Unsettling experiences from a loving wife & mother

 Walking on Pins and Needles

The findings of odd objects is a common occurrence in and around our home.  During times when activity is high I often find nails all over the walkways outside.  Lance is not really a builder of things, so dropping numerous nails in the dog area is not something He might do by accident.  He also knows how pissed I would be if he were to make this mistake, and he doesn’t like Angry Jennifer.  These are either really old antique looking nails, or shiny silver nails I don’t recognize.  I feel pretty certain they were dropped by a spirit who dropped by to cause harm just for fun.

Just recently, Lance steps on a sewing needle right out of bed and then finds a rustic old square nail in the horses water trough.

2019

Master bedroom

I once found a large amount of sewing pins on the floor by our closet.  Moving a comforter to see if I had picked them all up, I found an even larger amount inside he folded comforter.  This comforter was being used as a dog bed and had no reason to have needles all in it.

Pranks of fear

When my daughter Londyn was around 12 she used to suffer from ghosty pranks in the bathtub.  The bathroom is a tiny one from 1969, with old wooden vanity drawers.  She would have the drawer open to hold her cellphone, and on occasion it would slam shut on her hand if she reach into it.  Needless to say it was not funny nor pleasant for her.  She always felt someone staring at her as she bathed which is never a good feeling.  We always had a clear shower curtain to help all of us feel safer while in the bath.  

Naked and Afraid

I remember clearly feeling a presence standing in my shower while I showered.  I recall these times clearly, as it was after we had scheduled Amy Allen to investigate our home.  It was very trying, with many angry and scared spirits showing themselves, trying to deter our decision to clear out the spirit world.  

When you have a spirit in your space there is no mistaking it.  I too never felt alone in the shower or bedroom.  I remember feeling vulnerable and pushing through my fears knowing there was nothing I could do.  It made intimate moments very difficult.  No one wants an audience during sex, especially when you’re already fighting to find private moments between your kids busting in the room or banging on your door when they need something.  

The time I told Lance about my feeling in the shower, I found him very distraught.  He then told me an angry back man stood in his face demanding he give him his wife  back and tell him where she was.  Then followed that threat by telling him that he had a nice looking wife and if he didn’t return his wife that he would take me.  There was no mistaking his anger and the fear he instilled in Lance.  If you watched the show, you heard Amy state that she saw a lot of people walking up and down our sidewalk just outside out home.  This man was just one of the many who wandered into our home, lost and confused as we were, as to why they were stuck-in our house, and not knowing how to find their way home.

No Calm Before The Storm

During the 8 years of struggling before Amy’s arrival at our home, we lived in the whirlwind of visiting spirits, some pleasant(beautiful women peeking in windows), some friendly(little Sarah, an orphan who followed Lance around and called him Daddy, and played with Heidi’s hair while she sat in bed), some relatives(my father and Lance’s),some played with toys and giggled(children), some cried tears of sadness, begging to go home(young teen boy), screams of horror(female victim of a violent ritual), some violently resentful(the jealous Etta Davis who wanted my man for herself, and the rest of us dead) and some with heavy boots stomping through our kitchen at all hours of the night.  There was rarely a day without some sort of unexpected guest/intruder.

Before the Dead Files arrival we had to clear the property of all animals but the horse.  We had 30 dogs.  So the day before they arrived, we piled all of our tiny herd of schnauzers and two big dogs in the truck, and headed off to Grandma’s house.  The storm that hit was dark and scary, just like the angry outlaw spirits who lived on our ranch.  Maya and Ashby can vouch that it was bad, because they had to ride in the truck bed and they were None too happy!!!  The spirit world’s fury was growing by the minute and the storm was raging.  

Being that we knew our property had issues with spirits, we went out to dinner to escape the stress of it all.  Your probably thinking Oh Yeah, that would give you a break.  You’d be wrong!  One night we decided to eat out in Kearney, at a little cafe called JJ’s.  The food was great and the people were friendly.  During our dinner, Lance looks down at his lap, and then shakes his head looking very angry.  I asked him what was wrong.  He couldn’t say in front of the kids.  I could see he was extremely upset.  Later he told me that he heard the voice of an angry outlaw demanding he stop Amy Allen from coming or we would be suffering some very painful consequences.  This was Cole Younger, a member of the famous Younger Gang, speaking loud and clear to Lance.  It was clear to us that a war was imminent. It probably didn’t help our case that we were native Texans living in The Hometown of The Outlaw Jesse James.  

