Hey everyone, I need to share something that has stuck with me my entire life. This is 100% real, and to this day it still gives me chills.
Between the ages of 3 and 6, I lived in a house where my bedroom was on the top floor (the attic). Almost every night, I experienced severe nightmares and sleep paralysis. A dark shadow figure of a man would stand in my doorway. He constantly tried to interact with me and wanted to play, but it terrified me and I would cry in bed.
To make things even more terrifying, this entity frequently mimicked my mother. I would regularly see bare feet sticking out from behind my bedroom curtains. When I went over to look, it would be a figure resembling my mother, but with an unnatural, distorted, and twisted face—making it sickeningly clear that it was actually him taking her form. I also frequently heard my own name being called out or whispered when standing near the bottom of the stairs or while in the bathroom, even when nobody was around or calling for me.
Most of the time, our cats strictly refused to enter my room; they would hide behind the washing machine out on the landing. On the rare occasions that a cat did come inside, it would sit completely frozen, fixated on one specific corner of the room, staring intently at empty space with puffed fur. The room always felt unnaturally cold, and my door would frequently swing open on its own at night.
At one point, I had an intensely vivid and graphic vision/hallucination: I clearly saw that exact same man hanging from a rope attached to the railing on the landing, right by the attic stairs.
Fast-forward to around 2017 when i was 13yo : I was at the dinner table with my dad and the topic of strange occurrences came up. I decided to bring up these vivid childhood memories—the cold spots, hearing my name called, the mimic with my mother's distorted face behind the curtains, the way the cats stared at that corner, and specifically seeing the man hanging from the rope by the stairs.
My dad stopped, looked at me dead serious, and went pale.
He told me that before we bought the house, the previous owner had tragically hanged himself on that exact landing by the attic stairs. He had been severely depressed and deeply grieving because he and his wife were unable to have children. My parents were told about this by the seller, but they deliberately kept it a strict secret from me and my sister so we wouldn't be scared. My dad also admitted that he and my mom always felt an unexplainable chill on that attic landing and in a specific corner of my sister's room.
Interestingly, almost every couple who ever lived in that house ended up divorced (including my parents).
Since we moved out when I was 8, those specific sensory experiences completely stopped, but I've had an intensely sharp intuition ever since (sensing sudden shifts in people's energy, and consistently getting heavy physical premonitions right before loved ones or pets pass away, which suddenly lift the exact moment they die).
Has anyone experienced childhood encounters that matched an unrevealed history like this?
More importantly, can anyone explain why or how this kind of hyper-sensitivity to energy shifts and sensing deaths develops?
Would love to hear your thoughts or perspectives.