Do you believe in ghosts? Well, I find a lot of people are 50/50 with that. When I ask people that question, they reply with either a firm yes or no. A few say they don’t know but are open-minded, while a smaller percentage say they don’t know and can’t fathom the idea of anything like it. As the headline might give it away, I’m a believer with experience in paranormal encounters.

The first time I had an encounter is one I can’t even remember. From what I have been told in 1997, soon after my great-granddad passed away, my mam carried an almost one-year-old me into the sitting room of his house and I would immediately burst into tears and point in the corner of the room, which of course had no one there, not even a bug. The agreeable cause of events was that I had been seeing my deceased relative in the corner, as young children are more likely to see the deceased due to them being more vulnerable and open mixed and connected.
I grew up for the first 4 years of my life in my granddad’s house. I wouldn’t say it was haunted, but there are memories of when it was nighttime, and I would be hiding behind my bed because I thought there was someone in the room that I couldn’t see. It’s not just in that house. When we moved into our current house, the first memory I remember of something happening that I didn’t understand was when I must have been 6 years old. I was sitting on the sofa, and the door to the living room was on the right-hand side, and it was shut. All of a sudden it opened on its own and shut in a second. I had no idea what I witnessed, so I continued watching the TV.

I grew up with an interest in the paranormal after that. One big thing I remember was when I was about 8 years old. I was at a funeral, and after hearing my auntie mention it, she talked to a medium who was in attendance, and she said that the lady who was getting buried was standing graveside, smiling and singing as this priest spoke. I learnt about lots of cases, such as the Enfield Poltergeist and the Edinburgh Vault ghost.

I had little bits of activity around me, like seeing a floating white Orb in my bedroom, which was three inches wide. But it is later in life when my most memorable times come. First, to start small, I placed a water bottle on the coffee table in front of my mam. I heard a rocking sound and looked to see the bottle moving side to side on the spot. We both looked at it for 20 seconds before I picked it up again and placed it down again, and it remained still. If it was wet or a breeze, then it would continue, but nothing.

For my first full-body apparition, then we need to go to 2010. When a family friend unexpectedly died. We had seen her on a Saturday when she came over and had a laugh as we normally did. A week later she was dead. It was a shock to everyone. A week after that, I woke up in the middle of the night and saw a figure standing in the doorway to my room. I couldn’t make out the details, but I sensed it was the friend who had died. I smiled and lay back down. The next day I mentioned to my mam that I had seen her, and she revealed to me that she had seen the friend the same night but she was wearing her normal clothes when my mam saw her. Her usual jeans and shirt with her hair. Know this is amazing, as we never mentioned anything to each other till I told her I saw her. For us to see her in one night in separate rooms is incredible.

Fast forward to 2012, when I was 15 going on 16 and my dad had died less than a year ago. Me and my mam were talking about him in her bedroom one night when I felt a cold breeze against my leg. A strong breeze. I then felt an electric current hit my leg and move upwards, which I told my mam. Then when it got to my head, my eyes snapped shut and my eyes watered, and I couldn’t open them, but I wasn’t scared. I felt a warmth of love hit my heart, and I knew it was my dad stopping by. After thirty seconds, it passed, and I felt it move to my other side and move away. Then my mam said she felt a breeze on her leg that moved around her but no electricity. I thought it was odd that I got such an intense reaction when I got a feeling that I was in the electric chair. I would find out later in 2014 from a friend’s mother, who was a tarot reader and a psychic, that I was sensitive to the spirit world, and I would be the one to sense them and know when they were around.

I would always have certain feelings when it came to the paranormal. It’s never been more clear than in 2022. That December I lost a close family friend who I had known since I was born. It was a devastating loss that hit me hard. When I went to her house with my mam to pay respects, I closed my eyes in the living room after we had spent time in her bedroom with the coffin, and I got an image of the dead friend standing with her eyes shut behind her bedroom door. 2 minutes later, her son tried to enter but said it felt like someone was standing behind the door. Which I had seen but not mentioned to anyone in the room till days later.

What I had told my mam but not her kids was that for three days before we visited. I had woken up in the night and saw the friend standing in the corner wearing her usual cardigan and pants. It made me cry, and I would whisper to the figure, which stood still, before I lay back down.

I understood that sceptics wouldn’t believe me. That’s fine. I don’t write this to brainwash or make people think the paranormal is real just because I said so. Being a paranormal believer involves a sense of scepticism. You have to question what you see until you can’t recreate what you see.