I love scary movies but unfortunately they have a habit of coming to haunt me at night when I'm trying to sleep. For years I had this problem when I just couldn't sleep without at least one light on in my room - unless there was another person in the room, then it was fine to sleep in the dark.

Now, most people would probably have suggested that I had stopped watching horror movies (it wouldn't really have helped me at all though, I love them, but I rarely watch them). Maybe for many people it will work - if you think it could help, give it a shot.

But I just started forcing myself to sleep in the dark, even though I was dead afraid of it, I made myself do it. I would turn off all the lights in my room, crawl under my blanket and then after a while I would get a scared feeling - I would feel scared about something that might or might not be present in my room without me knowing it.

Now before I would simply have turned on the light the minute the feeling had come and slept with the light on for the rest of the night. But now, when I get that feeling, I just let it be. I stop thinking about it, keep my eyes closed, start thinking about other stuff, and eventually fall asleep. It helps a lot if I'm super tired in the evening, of course.

For the first times it was amazingly incredibly uncomfortable and weird and rather horrifying, but then I just got used to it. The probability for an axe murderer appearing in the corner of my room the moment I turn off the lights is amazingly low, so I just leave those invisible nonexistant weird singing little girls and old grudgy murderers alone. So far no one has tried to strangle me or slice my throat so I guess I'm pretty safe.

I guess I'm not really the best person to give advice on this subject, but I just have to say that I feel amazing now that I've completed this goal! I mean of course, I would rather not sit in a dark room alone for very long, but if I really had to, I would be okay with it. (Of course, that would be weird, but I'm just saying that I could do it if I had to, even though it would be super weird.)

I marked the duration to be two months, though that's random, as I have no idea when this happened. All I know is I'm happier and very very relieved that I can finally sleep peacefully again!