Disclaimer: Please forgive me if this narrative falls short of par, for I am excruciatingly tired as a result of getting very little sleep over the past 48 hours. The circumstances leading to my first sleepless night is the cause for the aforementioned quandary.
I am embarrassed to admit it. On one hand it seems silly. On the other it seems pathetic. And yet, if I had a third hand on which to place another perspective, it could be argued that it’s never a bad idea to be prepared. But prepared for what? Whatever did I expect to do with it? I’m not even extremely proficient at slicing cantaloupe. Yet as I have discovered, the anxiety caused by fear can drive us to do inexplicable things. Although we all react differently to the “red flags” perceived by our senses, our reactions which are influenced by previous experience as well as one’s individual personality, are undoubtedly intertwined with our instincts for survival.
Expecting to take my kids on a short but fun retreat for the last couple of days of
spring break, I reserved a cabin in the resort campground that is adjacent to an amusement park about 100 miles from our home. And though our little expedition did prove to be fun (at least during the daylight hours), I cut it even shorter than it was intended to be after getting absolutely no sleep the first night and knowing it would be no better the second. It had nothing to do with comfort; it had everything to do with mother bear syndrome and an overwhelming sense of vulnerability.
One could regard my demeanor as a bit over reactive; admittedly, it is humbling to report. However, considering our cabin, which was no Fort Knox by any stretch of the imagination, was relatively secluded and sitting just on the edge of a vast wooded area, at some point it occurred to me that I had absolutely no way to defend myself should the need arise. After all, anyone seeing us arrive that evening would know that dwelling inside this easily penetrable cabin was a woman with three children. No man.
This would be the reason, among taking several other precautions, for my sliding a considerably large butcher knife under the mattress, and strategically placing it so that I could grab the handle in a jiffy–although beyond that, I couldn’t fathom what I would do with it. How it even came to be there is somewhat perplexing. Feeling uneasy, I had risen from bed several times in order to verify the many noises I was hearing, when suddenly, and without premeditation, I found myself looking in one of the kitchenette drawers. After examining and ruling out the benefit of a pocket knife of sorts, I briefly considered the 9-inch butcher knife before reluctantly putting it
into my hand. Not even remotely comfortable with the limited protection it offered, I quickly concluded that, whether or not I could put it to use, I was better off having it with me than with an intruder.
Analyzing some of the underlying psychology contributing to my lack of security, it could be plausible that growing up as a 
member of Generation X, which was showered with an onslaught of slasher flicks immortalizing the likes of the infamous Jason and Freddie contributed to my imaginative scenarios. But impacting my state of mind more than the ridiculously gory horror films of the eighties, are my personal life experiences that, at times, have threatened my sense of safety and reassurance. All of these elements together—some obviously fictitious, some quite real–multiply in notability when my awareness is heightened beyond it’s usual state.
A secondary factor is that lurking in the subconscious areas of my mind are the true horror stories I have been privy to. Although I used to be guilty of watching a great deal of CourtTV, I have personally known a few victims of senseless homicides, one of them happening when I was in the 2nd grade. Our babysitter who lived about ten minutes away was brutally murdered one night in her own home. Her younger sister was also savagely killed, while their brother was left for dead with severe head injuries inflicted with a baseball bat. Her body was later found in a nearby sewer pipe, the large kind leading to the creek that we kids often played in.
On a personal note, an encounter I have had which undoubtedly lends to my sense of susceptibility is having had my own house broken into a year and a half ago while my husband was out of town. This occurrence justified a fear based on possibility and turned it into a fear based on reality.
Additionally, I have had a couple of strange and alarming encounters while merely performing routine duties at common locations, which have caused me to frequently be looking over my shoulder. After being followed a couple of times and flat-out stalked by one creep, perhaps I should wear a t-shirt when I run my errands that says, “I’m watching you, too, so don’t even think about it.” Perhaps I’ll detail those experiences in a post entitled, “Grocery Store Stalkers: How Not To Shop For Dates.”
