An exercise for overcoming fear

Since childhood, I've been terrified of the dark when there weren't people around. Then I grew up, read various books on psychology, and decided to overcome my fear. The exercise was simple: stay alone in a dark room without a TV, phone, or other sources of human presence, even if fictitious, and begin to imagine it as being behind you. Intensify your terror by remaining in place until it becomes habitual and the fear subsides.

Usually, I'd last about five seconds of such experiments, after which I'd lose my temper, turn on the light, the TV, etc. But knowing that "patience and hard work will overcome everything," I continued these exercises for almost a year—though to no avail. Eventually, I got tired of it and stopped trying to overcome my fear.

Some time passed. I got married and had children. And recently, I was alone at home on a Saturday night. The kids were visiting their grandmother in the village, and my wife had gone to spend the night with relatives. Remembering the exercise, I decided to try it again for once. I stood in the doorway leading from the dark room into the dimly lit living room and began to instill fear in myself, forcing myself to believe it was behind me. After just a couple of minutes, I managed to convince myself of this completely, and I broke out in a cold sweat. Unable to bear it any longer, I thought, "Okay, that's enough," and took a step into the living room, glancing casually at the mirror in the sideboard. Two red eyes glowed in the reflection just above and to the left of my head, and the dark room behind me wasn't just dark, it was pitch black. I tried to lunge forward, but my legs wouldn't obey me, and I simply fell. Without getting up, I crawled forward, trying to convince myself that I'd imagined what I'd seen. Finally, running out of the apartment, I sat on the stairs for a long time, hesitating to go back in.

 My wife arrived in the morning in a foul mood and found me sleeping in the entryway. She woke me up and asked,

"What have you done to your hair?!"

I couldn't understand what she meant. Then she pulled a mirror out of her purse and handed it to me. I saw that the hair on the left side of my head had turned completely gray, and the right side was completely bare—as if someone had cut my hair bald. My wife screamed,

"What do you mean? Are you on drugs? Who dyed your hair?!"

Unable to understand my incoherent mutterings about the horror in the room, she entered the apartment. A few seconds later, I heard her scream, "Oh, so you ruined the wallpaper too?!"

When I entered the apartment, I saw the word "METUS" crookedly written in dark red on the living room wall.