- I've done nightly "checks" of my closets, under the bed, and all the locks in my house for a decade.
- When my young daughter caught me one night, I knew I needed to get help.
One evening, with my husband out of town on a camping trip, fear crept in at the sound of a creaky floorboard. I could've been just as easily triggered by the sight of an open door that I thought I'd remembered closing. It didn't really matter the reason: my fight-or-flight response had already kicked in with a vengeance.
I ran from room to room, checking latches on windows and looking inside closets, pushing back winter coats just in case. My breath caught in my throat as I jerked back the shower curtain. I peered behind the couch in the living room, then took the stairs two at a time to my bedroom. I got down on my hands and knees, my heart pounding, and looked under the bed. It was the most terrifying place I could think of, so I always saved it for last.
I was a 34-year-old woman afraid to be alone in her own home at night. Even though I knew I was seriously miscalculating the likelihood of it happening to me and in my own home, I half-expected to find a rapist or serial killer waiting for me. There never was one.
My husband was the only other person who knew about my nighttime routine, which I'd been doing for over a decade. A few years later, when I was nearly 40, our young daughter caught me looking under my own bed. At that moment, I knew it was time to get help.
I sought out a therapist who diagnosed me with general-anxiety disorder. I resisted at first, arguing that everybody experiences anxiety from time to time; while this was likely true, my particular experience with anxiety had grown beyond occasional worry and wasn't just situational. It was persistent and relentless, characterized by neurotic, reccurring thoughts about a man hiding in my home.
I learned that of the 40 million Americans suffering from anxiety disorders, women are twice as likely to be diagnosed with one compared to men. Why, I wondered, are so many women anxious? Where does our collective fear come from?
It took a lot of soul-searching, personal research, and therapy before I understood that my anxiety represented a confluence of biology, genetics, cultural factors, and personal experience. For one, I grew up in an unstable household with an unpredictable — sometimes explosive — father who I'd once watched kick the beloved family dog. Children whose stress-response systems "turn on" repeatedly and for prolonged periods of time have a higher likelihood of later developing anxiety disorders, as do children who have endured trauma. This had turned out to be my story.
My enduring fear was also a byproduct of being a female in a world where violence against girls and women is common, has historically been tolerated, and is frequently portrayed in media. As a young woman, I'd lived in a neighborhood where a serial rapist was attacking other single women in their beds at night, one of them a block from where I lived alone in an apartment complex with an unsecured entryway. These and other similar crimes against women seared themselves into my mind, forming lasting memories that exaggerated my threat perception. It seemed potentially violent men were lurking everywhere.
There was so much out in the world I couldn't control; so much pain and violence and so much unpredictability. But now, I knew I wasn't some ridiculous woman looking inside a cramped furnace closet in case an intruder had contorted themselves to wait for the perfect moment to attack. I was trying to control something, anything.
I also learned that some of the safety measures I was using in public were not uncommon: On dark walks to my car after work, I found myself gripping my keys tightly, each one between my fingers. As it turns out, many others employ similar tactics to keep themselves safe, whether only emotionally or, in the worst case, physically. My nightly "checks'' were the most prevalent of these safety measures. Whipping open a closet door made me feel momentarily safe, while paradoxically feeding into the notion that a man waited for me on the other side.
While not all anxiety disorders present like mine, I recently read a tweet from @vic_toriawrites that read, "How do you go to sleep at night when you live alone?" There were nearly a hundred replies from women with answers including sleeping with hammers or baseball bats nearby, wedging chairs under doorknobs, living with really big dogs, owning guns, and yes, checking closets. I was surprised to learn that there are so many of us. For too long, I'd felt ashamed.
Unearthing the roots of my general-anxiety disorder helped me understand my fear of intruders and gave me the courage to face it. From the variety of treatments my therapist recommended, I opted for cognitive-behavioral therapy, yoga, journaling, and other calming techniques like as going on walks. When I was home alone and the familiar anxiety started to rise in my chest, I also reminded myself that the actual thing I feared happening was highly improbable. I forced myself to stay present in the moment and watch a movie or read a book without "checking."
The more successes I had, the easier it became to break my unhealthy routine. Overcoming my fear didn't happen overnight; it took time, during which I spent five years writing a book about fear and confronting it head-on. Naming my fear instead of hiding from it was ultimately empowering.
Except for double-checking the lock on the front door at bedtime, I no longer do my "checks." Yes, women do face real dangers in the world, but I had learned that danger wasn't hiding under my bed, and my compulsive behavior isn't something I want to pass onto the two young daughters I now have. Though healing the original sources of my anxiety is going to be a longer process, I finally enjoy the solitude and freedom of nights alone. Fear manifests itself in complicated — sometimes illogical — ways, but it comes from a very real, painful place that deserves consideration.