The Chill of an Early Fall

While our experiences were raging on, I always seemed to dread the upcoming Fall season.  Not that anything in particular happened, it just seemed that more happened.  Well, at least it appeared that more happened.  Maybe it was just my heightened senses to the change in seasons.   The leaves were changing, Fall decorations were out, and the morning air was getting crisp.  Everything was going into hiding from the upcoming Winter.  Looking back, I can recall two incidents that still stick out to me which seemed to have some correlation to the change in seasons.

Every Fall, in September, Kearney holds the Jesse James Festival.  It's over the course of 3 weekends and celebrates the western heritage of the town, not necessarily the outlaw it's named after.  I truly feel that celebrating the past, especially ones where violence and lawlessness ran rampant, will create an opening for spirits and other things to walk through.  The more tumultuous the past, the more hostel those who return.  

Sometimes good intentions during one of these types of celebrations can have unexpected consequences.  That's what happened during the Jesse James Festival in the Fall of 2013.  I have a good friend who owned a western leather shoppe and I told him I would help him set up his vendor booth at Jesse James Park the night of the rodeo.   I was excited to help and looked forward to doing so. The day was just like any other day, nothing too special but I was in a great mood; happy and energetic.  I was finally spending some time at home after a long stretch of travel.  The weather was nice and the temperature was a little below normal.  I knew that it would be a beautiful night and I was looking forward to helping my friend and watching the rodeo.    

I was wrapping things up towards the end of the day so I could start getting ready to go.  All of the sudden, without any warning whatsoever,  I immediately felt ill.  I started sweating, had chills, I developed a fever, and felt nauseated.  I had not eaten anything that day which would have caused me to get sick and I hadn't felt even the slightest bit sick either.   As I made my way upstairs, I started to vomit and ran to the bathroom.  I had the drive heaves and my eyes started to water and my vision became blurry.  I felt as if I was going to pass out.   I somehow made it out of the bathroom but only as far as Chloe's room.  I collapsed on her bed, shaking and feeling like I'd been hit by a bus.  Jennifer called my friend and told him I wasn't going to be able to make it.

Just as fast as it started, it was over.  I immediately felt better as soon as Jennifer told me not to worry about going to Jesse James Park.  I feel as if something wanted to keep me home and away from the fairgrounds for some reason.  I now feel that "something" was the crazy lady trying to control me and keep me from other people.  Thankfully, I never had another episode like it again.  However if you're an avid reader of the blog, you that crazy bitch wasn't done with me.

Another incident that happened one year in early October involved my desk.   During the time we were dealing with the revolving door of spirits, I had my office in the basement.   It was a quiet place for me to work.   I would come upstairs to eat, use the bathroom, or grab something to eat throughout the day.  One afternoon, I came upstairs to grab something out of our bedroom.  Jennifer, Londyn, and Londyn's now husband, Jordan were in the kitchen.  I was in the bedroom for no more than a couple of minutes and went back down stairs.   As I got to my office area I stopped dead in my tracks.  There was my desk, turned upside down with everything that was on it positioned the same place as if it were upright.   I was pissed off and stormed back upstairs because I was certain was Jennifer, Londyn, and Jordan playing a prank.

"Are ya'll fucking with me!"  I yelled at them.

They had no clue what I was talking about.  I explained to them about my desk and we all went down stairs to look at it.

"I swear if ya'll fucking with me, I'm going to be so pissed because I don't got time for stupid shit like this!", I said.

They all said they had nothing to do with it and after I calmed down, I realized they would have never had the time to pull it off with such detail.  I finally realized that it was something being mischievous or sending a message that they were in the control.

Maybe the messages being sent from these two experiences was that just like the change of the seasons, they could change my environment too;  reminding me that the chill in the air was not always due to the Fall.

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The Waiting

After the Dead Files crew had packed up and left, we had things to do.  First and foremost was getting our house back and ridding ourselves of the things that had been terrorizing us for nearly 8 years.   This proved to be a daunting and challenge task however we got through it.  Our lives began to return to somewhat normal.

Our episode wasn't schedule to air until mid 2017.  We had no idea the exact date as that was up to The Travel Channel.  We were told we would have about a month's notice of the air date.   Having a year to get our lives back in order was a blessing because I think if the show would have aired a month after filming, there would have been no way we could have handled the attention.

That time before our episode aired was probably the most important part of our recovery.  It gave a moment to regroup, catch our breath, and heal.   What a lot people don't understand is that everything does not just get better after the reveal.  We were still tired and still suffering.  Our health vastly improved after the Reiki helped move crazy lady along, but she still left behind emotional damage.

