From: Charleen
To: The Official Shadow People Archives
Sent: Thurs, Dec 3, 2009 6:50:27 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: Shadow stories
There are few people who know about my family's ....experiences. A small group, as a matter of fact, that even some family members don't know about. I was terrified to tell anyone about it, because I know saying it out loud how crazy and unreal it all sounds. The past few days I've had this overwhelming feeling that I had to write these experiences down, at least some of them. Quite frankly, I could write a book on every experience we've had. I searched everywhere till I found this website, the title of it alone sold me. Shadow people are what we've called them since I was too small to even realize these were not good beings.
My name is Charleen, I'm 22 years old and have experienced these 'shadow people' since I can remember, even before that because I've heard the stories of me telling my mom about them, when I was 3 or 4 years old. But I'll begin where it all started.
My mom is where it all started. She's seen these things since she could remember; my grandparents never saw anything and brushed it off I'm sure, but it started following her and getting bad when she did the Ouija board with a friend of hers. She had been into that stuff before, this time asking a demon questions that ended with the board being thrown and a doll moving across the bed.
Moving a few years down the road, my mom married her second husband, my dad, and she had my 2 older sisters, myself and my younger sister. I was about 5, my younger sister 3 or 4, when we started seeing them. My mom would call us out for breakfast and we wouldn't come. She would come in the bedroom that we shared. We'd tell her, the shadow people wouldn't let us leave the room and when we tried, they'd get bigger, but when mom came in, they'd jump in the mirror and disappear. My mom would write these experiences down to compare them to hers and my older sister's, but would never tell us what the other's said, for fear we'd use our imagination to exaggerate. To this day, they freak me out.
I won't waste my time writing down all the 'I saw it out of the corner of my eye' stories because those, as many people do, shuffle up to be your mind playing tricks on you. I have dozens of stories to tell, but these are the few encounters where it got physical, and absolutely terrifying.
These 'shadow people' weren't limited to the house, they weren't limited, period. My parents were devout Christians and we went to church every Sunday, but the closer we got to God and church, the worse these occurrences happened. For awhile, we'd see these things almost as soon as we got home. It'd start with the gut feeling the pressure in your stomach and throat that was like the air was so thick you just wanted to run out.
We eventually moved from that house, into a bigger home in a nicer area. It didn't take a month before they came. This house was where we began to not only see these shadow people, but they began to take family forms; I know it sounds crazy, bare with me.
My sister lived in our garage, turned bedroom, with my nephew who at this time was 7 months old. We built a wall so there was still a small room between the house and the garage room with our washing machines and freezers. My older sister (Candi) was in there doing laundry while my nephew was sleeping in the bedroom. She turned around to see my nephew standing at the end of the hallway of the room staring at her. Now at 7 months old we all know babies can't stand, well most anyway. She looked at him for a good 5 seconds or so, then turned to put her basket down and to run to him yelling his name and he was gone. This wasn't the last of them taking people form.
We've seen my youngest sister, Cara, in my bedroom closet looking at us till we woke up and saw it and it disappeared, we've seen my nephew a few times and my mom has seen me, twice.
Just talking about it gives me the worst creeps. ("creeps" is what my family ended up calling the eerie feelings we got. Often I’d get calls asking if I’m home safe, because someone had the “creeps.”) Anyway, one instance when my mom saw me was at her newest home. (My parents divorced about 8 years after we moved to the new home; my dad never saw anything…not even once got the feeling. He said it was because he was closer to God than we were...yeah, right.)
My mom's counters in the kitchen were set very low because the previous owners were in wheelchairs. The cabinets above hang low as well with a few feet in-between. She was in her room which faced the kitchen directly. One day she was on her bed and looked into the kitchen to see me standing there, with the same stare these 'shadow people' gave every time we'd see them. She yelled for me, (because I was supposed to be at work) but as soon as she stood up, it turned and walked down our hall, without losing eye contact. When she went into the room, it was gone. It dawned on her that looking into the kitchen, in order to see my face between the counter and cabinet, it would have to stand at about 4 feet tall and at the time, I was 5'7". She also it had much darker hair than mine.
My experiences are too many to count. The one I remember most, was when I was in 8th grade, still at the second house. I was staying home from school, and my mom had left to take my younger sister. I heard people talking down the hallway and assumed it was a TV for only a few seconds until that feeling hit me. I have never seen a shadow person without the feeling first, ever. I've gotten the feeling but not seen them, but never seen them without the feeling. I felt it coming down the hallway, almost as if I could see it, but I couldn't see in the hallway. Then I felt it come into my room. I could never put the covers over my head, even if I wanted to. I'd freeze and my ability to breathe always shortened. Then I felt it sit on my bed, and there it was. A solid, dark figure. It just looked like a shadow of a man. They never had features that we could make out, not to any of us when they were shadows. They never felt peaceful; they never felt like they were good they were ALWAYS evil. After what seemed like forever, but was only about a minute, I said 'in Jesus name, leave my home.' and it left and just like that, the atmosphere cleared and the 'creeps' were gone.
After awhile, we asked our pastor to come bless the house. We only did this two times because it seemed that after, it'd be quiet for about a week to a month, then come back 10X's worse. Our pastor told us our ability to see what he said were demons wasn't common, but he did know of it and that it was dangerous and warned us and our parents to never seek them out, never ask if they're there or talk to them at all. We NEVER did.
When these things would come, and we'd have 2 or 3 sleepless nights or nights sleeping in my mom's room, it felt better to not go to church because when we'd stop going for a while, they'd stop coming.
Between having things thrown at us, (like the time a decoration on my mom's TV flew off in front of our eyes and hit my sister’s foot after we all felt creeped out and my dog had gone hysterical) and seeing them in groups standing in front of our house (like the time I saw them, about 3 of them as big as a 6 or 6 1/2 foot man, as I drove home to my new apartment in front of my mom's, as if there was a wall up, and they were waiting to get in.) and waking up from hell dreams (my sister and mom have both had lucid dreams, where they're being dragged to hell by these shadow people but they're fully aware of what's going on, and had to be waken up, once by me, because they were screaming) to being pushed (like my older sister who told one, which was the biggest we've ever seen, standing over 7 feet tall, to leave in Jesus' name and it didn't want to go and it pushed her right onto the ground) to the dozens of times where we've woken up with enormous amounts of pressure on our chest, to see them just standing in the doorway.
Now, I understand the skeptics. I don't have proof, I won't even pretend like I do. I honestly believe that these shadow people are clever, they move things to just confuse you, they steal things to make you question your family's trust they make noises so you stay still and quiet trying to logically justify what you just heard, and they move out of the corner of your eye so your left moving cautiously throughout your own home and scared to make a move anywhere. These mind games aren't a coincidence, and they're too smart to leave evidence. I've never tried to capture a picture, or leave out a video camera because I believe not acknowledging them is the best way for me to have a peaceful night sleep, because there is nothing you can do to get rid of them.
Since beginning this I've been distracted so many times by an overwhelming feeling not to write my family's experiences. I'm not sure why after years and years of this happening I'm now writing it down. The experiences haven't stopped; I honestly don't believe they ever will. Hopefully by sharing this someone out there can relate to me and know they're not alone.
You have permission to use the names in my story and publish it if you'd like. I hope you do, I hope I can help someone by them reading my experiences.
