Oh, boy. I do. I have a story for you. And I know what you're thinking.
Emma, a scary story? You must be running out of podcast topic ideas.
A scary story? Come on, what are we in?
You know, the third grade? Coming up with fake scary stories just to have something to talk about?
No. No. This is real. This is true. And to further back that up, I can almost promise you that I'm not going to have another scary story to tell you for a few years.
Because shit like this just doesn't happen to me very often.
I feel like my day-to-day is very consistently...
Not interesting. It's very rare that these types of things happen.
I've always been very curious about how storytime YouTubers, storytime podcasters, keep it going because like crazy shit just doesn't happen every day.
You know what I mean? So don't get used to this.
This is like a rare treat for all of us, okay?
This is a rare treat. Emma has a crazy story.
What a rare treat. So without further ado, Let me walk you through something that happened to me a few days ago.
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Okay so it was a casual Monday night. I'm in bed at around 8 p.m. very early, already did my skincare, already brushed my teeth, Already put on my PJs, fully in bed for the night, right?
But I'm not ready to go to sleep. It's too early.
So you know, I'm not fully in bed for the night.
At around 8.20 p.m., I get up to go pee.
And I go to reach for the toilet paper and I'm reminded that I haven't had toilet paper in my bathroom for the last 24 hours.
Now you might be wondering what I was doing instead.
I was using a wet wipe, even when I was peeing, to wipe every time I went pee. because I was too lazy to go get more toilet paper.
I sat on the toilet for a second and I was like, okay, I'm either going to go and get toilet paper now or I'm going to go do it tomorrow morning.
It was a tough decision, but I ended up deciding to go downstairs and get the stupid toilet paper now, tonight.
I thought of it as sort of a gift to myself the following day.
You know, what a joy it's going to be to wake up the next day and have fully stocked toilet paper in the bathroom.
What a joy. So I finish up peeing and I walk down to my garage.
That's where I keep the toilet paper. Now fun fact about my house, every time I open a door or a window, there's a chime sound. like a ding that goes off every time a door or window opens.
This is for security purposes, right? It's a part of my security system.
So when I open the door to the garage, it makes a little chime sound.
This will be relevant in a moment. Open the door to my garage.
Chime sound goes off. Walk into the garage.
Grab the toilet paper. Walk back to the garage door.
Open it again. Chime sound. Close it. Start walking up the stairs.
I hear another chime sound. But I didn't open a door, and I didn't open a window, so what the hell was that?
Now, every once in a while, there's a little fault in my security system.
One of the sensors is too And so a chime will just go off on accident.
That happens every once in a while, but usually it happens as a result of something loud or happening close to one of the sensors.
Like I might slam a door on one side of the room and it makes a sensor on the other side of the room go off.
Because the sensor also goes off if it thinks glass broke.
So that's why that sometimes happens. So I was like, okay, it might just be a fault.
This happens sometimes, whatever. It's no big deal.
All my doors are locked, I think. So it's probably nothing.
I'm a little freaked out though. Like my gut starts to turn a little bit.
Something feels off in me. And most of the time when... there's a little fault with my security system.
My gut tells me that it's nothing and it is nothing and then everything's fine.
But my intuition felt something was off.
So I walk upstairs and I sort of scan around my house. pop my head into every door, just making sure that no doors are wide open or windows are wide open.
It was sort of a ballsy move, but I was like, there's no way. someone's in my house.
Like there's no way someone's in my house.
There's no way. There's just no way. But I want to look just in case.
But it's one of those things where it's like, you're not going to go and look unless you don't think anyone's there.
Because if you really do think someone's there, then you're not going to look, you're going to go hide.
But I was like, no, there's no way. Like rationally, I was like, there's just no way.
There's just no way. Mind you, I'm fully home alone, okay?
There is no one around. It is just me. There is no one.
It's all me, okay? I don't see anything.
So I proceeded to go to my primary bathroom, the bathroom in my room, and put my toilet paper away. as though nothing was wrong.
So I'm putting the toilet paper away. And all of a sudden my cat Declan sprints into my room. and then into my bathroom makes a complete ruckus, okay? slipping and sliding on the hardwood floor, like ran into the door a little bit of the bathroom, like freaking out. and jumps up onto the countertop in my primary bathroom and pushes himself against the wall frightened beyond belief, okay?