But where do you draw the line in being reasonably cautious and being paranoid? Was rigging the towel over the front window to cover the useless blinds unwarranted? Or blocking the doorway with a heavy wooden chair, which although I knew would not slow anybody down, would at least provide for a noisy entrance? Or leaving the light on in the bathroom all night so that from the exterior, the cabin would possibly look less inviting to a prowler? Was it sleeping with a butcher knife under my mattress that crossed the line? For it is definitely not something I thought I would ever do. Maybe the answer isn’t in the preparations I made (including having my cell phone within easy reach), but my level of anxiety.
Upon writing this narrative and with all things considered, I have come to this conclusion: I would certainly rather be caught prepared, in spite of looking foolish, than to be caught unprepared, proving me to be foolish for ignoring my instinctual red-flags. So laugh if you must, for I can appreciate the humor in how ridiculous I must have looked to the predator watching from a distance. On the bright side, I must have looked just crazy enough to keep him at bay.
Tags: behavior, fear, reactions, twisted tales
March 31st, 2008 at 6:33 pm
Sorry but I am half laughing at you and half understanding. This is one of those “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” type of subjects.
March 31st, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Exactly. I’m laughing at myself in hindsight because it seems so crazy. But then again, we wouldn’t be laughing if something had happened.
Another train of thought I had while lying there, after hearing sirens on a few occasions in a short amount of time was, “well, there seems to be a large emergency response force.” Then a moment later, “of course, if I am hearing sirens, then that means it’s AFTER an emergency has happened.”
March 31st, 2008 at 7:47 pm
I understand this very much. Firstly, a little funny. I had many a night’s sleep ruined for a couple of years after “Freddy”.
My mother and I were stalked for about 10 years when I was growing up. She was a single mother. It was often a few times a month, and it was usually phone calls and knocking on the door in the middle of the night. The police worked hard at helping my Mom, although never being able to ‘get’ anything on this individual, although they were pretty sure that it was a neighbor down the street.
When I became a single Mother, I had a similar experience, and almost could not believe it. Could not believe that something like that would happen again. It turned out to be a utility repairman that worked for the company where I bought a washer, and I had had a home repair done. It went on for months, and a couple times of week my tires would be flat when I came out in the morning, adding additional stress. Tacks had been placed in them.
After months of not sleeping, and I won’t even tell you about the size of the knife under my pillow…I gave in to something else other than fear. I realized that I could not go on in that anxiety, and that if something was going to happen, it would probably happen. I needed to live, as my behavior was causing more stress on my kids, than anything else (they didn’t know about it). I informed my ex about it, so that he was aware of the situation. I slowly had to work myself back to normal everyday life. It wasn’t easy!!!! I had to place faith in the police that they were working on it.
The police had found him, visited him, and called him into questioning. He never showed up. They kept an eye on him. He had a criminal record all over the country the police said. He just kept moving, and since they could never get anything on him, they were just hoping that he would move away from the city.
One evening he dared to call my cell. That did not usually happen. I became angry, and told him that I had hired people after him. Well…the police contacted me some days later, and they had whiffed that he had skipped town. He got scared.
Those types are usually just frightened bullies that need to be stood up to. It doesn’t always take much.
Hey, I took up all of your commenting space…hehe. Sorry.
March 31st, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Wow, Tamera. Fascinating, but so frightening! I guess it turned out to be a blessing that he called your cell, since that’s what finally ended it all. I truly don’t think men can understand the fear we sometimes experience by being women. It has nothing to do with being a weaker sex, or any of that nonsense…it has to do with the vulnerability of knowing that we females are often prey to sick lunatics. How often are there dangerous women roaming around looking for some man to rape or kill, just to satisfy some sadistic urge? Not often!
It is especially compounded when we know we are the only thing between that possible danger and our children.
