Pondering Perspective

I was talking to a dear friend of mine recently about childhood experiences as we are both trying to heal the past. Sadly her childhood was horrific, growing up in a war-zone, dealing with death and loss as well as sexual abuse from a young age.
She also had many 'psychic' experiences as a child, but I found it interesting that she took comfort in something that terrified me. As a child I could feel and sense the presence of spirit around me. I could see things out of the corner of my eye, but never see clearly enough to know what it was. I could feel some-one behind me and I would spin around to find no-one there. It was this sense of being followed and 'haunted' that scared me the most. My fears came from a lack of understanding, too many ghost stories and sadly the church I attended as a child. The whole 'the devil wants to take your soul- you will burn in hell' sort of stuff was really not a good foundation. So my imagination took me to some horrible places, with glowing red eyes in the darkness and fear, lots of fear. I can recall nights when I lay in bed terrified and unable to move.

But to my dear friend, who's horror stories were real rather than imagined, these beings were her only friends. She would sit alone, afraid of very different monsters, yet be comforted in the knowledge that she was not really alone. The spirit world wrapped her in a warm blanket of love and kindness that helped her survive. They were her friends and constant companions.

I just thought I would share my thoughts about this as I was pondering perspectives, the way we view the world and the way we create our own world. Because fear is a creation, it is only real in your own mind. My monsters were of my own making and I had to deal with them, something that took most of my life to do I might add.
After I stopped running and being afraid, I too was able to experience the comfort offered by my constant companions.