His tail is puffed up, Triple the size.
His eyes, I've never seen this look in his eyes.
I've seen him look scared before because sometimes there'll be like a bird outside or He'll be fighting with my other cat, Frankie, and he'll get all freaked out and his tail will get all puffed up.
But I've never seen this look in his eyes.
I saw terror. In my cat's eyes. Terror.
And I... freaked the fuck out. Okay. I froze dead in my tracks.
I stare at him. Frightened, standing on my countertop for probably 30 seconds, just trying to process what what he could have seen.
Because again, I've seen him freaked out before from mundane things.
This happens, but something was different.
Something was very different. I've never seen this look in his eyes.
But I was like, you know what, Emma? You're freaking yourself out.
You have a tendency to catastrophize things.
It's probably nothing. He probably was just playing with the other cat or he probably just saw a raccoon outside.
It's fine. So I walk out of my bathroom and he follows me and he runs in front of me.
And he starts peeking his head outside of my bedroom door as though he was looking for something.
And I was like, no, no, something's off.
Then I see my other cat. with the same look in her eyes, though her tail was tucked underneath her her belly like she was frightened too but her body language was a little different they both were so scared that I was like, there's no way something is not happening right now.
Something's happening. Something really fucking weird is happening.
Someone's in my house. So I run to the safe room in my house.
I shut the door. I lock it. I deadbolt it.
My cats are not with me. I did not have the time to secure them in there with me.
But my safe room has security camera panels everywhere. a panic button, you know, you press it and the police come, all these other technical security related things.
And I'm still not fully convinced that there's someone in my house.
Like I know something's off, but I'm like...
How is this possible? How is this possible?
All my doors are locked. I didn't hear any forced entry and I would have heard that like what's happening.
So I call my mom and I'm like, something's really off.
Like I explained to her the story and I'm like, I don't know, am I being crazy? you should drive over because my mom lives about 15, 20 minutes away.
So I was like, maybe you could drive over and just look around with me.
I don't really feel good about being here alone, but I also don't think that there's anything dangerous going on.
So We're sort of deciding whether or not she should come over.
Meanwhile, I decide to arm my house, which basically means...
If any door opens or window opens or breaks, a really loud alarm will go off and the police will be dispatched immediately.
I arm this alarm all the time. This is an alarm that I almost always have on.
And it doesn't go off from movement. So I can have that alarm on while I'm home. if I know that I'm not gonna be going in and out of the house, because it doesn't go off from movement.
So like I can move around, my cats can move around, it won't go off.
It'll only go off if a door or window opens or breaks.
So I turned the alarm on and my thought was, if there's someone in my house and they try to leave, or they try to let someone else in, at least now I'll know.
So I set the alarm and in my head, I'm like, there's no way this alarm is going to go off.
Okay. I have this alarm on for hours and hours a day and it never goes off on accident.
So I was like, if this alarm goes off, I know I need to call 911 and We really need to take this seriously.
But I was like, there's no way the alarm is going to go off.
There's just no way. There's no way. Well.
Two minutes after I set the alarm, it goes off, blaring, beep, beep. blaring.
I'm on the phone with my mom and I'm like, someone's in my fucking house.
She's like, call 911. Hang up with me. Call 911.
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I'm doing all the shit. I press the little button to dispatch police. but I couldn't tell if it was working.
I was like, is the battery dead? Fuck. And I hide behind the door.
If the door were to have opened to this panic room, I hid behind the door.
And I call 911 and I'm on the phone with the operator and I'm like, listen, I think someone's in my house.
I explained the story. And they were like, have you seen anyone?
And I was like, no. And I open up my security camera app.
I have an app on my phone with all my security cameras on it.
I open up the app. Guess what? It's disconnected.
I check my cameras all day, every day on my phone all day, every day.
I'm on that app constantly. I cannot name a time in the last, I don't know, three to six months where it has been disconnected.
It's always connected. Now, all of a sudden it's disconnected.
The crazy part about it. is that the system... that my security cameras are on are separate from the system that my security alarm is on.
So it's not like, oh, the alarm went off and it somehow made the cameras glitch.