March 31st, 2008 at 9:15 pm
Okay VS, first I was laughing, but now I’m mad at your sexist comment. ; )
Attractive, vulnerable young women aren’t the only ones to get stalked. I actually had a stalker, too! She was a real winner, a Borderline Personality Disorder patient. She would send me, literally, 10 page handwritten love notes, followed the next day by 10 page letters threatening to kill me. And she had a long police record of violence. We had 2 small babies at the time, and I spent many nights in the hospital, leaving my wife alone. One night, at about 3 AM, this lunatic decided to ram her car repeatedly through my garage, hitting my car inside it, and pushing it through the far wall and into a hallway! She ended up in a high security prison after biting cops and such. Yep, back in the day, I used to attract the ladies!
We had to deal with the same fear, anxiety, and feelings of vulnerability as you girls describe. My wife saw a psychiatrist for a while. She had to have a companion on the nights that I was in the hospital. Eventually, we just figured that whatever was going to happen was going to happen, and we would have to deal with it. We were careful and cautious, but we decided not to give her the power to control our very lives. The whole process lasted years.
So, take it back, you cute little sexist piglet!
March 31st, 2008 at 10:06 pm
FerdC…
HA! My experiences are nothin’ compared to yours! Eegads…yepp. I think you may be right. Perhaps women are worse stalkers. I mean really. What man would sit down and write 10 page letters? hahaha. *just kiddin’*
That was really scary!
March 31st, 2008 at 10:20 pm
Tamera…
I find women scary in a lot of ways. Maybe some day I’ll figure you out and get it right!
No, seriously, there are scary men and women out there that don’t play by the rules, and they do hurt people. So we all have to be mindful and careful. I think VS did right in listening to her instincts and leaving the cabin. The way she described the fear and anxiety was funny, the butcher knife thing and all. But we all know the feeling; it’s not funny. I think fear is a god given (you know what I mean, VS) feeling meant to protect us from danger. We are smart to heed it.
March 31st, 2008 at 10:51 pm
Holy crap, Ferd, that’s crazy!
Although, I still believe that women generally feel more vulnerable than men, I want you to know that I apologize for my generalization and I stand corrected by the Ferd-man!
Now, had you not put the “little” in “cute little sexist piglet” I would have taken offense!
April 1st, 2008 at 8:31 am
I had my response ready and then I read the comments from Lady T and FerdC and it all went out of the window. My god!
I have to say, I think we live in a very sad and dangerous world nowadays, which is echoed by the frequent violent and senseless murders we see almost daily on UK TV.
Someone just happened to take a short cut and became prey to a knife wielding maniac….. or this week a young couple aged seventeen who were set upon by a group of fifteen year old boys. The male victim was knocked unconcious and as his girlfriend cradled him, the yobs kicked her repeatedly in the head and stamped on her until she was dead! No reason, just because they were there.
I worry about Mrs Floog whenever I am not with her, and having been stabbed myself on Blackheath Common back in the eighties, I’m very cautious about when and where I am, the fear never leaves you.
VS, as always a thought provoking post, and personally, I think your concerns were valid and just.
April 1st, 2008 at 11:53 am
Wow…I am amazed at the amount of crime that has been witnessed by everyone who has commented! Seriously…and equally male, no less!
Floog, if you don’t mind me asking, were you stabbed by someone random, or was it someone you knew? How incredibly horrible, I can’t even imagine. Heck, like I said, I can’t even imagine using the knife against an attacker, let alone having it used on me.
Ironic, too, is that all of us having been victims of crime and I wouldn’t imagine any of us to be considered as part of “lower class” as someone on another blog recently insinuated crime to always generate. It must be because we aren’t practicing Christians. God likes to send wake up calls, you know.
Anyway, thanks for sharing your experiences. I find it all utterly fascinating, as well as shocking.
April 2nd, 2008 at 2:08 pm
First, some personal info: I am a 6′ 2″ man with martial arts training. At one time my wife and I worked for a society that helped abused women as caretakers of the residential complex, and for my part, security.
In the 5 years that we worked for this society, I was running one of these idiots off the property once or twice a month on average. Sometimes they would go quietly, and sometimes they thought they would fight me. They didn’t know my training, or that I had already called the police, (as per Canadian law, these guys had restraining orders placed upon them). On those occasions, the police would arrive to find me sitting on the guy, having thrown him into a restraining hold.
