I started to hear knocking in my room at night. I was whispering, “Hey, if you need help crossing over, that’s fine. Just let me sleep.” The knocking got less frequent. Flash forward a few years, I was 12 when I started having problems with anxiety. They sent me off to have a full workup. It turns out there was no raccoon or creepy pervert making the noise, I had something called nocturnal myoclonus—uncontrolled limb movements that happen during sleep, usually paired with anxiety and restlessness.

It was a relief and weird at the same time. The knocking? That was me. My foot or hand twitching and hitting the wall or headboard. All that time, I thought it was something outside me. Something haunting me. Turns out it was just my own body. Funny how the mind fills in the blanks with drama when the truth is boring.

But that didn’t stop the anxiety.

Even after the diagnosis, the restless nights kept coming. The movements could be managed with some meds and sleep hygiene, but the panic? That stuck like gum in my hair.

Middle school didn’t help. I had a nervous habit of shaking my leg under my desk, and kids would stare or whisper. One guy called me “Earthquake Boy” for a whole semester. It was easier to eat lunch in the library, or in the band room where the teacher let me clean the instruments so I wouldn’t have to sit alone.

My parents tried their best. Mom would write me notes and slip them into my lunch—stuff like “Today is just one day, not your whole life.” Dad was more practical. He bought me noise-canceling headphones and drove me to therapy every Saturday morning without fail.

Still, there were days when I felt like the world was just…too loud. Too bright. Too much.

Then came high school, and for some reason, things got better and worse at the same time. Better because people didn’t care as much. Worse because I did. I wanted to be “normal” so badly it made my stomach hurt.

There was one person who noticed. Her name was Jorie. She had hair dyed purple at the tips and wrote poetry in the margins of her math notebook. She sat next to me in Algebra II, and one day she saw me tapping my fingers on my jeans in that frantic way I did when panic was crawling up my spine.

She didn’t ask if I was okay. She just said, “Want me to tap with you?”

I didn’t answer, but I saw her hand mimic mine. Perfect rhythm. It made me feel less alone.

From then on, Jorie and I became unlikely friends. We didn’t hang out in big groups. We walked to 7-Eleven for Slurpees after school and sat on the curb trading stories that we never told anyone else.

Jorie’s mom had been in and out of rehab since she was nine. Her dad wasn’t around. She lived with her grandmother, who thought poetry was a waste of time and only ever called her by her full name—Marjorie. She hated that.

We both had our weird nights. Mine with the twitching and panic, hers with nightmares and fights with her grandma. We didn’t try to fix each other. Just sat in it together.

One time, I told her about the knocking.

She laughed. “So you thought it was ghosts?”

“Yeah,” I said. “And I was ready to negotiate with them. Like, ‘Look, I got math homework and my mom’s mad at me. Can we not do this right now?’”

She laughed so hard she almost choked on her Slurpee. That laugh was rare, and I felt proud.

We got through sophomore and junior year like that. Quiet friendship. Shared snacks. Long walks. But senior year things changed.

Jorie started missing school.

At first, it was just Mondays. Then whole weeks. I texted her, but she’d reply late, saying she was sick or tired or that her grandma had taken her phone.

I believed her until I didn’t.

One day, I walked by the 7-Eleven after school and saw her sitting in the alley behind it, hunched over. I thought she was crying, but when I got closer, I saw the truth.

She had a needle in her arm.

I froze. I didn’t say anything. Just stared until she noticed me.

She tried to smile. “Hey,” she said. “Guess this ruins the Slurpee run.”

My chest tightened. “What are you doing?”

She shrugged. “Same thing I’ve always done. Trying to be okay.”

I didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t equipped for this. I told her I had to go, then walked home in silence. That night, the knocking came back.

Harder this time. Louder. But it wasn’t my limbs.

It was my brain.

I couldn’t sleep for days. I wanted to help, but I didn’t even know where to start. I told my therapist, who told me not to carry someone else’s weight. But how do you not carry it when it’s your best friend?

Eventually, I told my mom. She made a few calls, and somehow, Jorie got into a program. Her grandma didn’t know what to do, so my mom stepped in.

Jorie was gone for two months.

When she came back, she looked thinner, but her eyes were brighter. She thanked me without saying thank you. Just said, “The world is still too much, but at least now I see it.”

We sat on the curb like old times. She didn’t touch anything but a Slurpee. I watched her fingers tap against the cup. Still in rhythm with mine.

Graduation came and went. I got into a state college. Jorie didn’t apply anywhere, said she wanted to travel and write and maybe figure things out in her own time.

We promised to keep in touch.

I believed it when we said it. But life has a way of spreading people out.

First semester of college, I stayed in my dorm room a lot. The anxiety came back, stronger this time. I’d wake up gasping, arms shaking, legs jerking hard enough to make the bed frame rattle. My roommate thought I was having seizures. I explained what it was, but he didn’t stick around long.

Second semester, I got a single room.

I didn’t mind. The silence was easier than the explanations.

One night, my phone buzzed. It was a message from Jorie.

“Hey. I’m in your city. Wanna get coffee?”

We met up the next morning at a little café near campus. She looked different. Healthier. She wore a long coat and had a journal sticking out of her bag. She told me she was staying with a friend while applying to writing workshops.

We sat there for hours, talking about nothing and everything.

At one point, she looked at me and said, “You still twitch?”

I smiled. “Every night.”

She reached over and tapped the table. “I’m still in rhythm.”

We met once a week after that. Sometimes twice. She read me her poems. I told her about classes. One time, she said, “You know, you saved me.”

I shook my head. “Nah, you saved yourself.”

She shrugged. “Maybe. But you didn’t walk away.”

That stuck with me.

After college, I landed a job at a nonprofit helping teens with mental health challenges. I told them it was personal. I didn’t say more.

One day, a kid named Devin came in. Fifteen. Nervous hands. Looked down a lot. Said he couldn’t sleep. Said he heard knocking at night.

I didn’t laugh. I didn’t question it. I told him my story.

He blinked. “So it was you all along?”

“Yeah,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t real.”

He tilted his head. “What do you mean?”

I thought about it for a second. “The fear was real. The confusion. The feeling of being alone. That was all real. Even if the noise came from me.”

He nodded slowly. And that was the start of something better for him.

A few years passed. I built a small life. Nothing glamorous. But steady. My anxiety never fully left, but I learned how to ride the wave. Some nights were worse than others. Some mornings, I felt the knock again. But now, I didn’t whisper to ghosts.

I whispered to myself: “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

Jorie eventually published a book of poems. She signed my copy with: Still in rhythm. Always.

Last year, I got a letter.

It was from a high school classmate I barely remembered. He said he used to sit behind me, noticed how my leg would shake, and always thought I was weird. But later, in college, he had a breakdown. Said he remembered me and started reading about anxiety. It helped him get help.

“I guess your knocking helped more than just you,” he wrote.

That letter made me cry.

We spend so much time trying to hide the messy parts. The trembling, the stammering, the nights we can’t breathe. We think they make us weak.

But sometimes, those are the things that connect us.

Looking back, I don’t regret the fear or the nights I thought I was haunted. I don’t regret the shaking or the silence. It all led me to people who needed to be seen. People like Jorie. People like Devin. People like me.

So if you’re hearing knocking at night—real or not—don’t be ashamed.

Sometimes, it’s just the sound of something trying to be understood.

And maybe, just maybe, it’s the start of you becoming the person someone else will need one day.

If this story spoke to you in any way, share it. Someone out there might be hearing their own knocking right now—and they need to know they’re not alone.

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