A Scary Time for Me as a Freshman at College

Yesterday I wrote about my scariest sleep time experience which brought to mind my college roommate.  For my 2nd semester at Texas Tech I roomed with a very outgoing and vivacious person who was also from Waco, Texas.  She was one of those people who was the life of the party.

Her name was Penny and I enjoyed her company.  As the semester progressed, I began to notice some strange things about her.  One night I woke up to find a clothes line strung from one end of the room to the other.  To my great surprise I found women's underwear hanging on the line.  I questioned her about it and she said she had gone into other dorm rooms and raided the women's drawers for underwear.  This was definitely a red flag.

Then one night I woke to a loud noise and the overhead light fixture in our room had broken and fallen.  I found Penny over me threatening to kill me with one of the larger pieces of the light fixture.  We talked and she backed off.  I notified the dorm office and they had Penny meet with a psychologist.  She came back into the dorm room and said she had been diagnosed as schizophrenic.

Penny was banned from campus and told not to come back.  I was in complete shock.  The girls on my wing of the dorm were afraid of her as they knew that she had threatened to kill me and everyone made plans to leave the campus. My sister and best friend from Waco decided to come stay with me so I would not be alone in my room.

I received a phone call from my sister on the day they were coming up to see me.  The car driven by my best friend had skidded and rolled over into a field.  They were in the hospital with injuries that were minor but they were not able to come to see me.

I was devastated by the news that they were in the hospital and also afraid that Penny would come back to take revenge on me for turning her into the university.  I was alone and decided to pray.  I felt a clear response which had something to do with the fact that I had known Penny before and that the lesson was to love her unconditionally.  I remember thinking how in the world could I have known her before???  I decided though that I could make the decision to love her unconditionally.

During the night Penny showed up in my room.  I asked her how she got there and she said that she knew that there were tunnels running underground at the university and she had used them to enter the campus and come to the dorm.  She said it looked like everyone had left the wing of the dorm and that people must be scared of her.  Then she said she wanted me to know that she loved me and I felt her appreciation for the fact that I had not left the dorm.

She left and I felt a sense of completion within me that our relationship had ended on a peaceful loving note.

I still look back at that time period as one of the most memorable lessons I have had about the importance of love and letting go of fear.