So, You're Being Haunted!

So, You’re Being Haunted! 

Don’t worry, this isn’t the end of the rope for you! Millions upon millions of others have been affected by this. Some even say it's “World War III” or “Covid 19 Round Two” or mostly “H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks” which is possibly the most accurate. 

Now before you start hyperventilating or freaking out, take a few deep breaths. Chances are you’ve met someone who was being haunted by a ghost (or as the Government calls it “a Spectral visitor with negative intentions”). But it's a lot different when it's you instead of Billy Brown who picks his nose in class and wears those funny goggles.

Before we dive in, it's important to clarify a few things.

Clarification A) While this pamphlet and materials will hopefully help you deal with these other-worldly “friends," it will not take them away. It's like an incurable disease, but not in a fun way.

Clarification B) Yes, the goal is to lengthen your life so that hopefully you die from something boring like heart disease instead of in a pool of your blood; however, we do not take responsibility or liability for your possible death. If you got one of those fancy-pants government packages they offer your chances may be better, but you would spend the rest of your life in crippling debt and might as well die anyway! Isn’t life great?

Clarification C) You will probably die from this ghost. But with luck, it will be later rather than sooner.

How Can I Be Sure I’m Being Haunted?

So, you probably want to keep living; most people do. Let’s use an imaginary person as an example:

Cathy is–hmmm–let's say, on a whim, a 16-year-old, 5’7”, brunette (shoulder-length hair) girl with a strong desire to live. Good for you, Cathy. 

But wait a second! Uh oh, it seems that something might be hindering that. Let's take a look!

For lovely, little Cathy it all started with a shadow in the corner of her room on a Friday night after a party at a friend's house. At first, she shook her head and told herself to stop being silly and go to sleep. Bad move, Cath. Whenever she turned to look at it, the thing disappeared, but minutes later she would spot it in her peripheral vision. For days she felt a constant chill and invisible fingers sliding down her spine. Her mom only started to worry when she started missing school because of how nauseous she started to feel. Cathy, like many others, waited for weeks before she finally accepted what was happening to her and finally got some help. Such as this pamphlet! Lucky for you. 

 Back to the starting symptoms, maybe for you, it’s eyes watching you from the basement. Or whispers you can barely hear. The starting symptoms of a Haunting are always unique. Feel free to email me and tell us what your symptoms were! If you are still alive long enough to reach your computer.

Back to Cathy. She had several tell-tale symptoms of having a ghost friend come to visit. Let's list them!

1. Shadows in the corner
2. Menacing whispers
3. Constant Nausea
4. Nightmares
5. Continual and overwhelming sense of being watched
6. The classic “I-thought-I-saw-someone-I-knew-but-it-couldn’t-have-been-them…” 
7. Sudden, uncontrollable tremors
8. Cold or burning sensations
9. Feeling ‘unseen’ hands touching your skin, brushing your hair, etc.
10. Time seems too slow or fast 
11. Déjà vu
12. Hearing your name called in the distance

How many symptoms do you have? 

Cathy had many of the symptoms on this list, but what cemented in her mind that she was being haunted was when the ghost appeared in front of her while she was brushing her teeth before school on a warm Monday morning. The symptoms above are what we call “pregame symptoms” but once the ghost has fully revealed itself to you the game has begun, my friend! So, the ghost (which Cathy described as a “terrible shadow without form”) appeared, fully, in front of Cathy.

Uh oh, again! Welp, sorry Cathy; you're dead. Nothing we can do now. Such a shame. I guess you all better close this pamphlet and go watch some Bluey so that you won’t have nightmares tonight.

WAIT! Maybe…just maybe we can do something.

Ok, that was the last joke, guys. The editor says it may seem “insensitive”. Anyways, you might be one of the few…millions of people who can up their survival rate from 6% to a whopping 63%! 

If you read the rest of the pamphlet, it’ll tell you (and Cathy) how to not die.

So, how do you not die?

Cathy doesn’t want to die, as I’ve already told you. She also really does not like it when she hears threats that only she can hear. Like when she was at her friend's house (random fact: that friend never had her over again) and swore she could hear someone–or something–tell her exactly what was about to happen to her “pretty little neck”. While this may be annoying and unsettling, it's not like this alone could kill her, so why would threats be all that scary? I mean, a ghost can’t affect physical things around them.

Maaaaaaaaaybe we should back things up a little.

What does it mean to be haunted? What can happen to you? Well, lots of bad things. First of all, you could die.

