other and he whispered “there’s someone in the attic”.

I was GONE.

I bolted out to the garage and had backed my car out halfway out the driveway when my ex came out and convinced me to stay where I was as he called his best friend (the same one who heard the front door open/not open), and asked him to come with his gun so they could search the attic.

His best friend arrived in less than two minutes, with his weapon. They both went inside the house and searched the place from top to bottom as I sat in the driveway.

The way this home was set up was it was on a corner lot. The side gate faced the street and there was a bay window that wrapped around the house and stretched almost to the front door. We still had the blinds pulled up. This meant that from my vantage point I could see inside half of the house. If anyone left through the only two exits in the home, I would be able to see them. I could even see the roof.

It was not a large home and I knew the layout well. I knew that I would be able to see if anyone was making an escape.

As I waited for the boys to return, I half expected to see a homeless man scramble out of the house. It was the only thing that could explain what we heard.

The boys completed the search of the home. Nothing and No one was to be found.

I asked if they had checked the attic.

‘Thoroughly’ they said.

I believe them. The attic of that house isn't a true attic. A person could not walk around freely up there. If they did, they would fall through the ceiling.

But there was a light switch up there and the boys had examined every square inch of the attic, there was no sign of life to be found.

No glass. nothing.

It would be easy to write it off as a strange sound the old house had made if it wasn’t for one thing my boyfriend was insistent on: the footsteps he heard leading up to the crash.

He was adamant. He had heard the footsteps above him as they walked to the spot right above me. He had heard the wood slightly creak as if something had lifted its arms up to throw something with force. I wear hearing aids, so I miss out on a lot of sounds.

But I had heard creaking before the smash. It was unmistakable.

THIRD INCIDENT

We were in the house for two or three years. I split my time between there and down south for college. My boyfriend stay in the house. During our phone calls, he would mention that there were times he just knew he wasn’t alone.

From the day we moved in there, the house gradually began to get darker. Our fights grew violent. And in the middle of all that, something happened to my mind.

The depression that took over me was so dark and deep that it fundamentally changed me.

After one particularly savage fight, I went for a drive and came back. I was alone, he was not there. I entered through the back door and was greeted by a wall of darkness.

It was stale. Cold. Dark. Even though all the lights were on. You could barely see. It felt physical, like I could reach out and touch it.

I fucking snapped.

I lost my mind and started yelling at this wall of darkness in the kitchen, for no damn reason other than I felt like I had to.

‘Get the fuck out. GO AWAY.” and all the variations of that.

Well, the wall of darkness retreated. I swear to you on my son, I visibly saw it shift backwards.

I screamed at it some more. And it retreated some more. As I hooted and hollered and it retreated, there was light. Soon, the house was light and beautiful again.

My memory stops there. In the kitchen screaming at the darkness. Then I wake up in my bed. Fully clothed, on top of the sheets. The house is dark again. The staleness is there again.

But when I walk into the kitchen, it is light and bright.

Oddly enough, that was the first time I considered the possibility that there might be something more to the house. That there might be something otherworldly there. But what?

I will never know.

Not too long after the incident in the kitchen, I left the house and it was put up for sale.

I have been through many tough and trying times since then but I have never ever experienced the darkness, the despondency, the staleness, the pressure, the panic, the hopelessness, the bleakness, and the agony of that home since then.

Sure, it could all be subconsciously rooted in the pain associated with the home’s history. But that doesn't explain all of the physical things that happened. I feel that there truly is--or was--something dark and dangerous within the home.

And I only wonder if it was there when my mother moved in with my father. Or if she created it with her downward spiral.