I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror tonight and saw me as a child again, wearing my favorite Holly Hobby dress with my white patent leather shoes. I wish i could go back to those days, i would do everything different, maybe even change who my parents were, both my parents suffered from disorders…i guess it was inevitable, i would turn out just like them. I remember as young as 6 years old taking care of my mom, she had many agoraphobias that led to her eventually being homebound. My dad suffered PTSD. He was a Vietnam vet, that should explain itself. I lived with two nuts, i was sure enough to become one myself. I was 15 when i had my first panic attack. I will never forget that night. We lived in a house i thought was haunted..actually, i KNEW it was haunted. It only took one time, one night, 5 minutes….and that was it…my life had changed forever. There they stood at my feet, two figures, pointing, talking, one short chubby woman in her middle 50's and a man tall and skinny in his 70's, they stood there for what seemed like forever to me, i stayed motionless with the covers above my head peeking out. what were they doing here, what did they want. Go away, go away, i kept on saying to myself. I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them to find them gone. I spoke no words of this, until finally the trauma of it hit me like a ton of bricks, i couldn't sleep, i layed there shaking not able to breath…feeling as though if i closed my eyes i would die. I stayed awake as long as i could, until finally my body passed out from exhaustion. They never came back to see me, they frightened me, they invaded me and stole my innocence away. My life relives that fear everyday, everynight. Sometime later i told my mother what i had seen she finally broke down and told me that a man and his mentally handicapped daughter lived there shortly before we had moved in. She pushed her old man down the cellar stairs and killed him. Now it made sense, i wish i never say them, i wish i had asked them why they were there, i wish alot of things. I wish mostly, that night i had my eyes closed…..