Let's Not Meet Again

My Windows

i'm 18, have issues with residual paranoid schizophrenia, never used reddit before, heard about this subreddit thanks to youtube. i have been doing very good recently

i have been asymptomatic for almost 2 years, and that's the longest i've gone without a major 'relapse' since my diagnosis. i still question my perception of reality from time to time but i'm usually able to dispel the shit i hear as settling of my home or just my high anxiety and tendency to be paranoid in general. i get spooked easily. i'm a little less concerned with monsters in the dark trying to steal information from my organs and blood and a little more concerned with the very real possibility of home intruders. so instead of the creaks and bumps being attributed to "them" my mind immediately goes to "who the fuck is in my house?"

the schizophrenia has made me kind of tough, i guess. i'm a live or die trying type of person when it comes to self defense. i'm a female of about 5'3 and 105 lbs and i would take on a dude that stood at 7'3 and 405 lbs if my life depended on it, and i would do so without the slightest hesitation. i mean, i was convinced an alien race was trying to kill me for nefarious purposes and i swore to myself if they ever got to me we'd all be dead if it came down to it.

now, this seems like rambling. it's not. the tl:dr of the first few paragraphs is i am a tiny little berserker and i will at least try to fuck anybody up should they give me an adequate reason, and i'm on edge enough of the time that i can never be caught by surprise.

about 2 weeks ago, i had a friend that i pretty much grew up with (we'll call him D) came back to town to visit his parents for a month. he moved to a real big city about 4 hours away from here one way a year ago. i missed him a lot and i tried to hang out with him several times, and two weeks ago, i was on google hangouts with D and a friend i will refer to as P.

D had offered me a "cold one" if i came over to his house with a better computer for hangouts (he has a netbook about the size of a copy of Atlas Shrugged.) i'm not big on booze but i like too have a good time with friends and alcohol enhances my mood for a few hours, so i jumped on the offer. that was around 12:30 am, my mother, step father, and little sister were all asleep.

i left at about 3:30 in the morning.

my keychain contains keys for my car, the little fob, and the "spare" backdoor key. i don't really like the concept of spare keys lying about in the yard or "hidden" so i offered to take my parent's spare off their hands as soon as I started working full time 2nd shift.

so, it's about 3:45 am, i pull into my driveway. i see lights on in the living room coming from the tv.

shit. step dad had an acid reflux attack late at night and went downstairs as not to disturb my mom and to sit up right in a chair. i tried several times to open the door to no avail. he was sound asleep, but i didn't want him to know i had been out late and then suspect i was drinking irresponsibly over at someone's house. so essentially i didn't want him to know i was doing nearly exactly what i was doing (because i don't qualify my drinking as irresponsible.)

i go around to the front of the house, hoping my mother left it unlocked.

it wasn't.

i was running out of options and i started with my bedroom windows (i was evicted from my second floor bedroom when my sister was born 2 years ago.) went right over to the window unit AC and was about to break the damn thing to get back in my house, but i noticed it was covered in spiders. i cringed so hard i pulled a muscle in my face and moved on to the other window into my bedroom. i mean, it's almost entirely blocked by a dresser, but if you think i'm above breaking my furniture to sleep comfortably, you're wrong. the screen didn't budge.

i moved on, running out of options and preparing to rehearse some bullshit story to use when i called my parents at now 4am

i got to a window that was just past our kitchen window, parallel to the wall with my window unit in it. to give you a little concept of the amount of space in that area of my home, my bedroom is about the same size as the room past the kitchen, and they are split by the staircase to the second floor. this will matter later on. however, i could make it in 5 good steps from the window i was at to my bedroom door (from the inside.)

i try to lift up the screen for this window, and i am met with success. i am once again pleasantly surprised to find that this window is unlocked. i move both to a reasonable gap and slide inside carefully, trying to mind my step father's snoozing in the living room. i shut the window, unlock the front door, go around and move the screen back down so my parents don't suspect any issue.

against my better judgement, i left the window unlocked just in case i have to use it again.

i've broken into my own house on 3 separate occasions, not including the time i've just told you about.

today, i was baby sitting my sister from 6:30pm to about 9:30pm. it starts to get dark around town at about 8:30pm. so the world was in the process of going into power saver mode as i took her up to her bedroom to go to sleep. we read some stories, and by the time she was entirely settled, it was about 9:15pm, 15 minutes before my stepdad was supposed to be getting home from shooting and with just enough light outside to be able to make things out.

as i descended the stairs today, just barely 2 fucking hours ago, i heard a broken up squeaky sort of noise. it sounded familiar, but i couldn't place it. and when i reached the bottom of my stair case, i turned to my right, the opposite direction of my bedroom, and saw a shadow of a person beginning to lift up the screen to the window that i had previously 'broken' into. and that's why i knew the sound. he was trying to finagle the screen the same way i had.

and just because i'm willing to kill a man doesn't mean i want to.

so my heart sank into my chest to a depth i had never experienced before, and he didn't notice me at first. as soon as i ran out my front door, i'm assuming he had realized he was caught, because he was half way down the street by the time my barefooted self had made, screaming and hollering and threatening him. he just kept running down the alley.

i don't want to call the cops, i don't want to tell my parents what happened. i didn't get a good look at him and i feel like it would just be brushed off anyway. a schizophrenic seeing things, how unusual, right?

i don't know if i was seeing things or if there was really a guy trying to break into my house while i was alone with my 2 year old sister. i hope this will be an isolated incident. all of the windows on the first floor of my house are officially locked.

like i said i really hope this is an isolated incident but he obviously didn't get what he wanted the first time around.

so, usain criminal scum, let's not meet. for your sake.