This story is the first in a long line of paranormal experiences that have led me to believe that I somehow attracted spirits and entities wherever I go. This was the event that kicked it all off. It began when my family and I moved into a new house in Rialto, California, about thirteen years ago.

I remember being so excited because it was the first time in my life that I was going to have my own bedroom. For a girl turning thirteen that was a pretty big deal. I didn't care that it was the smallest room in the house or that it was all the way in the back by the garage, all that mattered was having my personal space. When we moved into the house we were forced to clean out the stuff left behind by the previous tenants. It honestly looked like they had left in a hurry, having left many of their possessions behind.

We found some strange items in the closet of my room; my mother being from a religious background seemed particularly upset by them. I remember her saying to throw them away and that they were bad. I don't recall all that we found other than this green glass jar that had a strange goat head on it along with some odd designs. I didn't think much of it and threw it all away as she had requested.

A couple weeks later we were completely moved in and I had my own space. I couldn't have been happier. The only real issue with my room was that the closet door was broken, as it was always open about two inches. It was a repair that was added to the list, but wasn't of the highest importance.

It probably was about a month into having my own room that I would get this strange feeling whenever I was alone that someone was watching me. I couldn't explain it, but it made me feel jumpy and uncomfortable. It became more and more oppressive as the weeks dragged on. It was worse when I would go to bed at night. I would lay awake, looking at my ceiling and feeling like someone was staring out of the closest at me.

It got so bad that I couldn't stand the dark. I wanted to be able to see everything that was in my room. I started sleeping with my bedroom light on, which my mom seemed concerned about, but when I told her the reason why she said it was all in my mind. However, my mother had let me pick out these lights to string up around my room, kind of like Christmas lights, only they were Halloween lights because I loved the color orange at the time.

The light seemed to help feel a little better, but it didn't take away the uneasy feeling. Some nights I would lay in bed staring at the crack of my closest, trying to spy if there truly was something there, something that would explain the paranoia I felt. At around the same time, my sister, who is three years older, had gotten herself a babysitting gig. The kids would come over and stay at our house sometimes, which often led to me giving up my bedroom on those nights.

The thing was the kids seemed to become upset whenever it was time to go to sleep. They would complain about my room, saying that it scared them. My sister didn't think much of it, but I knew how they felt, because I was scared of my room too. I hadn't seen anything, heard anything, but it was just this overbearing feeling of being watched constantly. What I didn't know was that the presence had been waiting patiently for the right time to make itself known.

It was the night of my thirteenth birthday that it all came to a head. I had been allowed by my mom to have a sleepover with a couple of my girlfriends and I was so excited, not only because my friends were coming over, but because I had recently become friends with an older, more popular girl, and for the sake of keeping her identity private I'll name her B.

My party was going off without a problem and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. What I hadn't noticed was one by one the girls started to leave my room. It happened gradually until it was only me and B in my bedroom. At this point I was a little upset that my friends had left me, because I assumed they were hanging out with my older and "cooler" sister.

Suddenly my best friend at the time, let's call her K, burst into my room looking rather unsettled. She told us that something had happened to my sister.

I remember rolling my eyes and feeling annoyed, thinking she was trying to steal the attention away from me. Still, B and I went together to see what the fuss was about. We passed my sister's room to see the other girls looking quite shaken, this was when I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. We made it into the living room to find my sister sitting in one of the chairs, crying and looking very scared. At that point I knew something must have happened because she wasn't prone to crying.

When I asked her what had happened she replied saying, "I was in the kitchen getting a glass of water when the room suddenly grew darker and seemed to stretch out. I turned around when I heard a noise and it felt like things were flying at me. I ran away after that."

After she recounted what happened she turned her gaze to B and made a surprisingly accusing statement, "Have you been doing something you aren't supposed to, B?" I remember my sister's voice sounding slightly odd to me, but I figured it was from the crying.

At the question B suddenly broke down into sobbing, which had me confused. She then admitted that she and a couple of her other friends had been playing with a Ouija board and that she had been having odd things happening around her. At this my sister and my friend K thought it was a good idea to say a prayer over B and the house, hoping to rid us of whatever darkness may have been following her. I stood by as they started to pray.

As I stood I heard the sound of footsteps walking up towards the back door, as we left it open for the dogs to go in and out. Only this night the dogs were locked up in my parents' room because of my sleepover. So, I knew that it wasn't our dogs, which caused the hairs on my arm to raise. I kept waiting for someone to come through the door.

I could feel the familiar feeling, like someone was watching, standing just out of view. They continued to pray and I heard the footsteps once more, only this time they seemed to be of someone walking away. The horrible oppressive feeling left with them.

After that night, I never slept in my bedroom again. I went back to sharing a room with my sister and my room became a place nobody went anymore. A year later we moved out of that house and I thought I was free.

We moved to Santa Rosa, California, to help some of my family after the passing of my aunt. For the first year and a half we lived with my grandparents. My sister and I sharing our old great grandmother's bedroom. Nothing happened in that house, in fact I always felt extremely safe and loved in that room which was a great change of pace from the way things had been.

When I was sixteen my mom moved us into a house of our own where I was once again rewarded with my own bedroom. I was excited because I could decorate it however I wanted, so of course I painted my wall bright pink. My mother used to comment that I needed to keep my door closed because of it would reflect off the hardwood floors.

I remember feeling a little nervous to be alone again, but I tried to tell myself that I was paranoid because of the past. This was a new house and the past was far behind me. For the first couple of months everything seemed fine but like all great things, that couldn't last.

