Thursday night,I had been woken up by some banging around outside my door, but living in a house with 5 other people, I figured it was someone coming home drunk as normal, and just went back to sleep.
It wasn’t… Friday I received a message from my downstairs neighbor asking if I’d heard anything that night because someone had broken in and stolen some expensive things from him.
I found out that this isn’t the first time it’s happened, that there have been a series of break-ins on my road.
Knowing this, I’m feeling constantly on edge. Every time I hear a noise, my anxiety spikes… Every time I open my door, I expect someone to be stood there… I’ve walked to work alone in the dark, 4-5 days a week, every week, for the past year, but now I just get thrown into a panic every morning.
Ugh this is so hard. You finally found a place that you feel safe. A space that is just yours that you can be yourself in and live without fear and now even this new space feels unsafe.
Not to mention the automatic nervous response that is automatically increased because of past trauma. So you ALREADY live in a space where you feel hypersensitive and alert to potential threats and that makes it feel impossible to focus on anything else and is not to mention exhausting.
My encouragement is to shift your focus to some of the things that you can control. Things like- do you have a good lock on your door? Can you reach out to law enforcement? Things like that. I know it’s easier said then done, but use your serenity prayer.