Like they're disconnected completely. They're not related.
Does that make sense? So me going on this app and seeing that all of a sudden my cameras are down, I'm like, someone cut some wires or some shit. something's fucking happening something's happening something really bad is happening I get hysterical, okay?
I'm like, oh my fucking God, this is it.
I cannot express to you the terror that I was feeling in that moment.
I have never, I'm so grateful that I've never felt that before.
I've gone my whole life without feeling that level of terror. kind of your life flashing before your eyes you're in survival mode you're like I might die right now I really might die right now.
This was a new feeling for me I had never felt this feeling before, this level of terror.
I'm locked in a room in my home, Not sure what's happening outside of that room. certain that something bad is happening because the series of events paint a bleak picture.
I become sort of hysterical on the phone with the 911 operator.
He's reassuring me that police are on the way.
I am a fucking wreck, okay? I'm like, should I break out of this window that's in this room? and climb up onto the roof and get into the chimney?
What should I do? I felt so trapped and powerless in this room.
But the 911 operator was like, don't fucking move, you idiot.
No, didn't call me an idiot, but... should have, was like, don't move.
Stay still and be quiet and just let the police come.
I'm crying. I'm full body shakes. I'm like... clutching my hand over my mouth, trying not to make sounds because I was so hysterical that I was like, whatever.
I'm texting my mom. My mom's rushing to me, driving to me. as fast as she possibly can.
And then all of a sudden, the alarm in my house goes off.
So now if there is someone in my house, they think everything's fine because the alarm just went off.
And I go on my app in my phone to try to make the alarm go off again.
Oh, would you look at that? It's not working.
It's not working. So I'm on the phone with the 911 operator and I'm like, my alarm is not going off again.
I need my alarm to go off again because it just stopped.
And cause you know, the alarm's going to scare off anybody who's doing something bad, right?
They're going to be like, oh shit, it's drawing attention.
I need to get out of here. So I'm freaking out trying to figure out if I can make the alarm go back on.
I couldn't. This scares me even more. Then I realize that my phone is on 7%.
Seven percent. And I'm like, if this doesn't last me until the police get here, I don't know what I'm going to do.
I don't have a... phone charger in this room.
Like I was so unprepared for a moment like this.
At the time, I ended up in the panic room waiting for the police for 20 minutes.
A lot of this is a blur for me because I was so Deeply frightened that I couldn't even function properly.
I wasn't thinking properly. straight. I was completely in a fog, but also my brain was moving at a thousand miles per hour.
I'm on the phone with the 911 operator asking every 30 seconds when the police are going to arrive. trying to figure out if I can reconnect my phone to my cameras so that I can see if anyone's In my house?
Nothing's working. What the fuck is going on?
Meanwhile, my phone is going down in percentage.
Seven, six, five, four, three, two. At this point, it's probably been 15 minutes of me hiding in this room.
And my phone's at 2%. So I tell the 911 operator this, my phone's at 2%.
He tells me that the police have arrived. but that they have to search the perimeter of my house before they go inside.
So I'm like, okay. This is not good. Because, you know, who knows how long it's going to take to search the perimeter of the house.
I understand it. But I was like, I want somebody to. come in and grab me and save me now, you know?
But knowing that the police were there made me feel so much better.
Meanwhile, my mom shows up. She's talking to the police.
My phone gets down to 1%. I'm on the phone with the 911 operator and I'm like, you need, to send someone in here because my phone is at 1% and I will not be able to communicate with you or anyone moving forward once this dies.
So we need to figure something out, please.
I'm... crying. I'm so I'm, I'm freaking, I'm sobbing at this point because I'm like, I'm so close yet so far.
Like I feel better knowing that they're here, but also like, come on, like, let's just, Save me already.
You know, I go to text my mom that my phone is dying.
It's at 1%. It's going to die. And as I'm about to send that, a text comes through from my mom that says, come to the front door.
And I was like, wait a minute, what? Then, I kid you not, like a fucking movie, my phone dies.
I can't make this up. I know you think I'm lying.
I know that you think I'm lying. I know that this sounds like a fucking, it sounds crazy, but no.
This is what happened. This is the truth.