The first incident happened when I was home alone waiting for my aunt to pick me up and take me driving because I had recently acquired my permit. I was sitting in my room watching a movie on TV...I think it might have been Snow Dogs (gosh I'm getting old). Anyway, it suddenly switched to the TV Guide, before scrolling through the list of channels. I think to myself that I must have leaned back into the remote. I reached behind myself to find nothing as the scrolling of the list became more frantic and began jumping from channel to channel.

I felt my heart start to beat faster and I got up off my bed to see that there was no remote. I started to scan my room until I found it sitting across from me on my computer chair, completely untouched. I stared at it for a moment in shock, unable to reconcile how the television was operating in such a way. I remember looking back to the TV in dread, wanting to run but unable to move. All I could do was watch as it began to make wild jumps in channels, until finally coming to a stop on a movie playing on one of the Starz channels. The name of the movie...Just Visiting.

I didn't wait around for anything else to happen. I booked it out of my room, grabbed my wallet and waited outside on the steps until my aunt got there.

That was the first incident in the new house but it was only beginning. After that I had trouble with the electronics in my room constantly. My TV would change channels on its own. I had a five-disc CD changer that would turn itself on and off; the discs popping out and spinning around as if someone was trying to play music.

I told my family and they would laugh it off. They thought I was being ridiculous because none of them were experiencing anything. It was just Ashley and her ghosts again. After a couple months of this I couldn't handle it anymore. I moved almost all of the electronics out of my room because I wanted peace and silence. I tried to move furniture in my room around in hopes of changing the energy.

It seemed to help for a while. The activity in my room seemed to lessen to only a few strange happenings here and there. Once again though it didn't last.

The closet became another problem for me. My room had a walk-in closet and I had removed the door and opted for 70's style door beads. They had a habit of moving on their own as if there was a breeze or someone had brushed them.

I remember one day I had gotten something out of the closest in a hurry and some of the strands had swung so hard they had tangled around my bed post. I untangled them and set them back before I left. When I returned to my room a couple hours later they were wrapped once again around my bed post. I never felt any ominous feelings from these incidents more like playful poking. While I didn't enjoy them...I could bear with it because I didn't feel like they were sinister.

Anyway, the reason my family began to believe me was because of one particular incident that happened after I had graduated and was back home from college. I was working at the Disney store at the time and had become rather close with one of my co-workers. Let's just call her Snow. Well one evening Snow and I were hanging out at my house, watching some TV in the living room.

When all of a sudden there was the sound of someone running from the far side of our house (where my bedroom was located), to the other side of the house (where the laundry room was located). The lights in the room we were in flickered on and off, before finally everything lost power. Snow almost immediately jumped up off the couch, completely freaked out. She was like, "What the heck, Ashley? What the heck?!"

I told her to calm down, that everything was totally fine, even though I myself was scared as well. It was the first time that anything had interacted with me outside of my bedroom and in the presence of another person. I got up to go check the fuse box when the sound of running happened again. It moved from the laundry room, back down the hallway and into my room. The lights and everything turned back on.

At this point Snow was like, "This is messed up! I want to leave. I am never coming back to your house again." And she didn't. Whenever we hung out it was always at her house. She refused to come into my house again and I don't blame her.

Not long after that I went back to college then moved across country where I lived for a while and where I had more experiences. However, I returned to that house again shortly after I turned twenty-two. My mother and her husband were moving to another state and wanted me to help oversee and care for the house while it was renovated to be sold.

Almost a year later when the renovations were nearing completion I had my good friend (now boyfriend) move in with me. We shared the master bedroom most nights. Only I always felt uneasy in this room of the house, like there was something there that was angry and didn't want me in there. I rarely would hang out in there alone.

It was in this room that I experienced the most memorable and sinister paranormal experience of my life to date.

I was in bed with my boyfriend and I felt a weight on the end of the bed as if someone was pushing down on it, or perhaps sat down. I remember being afraid to open my eyes, but I could feel someone staring at me. It was a familiar feeling, one that I hadn't felt in a long time, but conjured up images of my old bedroom and the glow of my orange Halloween lights.

Slowly the weight shifted, moving up the bed on the other side me. I opened my eyes and saw nothing, but I could feel an invisible hand touching me. I felt like I wanted to jump out of my own skin. I remember that despite the other body in the bed with me and the blanket I was covered with, I felt the need to shiver.

The invisible force seemed to be wrapped around me, almost like it was holding me. I got the strange feeling that whatever this was it was obsessed with me, and it was angry. It was angry about the man in the bed beside me. As that thought rushed through my mind I felt myself being choked.

I tried to move my body, to reach out for my boyfriend, but I couldn't. I was completely helpless to do anything. I remember tears streaming down my face as I was helpless against my invisible attacker. I thought for a small moment that I was going to die. I remember using all the energy I had left in my body to move my hand to grab hold of my boyfriend. I remember calling his name as loudly as I could as I clutched his arm in my hand, though it came out as a raspy whisper. I called him twice more, feeling frantic and desperate. He came to and the presence fled. I could breathe again.

I sobbed, trying to regain my breath as I told my boyfriend what had happened. My boyfriend, a spiritual man, didn't question what I was telling him. He rose up from the bed and investigated every part of the room before burning some sage to hopefully rid the space of any lingering negative energy.

I have had more experiences since then, but to this day, that remains the most terrifying experience I have ever had. I don't know if I am simply a person who has bad luck in finding homes that are haunted or if I am the conduit for these happenings. Either way, all I know is that I am a girl haunted.