When do you feel scared on your own?!

Rarely. When I lived in London and often worked (at home) until the early hours of the morning I always took my dog out for a lamp post inspection before I went to bed, however late at night or early in the morning. Nevertheless, for the last year or eighteen months until I moved in January last year and after my dog had died, I felt very insecure even earlier in the evening once it had become dark. I don't – and didn't – have a problem being in the security of my own home on my own, but I do like it better and feel cosier if Mr absent is beside me.

own home. Whoops.

I don't feel scared in my own home. I have a dog with a very loud bark who patrols the back door and notifies me if a squirrel dares to set foot in the garden. At night there are owls hooting in the wood and the wind blowing through the trees, and it's pitch black outside, but I feel safe.

Never bothers me usually, but stayed in an old farmhouse in Wales soon after seeing The Exorcist, and my [then] boyfriend went off visiting friends till the early hours of the morning, leaving me with our cat [we used to take him with us] and the dog we were dog sitting. Slept in the living room with the dog. A window had been banging upstairs and the wind was howling, and I was petrified! It still gives me the creeps if the film is on the telly; even if it's switched off I still feel scared.Then, the other year when I was quite ill with a nasty infection that wouldn't clear I was sleeping on the sofa [first decent sleep I'd had for ages] when the phone rang and it was an automated nuisance call. After a while I realised it was voice activated so kept quiet, but I still felt that someone was watching me. I fet quite horrible for ages afterwards; must be how people feel when they are being stalked, I guess. Creepy.

I lived on my own (albeit in a house on the school compound) before my marriage and then not until my divorce was over and the boys living their own lives. I would not willingly share my space with anyone - visitors are another matter. But I am fussy about locking doors and using the chain when someone comes to the door.

I'm ok if I have to be on my own and, until recently, had the dog for company. The house is old and does creak a lot which is ok if I haven't watched something creepy on the telly, in which case I belt up the stairs past a huge window on the half landing and into the bedroom which is a safe haven! I don't like the thought of someone being able to look in from the dark outside and not seeing them until 2 spooky eyes appear at the window - usually the next door cat, not a crazy murderer or rapist from the film I've just watched . I'd have curtains everywhere if I could!

Things which scare me are not things like owls hooting or things going creaks in the night - but heart-stopping crises when the insides (literally) turn to water -e.g. 7/7 when I couldn't get through to 2 Ds in London. True terror is no easier for me if there are other people around.
Was quite scared last night though at D's when her neighbour's security light kept going on (in the wind, I expect)and I couldn't remember locking their patio doors earlier in the day!!

I sometimes wake in the night and think I hear footsteps although it's not so bad now we've got the cats - not that they can do anything to help . I think our house is haunted a wee bit as both my daughter and I have heard footsteps at different times with noone there. We've also heard a child laughing when there's been no children in the house! Spooky!

Waking up and hearing foxes outside scars me silly until I wake up completely and realise it's not a ghost at all!

goldengirl; aren't you scared? I've gone all goosebumpy....

On the rare occasions when I have slept alone (gosh that sounds bad!) I have found that the noises that I take for granted when someone else is in the house seem pretty scary all of a sudden!

I live alone in an isolated block of flats about 2 kms outside a little village. I have also lived in a house where the nearest neighbour was about half a mile away down a mountain lane. The only time I have ever been a bit nervous was when I used to live in Lower Sloane Street, Chelsea, and I had to walk from the underground station at Sloane Square to my flat.
I don't believe in the supernatural - only bad people.

I slept alone for 16 years and the only time I was afraid was when woken at 2am by a heavy breather on the telephone. I became convinced he knew where I lived and was watching me. When daylight came I dismissed him as a sad loser and got on with my life.

I have remembered one thing that made me a bit nervous in my lonely little house in the Pyrenees. I was lying in bed when I heard a scrabbling and scratching coming from behind the head board. Of course I thought of rats, but when I asked in the village they said it was a 'loir dans le grenier' - a dormouse in the loft. It was running down inside the the cavity wall. They are not pack animals so I wasn't likely to be over-run - they just go out at night to forage for insects or fruit. However, they can gnaw through electrical insulation, so I had to buy poison.
I was amused when I googled dormouse - the English sites were all about protecting their habitats and the French sites were all about how to get rid of them. That just about sums up the differing attitudes to animals. Most French people are not sentimental about them.

Funnily enough Crimson I've not been scared of the 'ghosts'. It's the possibility of burglars that scares me far more. Perhaps I read too many lurid stories in the papers but sometimes I'm almost too scared to go to the loo but know that I must!

I only feel slightly nervous when I go to my ex-sister-in-law's house, I feel scared in the room I sleep in, it's a very old house and there are lots of noises in the attic, and in the floorboards, I feel fine everywhere else.

Driving at night alone ...having had to get to the car in a poorly lit car parking area ...I now never have the curtesy light come on automatically.

I can always find the slot for the car key without ever looking ...but not under the above circumstances...how silly is that!

Jacey - that is an entirely rational fear - could you try to avoid parking in lonely places?

I've lived alone for nearly 20 years, apart from 18 months when I was married for the second time. After I chucked him out, he stalked me for 2 years, and I would wake about 1am. to hear his footsteps slowly walking past my house and back again. That was scary.

NanaC.-that is scary and unnerving-well rid of him!

Jacey; could you get one of those key rings with a torch attached to it? And, not wanting to scare you, I remember reading somewhere about always checking the back seat of your car before you get in [although that's not so relevant now that cars are alarmed]. Oh, I can't imagine being stalked. Sounds awful.