So I couldn't ask my mom, what are you talking about?
And I couldn't ask the 911 operator if I should go to the front door.
This is like a crazy request. We think that there's an intruder in my home And the police have yet to enter my home.
And they're telling me to come down to the front door.
I'm like, what's happening? I'm convinced that someone bad has kidnapped my mom, taken her phone, and started texting me from her phone, saying, come to the front door.
But at the same time, I'm like, I know that my mom is with the police.
But then I was like, what if somebody snatched her, grabbed her phone, and is holding her hostage in a car, and they're texting me from the phone. you know, there were so many different scenarios that could be unfolding.
Like I didn't Maybe she had never crossed paths with the police.
You see what I'm saying? I was... really struggling with what to do.
But my gut told me that my mom was with the police and that they had told her to tell me to come to the front door.
And I felt kind of stupid for doing it, but I mustered up the courage.
I took a few deep breaths. And I opened the door and I bolted.
I mean, bolted. to my front door, swung it wide open, There's my mom.
There's like 10 police officers. And I just start sobbing.
I mean, sobbing, sobbing, sobbing. I've never felt the level of gratitude.
I'm like choked up right now. I've never felt that level of gratitude in my life. to just be safe and alive and to have the support from my mom and the police officers that, you know, got there as soon as they could.
The level of gratitude, again, I'm choked up right now thinking about it because I was Just so grateful that that was over.
And I'm like hysterically crying. And I've always seen in movies people being so afraid that they're dry heaving, like they're like about to throw up.
I always just thought it was like a fake thing like that.
Was this something that happened in movies?
Uh-uh. I was fully dry heaving crying, like about to throw up everywhere.
It was one of the most bittersweet feelings I've ever felt.
Meanwhile, the police are searching my house.
My mom and I are outside and I realized in this moment Whether someone's in my house or not, whether I was really at risk or not, Those 17 minutes of me in that room thinking I was going to die, has changed my life forever.
It doesn't matter what even comes of it because those 17 minutes in that room felt so real.
I will never be the same. Lo and behold, the police come out and they say, there's no one here.
There was no forced entry. Nothing happened.
Must have just been a faulty alarm. I feel horrible.
Okay, I feel horrible. I feel stupid. I feel gullible.
I apologize to them profusely. I'm like, I'm so sorry.
But I also can't blame myself for reacting the way that I did.
Because the whole series of events was so, so insanely unusual.
The odds of all of those things happening back to back It's like one in 100,000 that all of those unusual things would happen back to back within a five to 10 minute period. one faulty alarm and then both of my cats being really freaked out in a way I've never seen them before.
And then another faulty alarm once I armed my house.
Like, what are the odds of that happening?
That never happens. And oh, oh God. And my camera's shutting off and like the alarm's not working.
Like it was like. What, like what are the odds of all of those things happening?
I never have issues with any of those things.
And all of a sudden they're all not working.
In my rational mind, I said, it's more rational to think that something bad is happening.
We send the police on their way. I feel intense guilt.
I feel so bad. I've just wasted their time.
I feel horrible. But I'm also like I had no other option.
So. Someone from my security team comes to my house that night trying to figure out what happened.
OK, so we look through the database to see what caused the faults. what made that chime go off.
And we can't figure out what happened after I shut the garage door.
That first fault, we can't figure it out.
Nothing showed up in the database. Normally every time a door or window opens, closes, breaks, et cetera, it shows up in this database.
That first one just didn't show up. The one that went off after I armed my house that caused...
The alarm to go off was a random window that never gets opened. literally has never been opened and just for some reason faulted.
I'm not kidding. That window has never opened.
The little chime for that window has never had to go off and it never has because that window never gets opened.
The security guy examines the alarm that's connected to it.
Nothing seems wrong with it. Nothing about it seems faulty. he does a bunch of tests to see if it goes off on accident easily because sometimes the little sensors on the alarms will shift a little bit and then they go off.
You know, like even if you tap the wall, it'll make. the alarm go off.
I don't know. Like there's all these different little technicalities.
He basically tests this alarm. in every possible way and there's nothing wrong with it.
And he's like, this is really weird. Like, it's really weird that this alarm just went off out of nowhere. that these sensors had a mistake.