I tell you this not to brag, but to underline the next part of my story. There was one fellow, a psychotic drug addict who had beaten his girlfriend almost to death. At his hands she had suffered a fractured skull, a broken arm, and innumerable internal injuries. Somehow her ex found out where she lived, and he came a visiting.
I managed to run him off the first time, but after that he decided that a vendetta was in order. It started with death threats, which we reported to the police. They, in turn, informed me of this man’s history, one of unreasoning violence, including weapons attacks and arson. He was the type of character who, if beaten, simply came back with a bigger stick.
And he did come back. I won’t go into all the details, save to say that by the time the police finally caught him, I had weapons stashed in every room of the house, and had given my wife a crash course in how to use them effectively. I had also added a rotweiler to the family as an added measure of protection.
Based on my own experiences, I cannot laugh at your fear, because I have known it myself. What I can do is tell you this: letting your fear dictate your life will kill you faster than any freddy or jason out there. By all means, be prepared. Take a self defense course (not a karate class, but practical self defense). Install an alarm system in your home. Be smart.
But most importantly is this: live your life. Ransom attacks are extremely uncommon. These fellows will have made some sort of contact with you, have established some sort of relationship with you, whether it be friend, neighbor, coworker, or whatever. If something does start to happen, involve the police from the start.
I’ll say it again: live your life. Teach your girls to live in confidence, not fear. The mark of the predator is that he is attracted to fear. By letting your fear dictate your life, you actually increase the chances of attracting a predator’s attention.
You already have the fighting spirit, build on that and you will scare them more than they scare you. Trust me on this, I’ve seen it too many times.
Cheers, Marc
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:42 pm
Thanks, Marc, for your story.
I certainly do live my life, as this was isolated b/c we were in a cabin in a remote area, and with it being off-season, it was a little too quiet for me.
I have traveled to NY, Paris, Cairo, Istanbul, to name a few without the company of a man. I do a good job of being aware of my surroundings, and this awareness seems to be much more keen than my friends’. It isn’t fear (usually); it is more just being alert and cognizant. Interestingly, when I recently discovered my MBTI profile, it says that we are constantly scanning our environments which is what leads to a lot of our muscle tension. But I honestly believe it has prevented my friend and I from getting into unfortunate situations. (She seems to be lacking in this department)
On a side note, we did install an alarm system in our home AFTER it was burglarized, although I had wanted it when we moved in.
I have too many things I want to do in my life to let fear dictate me. Every once in a while, though, instincts become heightened.
Marc, your site is interesting! I know many men who would benefit from it!
April 2nd, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Wow I can completely understand your fear/anxiety. Just for the record I think it’s perfectly normal to be anxious in that situation and I really felt for you while reading your story. We live in a scary world where you can’t always trust people. Such a shame.
I live in a very small town, and while I don’t know everyone personally, it’s pretty close to a Mayberry type environment. A few months after we first moved here a pregnant young women at the local grocery store went missing, a few days later they found her body tossed aside near a creek. She had been murdered. I could not believe it, I had thought I lived in such a safe town. We never locked our door and would frequently leave for the whole day, with our front door wide open so the cats could go out. UPS used to deliver our packages to our kitchen table! We felt that safe. After the murder I was afraid of my own shadow. I hated going to the store, and would not go alone at night. The murderer had not been caught and no one knew who he was. Now it our town had a different vibe. everybody you saw could potentially have been the murderer. It was hard to feel safe anymore.
It was a sick, frightening experience not to mention very sad for the poor lady. Of course we all knew her.
It’s been almost two years now and things have calmed down, though the murderer has not been offically caught. Someone was arrested, and is still in jail, though it hasn’t been said whether or not he did it.