Let’s say that a few weeks after Cathy saw the ghost, she got possessed on Monday, February 12, 2025. I’m sure that word alone got goosebumps popping up on your arms. To most people, it means the same thing as cardiac arrest or decapitation, but while it's not necessarily a death sentence…it does usually mean you're about to die. 

So, Cathy scrambled into bed, nervously looking side to side with the intense feeling of being watched. After an hour, she was sound asleep, snoring loudly on her twin bed, gripping her yellow teddy bear close to her chest like she was a six-year-old. At first, she had nightmares. While never fun, a nightmare is not life-threatening. However, if a ghost takes control of them, they can trap you in your dreams and torment you. Maybe even drive you insane! But more likely they will possess you. If this happens, you will no longer have control of your body. This is very, very bad because they could do a number of terrible things. From forcing you to jump off the roof or even just stopping your heart. You see, this is why your most vulnerable stage is sleep.

It's also vital to stay out of your head. You could get stuck in bad memories or terrible visions. Most ghosts try to trap people in “trances” kinda like the things you see in movies right before something really, really bad happens. The person is stuck, eyes flicking behind their eyelids, in some sort of terrible nightmare or memory, the ghost was curated for them. Once you're stuck in a trance it's easy for the ghost to possess you, which, as we’ve said before, is bad.

The Spectral Protection Eyewear Device (SPED)

However, there are some very useful ways to combat this. Let’s say that Cathy took this pamphlet and decided that what she needed was some protection. In that case, she would get SPEDs. If you haven’t already guessed (in which case you are probably kind of dumb) the SPEDs are glasses, well more like goggles, for people who are being haunted.

To go into further depth, let’s look at what these exactly are. The SPEDs can come in lots of variations, but they have one main purpose: protection. They are VR ‘headsets’ that can block out the ghost’s influence altogether. Once you put them on, they show everything the same as normal, unless, of course, a ghost is nearby. Then it will blur the image, so you don’t have to see it and inform you in a calm tone that “A ghost is within 10 feet of you”. It will probably also play music or a noise blocker if your ghost likes to whisper nasty things to you. Like Cathy’s does. You must wear them while you sleep because they will send a small dose of electricity through your body to activate your brain. In other words, it’ll shock you to wake you up if the ghost decides to send you a little something while you sleep. 

Also, it can sense your other symptoms, like rising anxiety or fear, and play soothing music or whatever the case needs. Cathy’s SPED usually had to block out her vision entirely and play a slideshow of all her birthdays to calm her down and distract her from the hallucinations the ghost was trying to coax her into. If your ghost is advanced, then it can display hallucinations in your mind, so that no slideshow can block it. In which case the SPED will blast music, and, if the situation is out of hand, will painlessly knock you out, carefully monitoring your dreams.

Oh, and by the way, if your favorite song changes, you might actually die. It won’t soothe you anymore, making it much easier for the ghost to trap you inside your mind and torture you eternally with endless nightmares, kill you, or control you so it can kill other people. 

So don’t forget to tell your SPED if your favorite song changes.

That's not all the SPEDs can do! They are miraculous things, aren’t they? Let’s use our pal Cathy as an example again. 

A few months after her “diagnosis” began she was walking down a street alone (NEVER DO THIS) and she felt a sudden spike of fear (Hint Hint: This is bad). Cathy knew that this could mean and when her SPEDs alerted her that a ghost was nearby (if you do not want to be told every time, go to “settings” and click “alerts”). She ran for the nearest store but by the time she got close, the ghost was already showing her a memory of the time her third-grade classmates had locked her in the janitor's closet for three hours. The feeling of claustrophobia came back so strongly that Cathy truly believed she was back in that closet, with the broom poking her back and the single lightbulb hanging dangerously from a single wire, screaming for Allison (Alice? Ally? Cathy couldn’t remember her name) to open the door. It felt so real that Cathy slipped into a trance and was moments away from being possessed. 

 Lucky for Cathy, the SPED sent a text to a nearby pedestrian who, immediately after reading the message, ran over to the trembling Cathy and shook her by the shoulders. When that didn’t work, he slapped her across the face so hard a trickle of blood trailed down and into her slightly open mouth. Which seems a little bit harsh, but, hey, it worked.

The stranger (She learned his name was Sam and that they had fifth-period biology together) was even kind enough to walk her home. Cathy never went anywhere alone again. Which she said, “sucked. Because I hate most people”. Or she would have said that if she was real and not an imaginary example. So, while the texts do not always work, they are a nice fail-safe. Plus, there's a decent chance you're going to get smacked across the face by a stranger, which, Cathy would tell you, is less than fun.