This is very unusual. And my mom and I are thinking about this for a while and we're like, what the fuck happened?
Like, what in the world could this be? And she says, Emma, I think it was the ghost.
And I was like, Now, this is when you're going to think I'm fucking with you.
I know you think I'm fucking with you right now.
I know that you think I'm fucking with you right now because I
I don't know, what do people do when they run out of ideas for their podcast? or for their YouTube channel or for whatever, they start coming up with stories about ghosts, okay?
I get that you think I'm selling out, okay?
I get that you think I'm a liar and I'm just doing this for clickbait.
I get it, but it's, I'm not fucking with you.
I'm not fucking with you. So let me explain.
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Please fuse responsibly. When I first bought this house, it was kind of run down.
It was kind of old. It kind of had a creepy vibe.
It was built in the 50s. It hadn't been renovated in a long time.
And I immediately felt its history in the walls.
Like this house feels old. Do you know what I mean?
It didn't necessarily feel haunted to me, but upon falling in love with this house, I felt its history in the wall.
I don't know. I obviously tore this house apart and updated pretty much everything.
It's a very different house now. to what it was when I first bought it.
But a lot of the things are the same. Still the same flooring.
The layout is pretty much the exact same.
All the wood is pretty much the same. It's not like we tore the whole house down and rebuilt a brand new house.
My interior designers got me a gift when we finished renovating the house.
And the gift was a session with this spiritual woman where she comes into the home and she sages it.
And she talks to ghosts and asks them to leave.
Basically getting rid of all of the bad energy and bad spirits, etc.
Now, I have an open mind, okay? I don't necessarily believe in ghosts.
Why is my basement alarm going off? Did my security guard just get you Okay, I think it was just my security guard.
I accidentally made the alarm go off, but then, like, never.
Okay, sorry, I'm a little freaked out from the alarm going off in the middle of me talking.
I have PTSD now from that, so that's all.
What a coincidence. I'm very neutral when it comes to ghosts.
I am very open-minded. I don't strongly believe in them, but I also don't strongly not believe in them.
I thought that this was a very generous gift and I was, open-minded about this person coming in and clearing all the bad energy from my house.
So I wasn't there the day that this woman came in and cleansed the energy of my home.
But my mom was. She was at my house. And...
She told me later that the woman who staged my house told her that I did in fact have a ghost.
And this ghost is a young boy around 12 years old, and he's completely harmless, but he likes to play pranks.
So if things ever go missing or anything unexplainable that occurs, that feels like a prank.
Could be this 12-year-old boy, ghost. But she did say that she asked him to leave, and so it shouldn't be a problem.
But if things like that ever start to happen, it's because it's him, most likely.
Now, we'd only had one unusual occurrence prior to the saging, which was We had this ladder go missing.
Like we had this huge ladder and it went missing and we couldn't explain it.
Like, how do you lose a ladder? But then again, the way that we rationalized it was, There were a lot of people working on construction at the house.
Somebody might have taken the ladder on accident and taken it.
Back to the... I don't know. We were like, there are so many different construction teams here.
Somebody must have taken... this ladder on accident, whatever.
And that could still be the case. But I remember my mom was like, oh, my God, that might be where the ladder went.
Who knows? Fast forward to a few months ago, maybe four months ago, My mom was in my garage doing something.
I don't even know what she was doing. And she misplaced her glasses and she knew for a fact that that she was wearing her glasses when she was in the garage, but she either put them down somewhere or they fell off her head.
She couldn't remember, but she knew that she was wearing her glasses in the garage because She used them to read a label or something in my garage.
She used them at some point in my garage.
And then... At some point while she was in the garage, they go missing.
She's like, this is so weird. Like, where could they be?
Like, did I bring them upstairs into the house?
Like, could they be in the kitchen or- On Emma's desk?
Like, where are they? She tells me about this.
She's like, Emma, I lost my glasses. I cannot find them anywhere.
I literally can't find them anywhere. It makes no sense.
I was only in these few areas. I don't know where they could have gone.
It's like they just poof, disappeared. This is so weird.
And I was like, all right, I'll keep an eye out.
I'll let you know if I find them. I look around, I don't see them anywhere.
