...I came home and had a Scelerophobic breakdown

I've spent the better part of the past week spending my free time reading the blog "Hyperbole and a Half". It's ridiculously funny and I frequently find myself agreeing with lots of the things I read, which is both exciting and scary because some of the thoughts she/I/we have are probably not recommended if one hopes to live a psychologically sound life. For example, Allie (the writer of the blog) also hates taking showers when she's home alone. Some people live alone and as a result have no choice but to take showers while home alone. I am thankful I am not one of them. Growing up, I cannot even count the number of times that I hid a "weapon" in the pocket of my bathrobe to shank my would-be attacker with upon exiting the bathroom. Weapon choices originating in the bathroom are quite limited and usually consisted a metal tooth pick or a tiny pair of nail scissors that in actuality would cause little to no physical damage, but gave me the courage to exit the bathroom nonetheless. 

Last Wednesday, which to my defense fell within the first week of living here in the new house, I came home and had a Scelerophobic breakdown. 

Here's a screenshot from the site that is the first Google search return for "scelerophobia":

It all started when I opened the front door with my hands full of heavy groceries. I have two front doors, well kind of. There's a glass storm door on the outside that covers the actual exterior of the building front door which leads to a 4' by 6' room where you leave your shoes and coats. That little room has another front door that leads to the rest of the house. Up until that point, whenever I left the house for work at the same time as Boyfriend, I always made sure that the second front door was closed. But that day I had to leave for work early and left before him. 

As soon as I pushed open the first front door, I noticed that the second front door was open. This immediately sent me into hypervigilant mode, causing me to first freeze and check my surroundings for other abnormalities. I reached down onto my key ring and unbuttoned my pepper spray holder, just in case I needed a weapon for self defense. When I didn't sense any other immediate danger, I slowly  began to walk toward the kitchen at the back of the house and was almost there, when something else caused me to actually turn around and quickly walk back to the living room, setting my groceries down in the foyer, and grabbed a near by screwdriver for safety. What could possibly be so alarming that I was willing to let my groceries sit for an unknown amount of time in an unrefrigerated room (a major germ violation in my book)? It was yet another open door. 

This door, is unlike any other doors I've met before. It looks like this:

It is an accordion style folding door that leads to the staircase up to the second floor as well as down to the creepy dungeon basement. Boyfriend and I only use the first floor of this house and so we keep that fold-y door closed all the time, to keep the heat in and the creepy dungeon basement monsters out. So you can imagine my shock when this fold-y door was open! 

The following is the text message conversation I had with Boyfriend as I sat trembling in the living room with my trusty Phillips screwdriver weapon:

Me: Did you leave the stairs door open? It scares me that its open.  

Me: Also did you leave the other inside front door open? That scared me too... 

Boyfriend: maybe 

Me: Maybe??? I need to know if there's a robber in here!!! 

Me: I seriously am too scared to leave the living room and I need to pee and have groceries to put away. I suck at life. 

Boyfriend: I did 

Me: I feel like you're just saying that to make me feel better. 

Me: Did you go upstairs or down into the basement for anything today? 

Boyfriend: My sandals 

Me: So there are most likely no robbers in the house right now and I can leave the living room? 

Boyfriend: Yea 

Me: I'm scared still. This sucks. Ughhhhdbskdojfndnskwlnwbshjnzkskqkdjbf 

Boyfriend: Just turn on all the lights 

Boyfriend: If someone was there they would have gotten you already 

I then proceeded to sit on the couch, crying on the phone to my sister and dad who are 2,000+ miles away, as if they really could have done anything to protect me. My sister especially. I'm bigger than her. I cried and cried about how lame I was for being 26 years old and deathly afraid of robbers, about how I worry way too much, about how I thought boyfriend was lying about using his flip flops because why would he have needed them in the middle of winter, about how there probably was a robber in my house and I was just going to sit there and pee my 26 year old pants because I didn't have the guts to go check the house for robbers so that I could use the bathroom, about how my family didn't even have my new address yet so if the line went dead because I was really attacked by a robber that they couldn't have even called 911 from afar. This was not one of my prouder moments in life. 

Eventually my dad convinced me to at least go check the backdoor to ensure I was locked in safe and sound and could use the bathroom to pee instead of wetting my pants like a child. Thank goodness for my dad. And for my mom and sister and MelSav and my Twinsy, who all helped calm me down through various texts and phone calls. The things my loved ones put up with...haha.

I know I'm super behind on blogging. I'm trying to catch up but being sick for nearly two weeks has really put a snag in my regular routine. Not to mention the multiple boxes that still need to be unpacked from our recent move. I'm trying to be more efficient at life ;) Key word there, trying.