So, have you learned your lesson? NEVER GO ANYWHERE ALONE. EVER.

Good. Now that you know that, go buy yourself a pair of SPED. Your life might not be the same, but you’ll live, which isn’t what I can say for people who don’t get SPEDs. Those people get exciting things like funerals and a visit to the morgue. 

Wait, How Do I Live My Life Now?

Great question! Cathy decided to join a support group, advertised by this program (call 777-8989 if you're interested!). It was nice-ish to have people like her to talk to, but Cathy wasn’t a ‘people’ person, and she tried to quit. Her mom said she was going “whether she wanted to or not”. It's important to have people like that around to motivate you. And to comfort you. Gotta love moms!

Every week Cathy would join a group of people who all complained about the fears they faced and how they could never be normal. Sometimes the group got inexplicably smaller. Cathy had to admit they had some good tips though.

“When I feel the chills, I get in my truck and try to hit 90 on the highway.  It usually works, cuz it can’t catch me.” This was said by Ted Bookly who died in a Ford F150 that had run out of gas on the side of a highway.

“I like to scream as loud as I can. For as long as I can. Can’t think of anything while I’m screaming.” Ann Lee said. She had been an opera singer, so that lady could yell. Hmmm, maybe I shouldn’t say that. Don’t wanna speak ill of the dead and all that. Cuz’ you never know. They might just take offense to that and come back for you.

Anyway, there were many other tips. Cathy liked to collect them and keep them in a journal. Cathy’s “tip” was to clutch her little teddy bear. She didn’t care if people teased her about it (which they didn’t. It's like making fun of a kid with no legs for not being able to run. Nobody does that) and she would squeeze the tiny yellow thing whenever her SPED lit up with the announcement that she was about to have another little chat with the dead. 

And by the way, you're never going to be normal again. That ship has sailed, sweetheart. Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, you will be The Haunted One. People will whisper and point. It’ll kinda stink but at least you're alive enough to be pointed at. Cathy went from a nobody to That-One-Girl in a month. Yes, there were other haunted people in the school (two to be exact) but they were teachers. Cathy was the youngest. She did her schoolwork and only occasionally had to turn her music up so loud she couldn’t hear anything else or have her SPED block out her vision. 

Schools are generally pretty accommodating about the whole “being haunted” thing. They treat it like any other “issue”. They assign someone to walk to the bathroom with you and make sure you never eat lunch alone. 

Good Luck Folks

This is it, people. In the end, it's really up to you if you live or die. And, I guess, the ghost, but it’ll choose die every time.

Back to dear ole’ Cathy, she knew that it was her fate to die. She understood that some strong-willed, evil shadow wanted her dead a thousand times over. But Cathy (and you could too!) lived relatively normally. Maybe her life was different from others, but she got used to it, at least a little. Cathy made many friends (including Sam from biology) and even got accepted to college; unfortunately, she was unable to attend. Cathy never allowed herself to get lost in the overwhelming terror that often accompanies those who are haunted (good job Cath!). Not once since the day she had seen it, standing before her in the bathroom, had Cathy been frozen in absolute fear. Not even when a pamphlet and SPED had appeared on the kitchen table, alongside a plate of bacon (yum!), before Cathy was ready to believe what was happening. Cathy was a tough girl, but sometimes the tips in our little pamphlet (version 1) weren’t quite enough and Cathy would wonder if maybe she was doomed to die. Maybe the ghost really would–

Wow, that got really dark, really fast…But to lighten the mood I’m sure you’ll live! I mean, the power of love and all that. 

Well, Good luck! You’ll need it. I hope this pamphlet works for you, but it probably won’t. To be perfectly honest, it isn’t totally true. I made up a few facts here and there. The tips don’t always work; in the end, it's not much better than version 1. Maybe if you had gotten that über-expensive government program, you’d have better chances. Heck, I’m not sure you're even alive long enough to get this far into the pamphlet. Honestly, it probably won’t work for you. Sorry.

Didn’t work for our little Cathy. She was found lying in her bed, stone cold, eyes unblinking, holding a small, yellow teddy bear with a vise-like grip in her frozen fingers. 

I thought she understood that this wasn’t a magic cure, I mean, you do, right? But I guess she didn’t get that and now she's just getting closer and closer, and my favorite song just isn’t hitting like it usuall–

The end.