And then during the weeks to follow, my mom and I are like constantly looking for these glasses.
We're like, how did they go missing like this?
Like where in the world could they have gone?
We searched the whole house. We didn't just stick to the garage and the kitchen where she was that day.
We started looking everywhere. And we cannot find these glasses.
And then one day, randomly, probably a month after they'd gotten lost, My mom and I are talking in my closet room and we were talking about these glasses and how it was crazy that they went missing.
And in this closet room, there's like sliding closet doors that open up to a small closet. that hold my hoodies.
And while I'm talking to my mom about how her glasses went missing, I was like, you know what?
I am kind of cold. I'm gonna open this closet and grab a hoodie and put it on. and I open the sliding door to this closet And I reach up to grab a hoodie and I pull it down.
And in this closet, there are shelves. below the hoodies.
Like there's like a shelf separating the top level from the bottom level.
And I look down and there are my mom's glasses. folded up perfectly, just sitting right there.
And I turn around and I say, And my mom looks and we start crying our eyes out.
We start bawling our eyes. We're like, what the fuck?
How did they get in here? Literally, I was like, is there any way?
I'm like screaming at her. I'm like, is there any way?
Anyway, that you were in this closet. She's like, no, there's no way.
And even if I was, the glasses would have never been. put down right there so perfectly.
And I was like, wait, but I've gone into this closet at least a few times. since this whole thing, and I never saw them here.
How is this possible? She's like, I never went into this closet.
We're crying. And then we start screaming at the ghost and Is it you?
Were you the one who pranked us? We seemed like we were really going through it.
Like if somebody were to... be a fly on the wall to see this this whole spectacle we were hysterical because we were like, this is so weird that the glasses are right here.
And we were talking about it And then they showed up right there.
It was like the ghost heard us and put them right there.
And we were like, what the fuck? Like, it was just.
It's like, what, how did that even happen?
It's not like that's where I store my glasses.
I don't even store glasses there. It's not like I would have accidentally taken... her glasses thinking that they were mine and put them in that closet and because that's where my glasses belong.
No, no, no, that's a closet I use for hoodies, okay?
The glasses have never gone in that closet.
It makes no sense. We could not figure out how... the glasses got in there and it did not make sense.
It also didn't make sense that I hadn't seen them any sooner.
Like, yeah, I don't grab a hoodie every day.
I definitely don't. And especially not that time of year too because this sort of happened during the summer months. but we just, we could not explain it.
We simply could not explain it. And it made us feel Like we were losing our minds.
We couldn't figure out how this was possible.
But ever since then, my mom and I believe that this 12-year-old prankster ghost is lives in my house.
And it sort of explains... why my cat got so scared. and why the alarm decided to go off two minutes after I armed the house out of nowhere. in a way that is unexplainable to my highly trained security team.
I think I have a ghost. And you know what?
It actually doesn't bother me. which I know sounds wild, but it really doesn't bother me.
I spoke to this ghost and I don't know how to speak to ghosts.
Okay. Because I don't even know if I believe in them.
I don't know what's real, I don't know what's not.
Again, I'm open-minded, so I don't think it's dumb to try to speak to a ghost.
Because none of us know if ghosts are real.
None of us. Not one of us. Not scientists. scientists, not anyone.
We don't know what we don't know. So ghosts could be real.
And so I tried to talk to the ghost and I said, listen, You can live here.
You can live here and you can even play little pranks on me.
The whole thing with my mom's glasses, that was fine.
That was innocent. Just don't make me think that I'm going to die.
That was too serious. If you're real and you're here, You can live here.
You can hang out with me. I don't mind. But just don't do that shit again because you took it too far, buddy.
I literally was alone. In my house, like talking to this ghost, like, dude, cut it out.
All right. Simmer. We're going to have to take this down to a better level because where you're at right now, you're getting too brave with it.
You're getting a little bit too brave with it.
I'm not gonna kick you out. You know what?
You live here too. Maybe you lived here when you were, before you died.
I don't know. This can be your house too, but you just need to respect me and my well-being because that was too far.
Listen, maybe it was just a crazy coincidence.
Maybe this just I don't know, maybe this was just a rare series of events.