We worked on protection techniques and supporting each other along the way.   Educating ourselves became something that was continuing and ongoing and we were finally moving forward. 

The girls were still suffering somewhat, especially Emi.   We started taking them to see a therapist, one that was open to hearing our story.   Sharing what happened with someone who believed them and did not judge was a real help for them.  As a matter of fact, it help all of us.

Our lives where finally starting to get back to normal but the scars remained.   I'd like to tell you that there is some magic potion that will give you life back, but there isn't.  It just takes time and the memories of what happened never really fades.  In a strange way we don't want them too.  We need to have them so it encourages us to continue our protection routines.   The fear of  having new  experiences was inspiration enough to never let our guard down.

With the exception of a few giggles from unseen children and a few things moving around, the house was calm.  Life was good and getting better.   Summer turned into Fall, Fall turned into Winter and the holidays were one of the best we had since we lived here.  Everyone was happy and healthy. 

We didn't talk about the show with anyone and things died down however that was about to change.  In late March of 2017, we got the call that our episode would be titled "Hell in the Heartland" and would air on May 6, 2017.   It would soon be publicly posted on the Travel Channel's website as well as promoted on The Dead Files social media pages.   As promised, our episode would be the season 8 premiere.

I knew some people in our town were still curious about the episode and when it would air.  Kearney is a small town and people talk.  It just takes one person to say something and it will spread like wildfire.   The curiosity about who had the haunted house was about to be revealed.

Our story was about to go public for the whole world to see.

Talk In A Small Town

Filming of our Dead Files episode had ended.  We worked through the pain of ridding ourselves of the entities who had terrorized us for nearly eight long years.   We were slowly getting our lives back as well as  learning and understanding our abilities.

After the experience with the paranormal team that helped turned our lives upside down, we became withdrawn.   We did not go out much, we did not talk about our experiences and we stopped trying to figure out what was happening.   We, for lack of better phrase, given up on all hope.  This was our new way of life and death would be our only escape.   We suffered in silence.

Even though we accepted the fact that being on the Dead Files and putting our story out there was our only hope, we were still nervous on how we would be viewed in our small town.  However, as I said in an earlier blog post,  this was our last chance.

When filming ended in early June of 2016, the producers of the show asked us not to talk about the our episode-no media, no social media post, no telling friends.   They said the Travel Channel likes to keep future episodes under wraps until the show is scheduled to air.    Our producer said it could up to 6 months before the airing of our episode, maybe even longer.

We welcomed the break.  We need time to recover and gain control.  So we had no problem being quiet.

Then it happened.  The local paper got wind that the Travel Channel had filmed in Kearney and ran a brief article about it.   The news of a haunted farm in the area caused quite a stir and everybody wanted to know where and who it was.   Thankfully, the producers didn't disclose it was us when the reporter pushed them for more details.  We were keeping our end of the deal too because when the article was published we were still working on getting someone one to come and help us.

DOING WHAT GOOD REPORTERS DO.  THEY DIG

Small town news is mostly gossip, small town politics, who is doing what and local high school sports.  Our town is no exception.  That means sometimes, you have to dig to find an interesting story.  That interesting story was who was going to be on the Dead Files.  At first, everyone thought it was going to be the Jesse James Farm.  That seemed like the logically choice given the history of Kearney.  However, the farm adamantly denied it was them and speculation begin to run wild on who it was.   As any good reporter would do, she started to dig.  Asking around, talking to people in the community, reaching back out to the production company.  People who knew we had issues started asking if it was us.  We didn't need the attention so we said it wasn't.

The reporter continued to push and speculation began that it may us started again.  I really thought if we just stayed quiet this would all calm down, but it didn't.   I knew I had to do something so I called the reporter.   I told her it was us and we were just trying to live a quiet life.  We were still recovering from everything.   We needed time to heal.  I gave her a very high level overview of what we had been dealing with for the past 8 years.   I made a deal with her that if she backed off we would give her the first interview once we were clear to talk about our show and experiences.  She agreed and things calmed down for us.

Now we could get back to the most important thing; recovering from what had happened to us.

We were still withdrawn, beaten down by eight years of unknown things haunting and terrorizing us.  We were tired, confused and looking within ourselves for the strength to continue.   As time went on, things improved but we were a long way from whole.  Just because the filming had ended and we followed Amy's recipe, the pain of the experience didn't go away.   We needed time and the break gave us that time.

That year long wait between filming and when our episode aired was the most critical time for us.  It meant getting back to good.