Also a few months ago, I was coming home late at night down our mountain road, when I noticed a car behind me. This car was following way too close, and in the mountains people usually do this when they want to pass you. I couldn’t pull over at the time, so I sped up trying to find a turnout, he sped up too, and then started flashing his brights at me. He was literally on my tail so I could not tell the plate or what kind of car it was. Starting to get angry, I sped up even more, trying to get to the turnout. Some people are very rude when they want to pass you. Finally I pulled over and the car instead of passing me, pulled up behind me. Obviously I freaked out, and took off, which they did also. I was very close to home and like an idiot, turned down my street and of course the car followed me all the way to my house, but then chicken out once I pulled up in my driveway. I cannot believe I led that person to my HOME! I just didn’t think at all. That’s how scared I was. That night we took precautions. My husband had not one, but several kitchen knives by the bed, (why he wanted so many I don’t know) and an old 22 rifle which would hardly do someone much damage, especially if he shot it. But just knowing it was there made us feel more secure. I still didn’t sleep well that night.
Turns out nothing ended up happening and it was probably a bunch of kids just fooling around trying to scare someone.
Anyway we all have our time of scariness and vulnerability and honestly if I had been in your shoes I probably would have been nervous too.
April 4th, 2008 at 7:00 am
Michele,
That really is scary. Well, both things you mentioned, but I was particularly referring to someone following you. What would really scare me about that is that I would think how now they know where I live, so they could came back at any time.
I had a strange incident at the store a while back where a guy followed me everywhere I went, including to the check out where he pretended to look at a magazine in the next checkout line, which was closed. I guess he thought he was inconspicuous, but he was staring right at me, holding a magazine after he had already “conveniently” been everywhere I was, including standing two inches away from me while I tried to choose strawberries! Then, as I had suspected he would, he even came out to the parking lot (going out the other exit) and pretended to wander around, walking by me at my car a couple of times. There was no way I was going to go home! I busted out of there and if he had been following I was going to lead him straight to a police station, where I have a feeling he would discontinue his pursuit. I didn’t drive home until I was absolutely certain no one was following me, and then pulled in and shut the garage door lickety split.
I’m curious, regarding the pregnant woman who was killed in your town, do they know who the father of the baby was? That’s usually the first suspect in a case like that. That is so tragic…it is stories like that that just make you wonder what is so very wrong with people to justify such a cruel and senseless tragedy.
April 4th, 2008 at 7:29 am
Stumbled here by accident doing a web search, but all I can say Wow! and sit here a bit dumbfounded at the sensless crimes that have happened to you people which happen much too frequently all over the world these days……… Everybody raises good points about self defense. It’s horrible to live your life in a state of paranoia, but when the paranoia is justified it’s no longer really ‘being paranoid’ is it? I’ll bet back in the ‘old days’ when most everybody had some form of protection, they didn’t experience such phobic feelings because they were ‘prepared’. Face it, if a psycho is going to go after somebody, that psycho doesn’t want to get harmed physically………meaning the psycho is more likely to be wary of somebody who is armed with something that can cause the psycho some serious bodily trauma.
So yep, be prepared……….. take self-protection courses, no harm in learning how to safely & efficiently handle/use weapons as well.
April 4th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
That’s the scariest thing about when I was followed, the person knows where I live. Ugh. I still can’t believe I did that. At least you were smart enough to drive to a police station and not go home right away. So far nothings happened, so I’m hoping it was just a prank, but it still freaks me out.
Regarding the pregnant woman, no the father was not known. Apparently she had an affair, and had left her husband when she got pregnant but never told who the father was. They did DNA tests almost a year ago, but so far nothings been reported. The man that is in jail was a co-worker, and I think he’s a strong suspect, since they had some kind of relationship.
It’s terribly sad and frightening what people are capable of doing.
April 5th, 2008 at 2:34 am
Sorry for the late response to your question VS, I was in fact stabbed by a complete stranger, with no apparent motivation nor provocation.
It was one of the times in my life when being so tall helped me, as, the assailant was short and struck out with the knife, striking me low in the abdomen. I drove for a mile to a pub, stumbled out and collapsed.
The atacker was later identified as a known arms dealer and bad boy with no connection to me, and a cast iron alibi from a drugged up girlfriend.
I was lucky he wasn’t carrying a gun that day!
Since then (twenty six years ago), I am very nervous of strangers approaching, and it has damaged me in ways I cannot begin to explain.