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| Just a little sprout. |
I have, for as long as I can remember, been afraid of the dark. My fear of the dark began as a baby; the reason for my fear is rooted in an experience I had but can't remember. My mother tells me that when I was a baby, she and my father were asked to house sit. Of course they took me along. I fell asleep and they put me in a bedroom; when I woke up in my strange surroundings, I began crying. I was inconsolable and my father finally submitted that I would, "cry myself to sleep eventually." And so I was left in the dark, in a strange room, to cry it out. I know it sounds cruel, but it is what it is. When my mom tells the story, she still gets angry at my dad; as my dad insisted that I be left to cry it out. It was his version of "Ferberizing" before Ferber wrote the book on children's sleeping problems. In any case, I developed a fear of the dark.
My fear was cultivated by neighbor kids and my brothers, who were unaffected by a fear of the dark. I was teased about my fear and jokes were played on me constantly. Sometimes they would pass by my room, reach in, and shut off the light; laughing while I yelled and cried. I was stuck to the spot while I waited for them to either get tired of their joke and turn the lights back on or for my mom to come and rescue me and punish the brats that had a laugh at my experience.
