Fears...

There are two things that I am very afraid of: loneliness, and darkness.

I am twenty-three years old now, but I haven’t lived alone for more than six months. When I was a senior student in undergraduate, I lived out side of campus without roommates for six months. However, in Taiwan, everything is so convenient that I can call my friends out at anytime or make a phone call to my friends or families. Until these days, all my families go out the United States and I have to live alone for three weeks. It is a little bit hard for me to live alone in the big house. When I come to the house, there is no one here, no light, or any noise. Everything is so quiet like a dead town. When I get home, the first thing I do is opening some lights, and turning on the TV or radio. I don’t like there is no one talks to me when I come home. If I don’t go out, I don’t need to speak any word in whole day. How terrible is it? No speaking in the whole day. I hate being alone for too long.

Second, I don’t like darkness due to the 921 earthquake which occurred at 1:47 AM on September 21, 1999. There were more than two thousands people dead and more than ten thousand people had seriously injured in physics and mentalities. On that day, I was sleeping, and suddenly there was a magnitude 7.6 earthquake happened. I woke up, and there were all black. I also heard a lot of people screaming. Darkness and horrible screaming were scared me. Since this earthquake, I have been scared of staying in the dark, especially sudden darkness. Now, I always have a small light beside my bed when I am sleeping. I need someone to turn off the light for me after I sleep deeply.

I don’t know how can I face these fears because these are mental damage. I am trying now but it will take a long time to overcome these fears.