That's possible too. I'm open to that. But whatever it was, it definitely changed. my perspective on things forever because even though I was totally safe the whole time without even realizing it.
I was so sure that something bad was happening that I it almost feels in a weird way like something bad did happen.
You know what I mean? Even though nothing bad happened.
I'm so fucking lucky. I can't even express to you my gratitude
Nothing serious happened and that this was all just a weird fluke or maybe it was a ghost.
I don't know, but. In a weird way, my body still feels like it happened.
And that's what I've sort of been struggling with ever since...
I'm sort of traumatized by it. And it makes sense because the level of fear and terror that I felt for those Seventeen minutes was so real.
So my body went through a process as though it was happening.
And that's been really... fascinating to observe within myself how even though It didn't end up being a threat to me at all, my well-being at all.
Everything was fine. my body is processing it as though it did happen.
And I've been having horrible anxiety. I'm tense and I have a bunch of like back pain and neck pain because I've been so tense.
And my mental state has been really bad.
Like I've been very sensitive and irritable, I don't know.
And what is a positive takeaway is Number one, updated security measures.
You have no idea. that experience was like, okay, no, we're taking this more seriously now.
That's number one. But number two, this new level of gratitude for being alive.
Like, I've never experienced... the reality of, oh my God, every day could be your last until that moment.
And even though, again, it wasn't real, I felt that so deeply and so vividly that I
I think I just have a new level of gratitude for being alive and being I'm much more aware of how fragile life is.
And in a lot of ways, that makes me uncomfortable.
It gives me a sense of existential dread.
But on the other hand, it makes me feel more inspired to protect my life and every life around me because in a second everything can change.
And I'm so lucky that I had just a false alarm.
And that wasn't even real. And it was just my little ghost friend.
But my God, did it leave me with... profound realizations.
I mean, the realizations that I just shared now are just scratching the surface I think it permanently changed my brain.
I'm actually very grateful for this experience because I feel like my brain expanded from the experience without even... experiencing the trauma that comes from something like that to the fullest.
And I almost feel guilty about that in a way where I'm like, okay, I had this profound experience through this process.
But I was safe the whole time, even though I didn't know that.
I don't know. And it made me empathize with those who have experienced anything similar. you know, a moment where your life is at risk like that.
I had never experienced that feeling before.
And so I could empathize with people, but not all the way.
And now I have a whole new... level of empathy.
And for all of you who have experienced that feeling And for people who experienced that feeling and they were right and something bad was happening and maybe something bad did happen.
I don't know. This whole thing has really, really moved me.
And I'm just so grateful that I'm okay and that everything's fine and that, but I just, oh my God.
If we could have anything we want in this world, I would wish that feeling upon no one.
No one, not even my worst fucking enemies.
I don't care. That is one of the worst feelings in the world.
I'm done. So moral of the story is I think I have a ghost in my house.
But maybe I'm being dramatic. Maybe I'm reading into things too much.
Maybe I'm creating a narrative. around coincidences.
I don't know. But let me know what you think.
Do you... Think I have a ghost. Do you think this is just a weird string of coincidences?
Like, Let me know on the Instagram at anything goes.
You can follow me on Instagram at Emma Chamberlain.
You can check out my coffee company, chamberlaincoffee.com.
See if we're in a store near you or just order online.
Straight to your door. Boom. Coffee, matcha, cute little accessories.
It's all happening on chamberlaincoffee.com.
New episodes of Anything Goes every Thursday and Sunday.
Video episodes exclusively on Spotify. Audio can be streamed wherever you stream podcasts.
I love you all. I appreciate you all. Thank you for hanging out with me and listening to the story. and you might think that I'm a little bit loopy for this one, but I feel like I'm being pretty rational.
So let me know what you think. And maybe I'll talk to you soon.
Hey, I don't know. Maybe I'll talk to you soon.
You down or no? Well, listen, you can come and hang out anytime.
Just know that you're always welcome here, okay?
You're always welcome here. Okay. I love and appreciate you all.
And I'll talk to you. Goodbye from me and my little 12 year old ghost.
I'm going to go play. Monopoly with him or something.
Yeah, I'm going to go play Monopoly with him or something.
All right. Talk to you later. Love you all.
Bye.
