Halloween - This is re: Increased Anxiety/not "Spooky"-Playful

[[Cu...]]

Anyone experience increased anxiety?  Trick or Treaters/Doorbell...."tricks"...

 

Last year I was still in taper.  Now, I'm not but in much more pain & senses are heightened/overstimulated.  So, I don't want to be answering the doorbell.  The w/e after Halloween last year (I did not answer bell & kept lights out), some kids hurled a large landscaping stone through a back window, shattering both glass & feelings of safety/security.  I'd heard voices out back moments before incidence.  I was rattled & shaken up just by the loud sound.  First thought was a car backfiring somewhere in the neighborhood.  Then I'd thought something next door, as I can sometimes hear their garage door.  I didn't immediately connect it to hearing them; it was loud, but I couldn't distinguish it was something that occurred in my own home.  Went into this other room & it had landed on the opposite end (large room), so it was thrown w/force.  If I'd been in there, in the line of trajectory, I most certainly would have sustained an injury.  They don't live on this cul-de-sac, as I know the families here.  Coincidental that it was immediately after Halloween.  This is a nice, quiet, respectable neighborhood, or it was.   

 

I didn't have any anxiety issues before tolerance w/d, but I do now.  However,  I'm still able to control it - distraction, deep breathing, but it's escalating as Halloween & anniversary of that horrible- & criminal- incident, draws ever nearer. 

Aware this is an unusual circumstance (at least I hope so), but thinking others, even w/out this personal bit of nastiness, may experience anxiety increase.  What do you do re: Halloween? 

 

I didn't report it to the police.  All I had was the shattered glass & the stone.  In retrospect, thinking I probably should have.  I didn't b/c I figured "what can they possibly do?"  My main concern was getting it repaired (phone calls).  Repairman couldn't get to me until Monday (this was Saturday), then requiring to have it taped in the meanwhile.  Which was good thing b/c temperatures dropped quite a bit that evening.  Repairman came Monday to take a look & measurements - it took another week-1/2 for the replacement window to come in.

 

Any ideas what I can do to feel safer?  To help to decrease the escalating anxiety?  On Halloween, put bowl out w/"Please take 1" sign?  -  Which will probably be meaningless.

 

It would be pertinent, too, for those who have experienced any traumatic event(s); if you experience an upsurge of anxiety @ the anniversary, what do you do?

Thanks, everyone.   

[[Fl...]]

Turn off all of your lights so it looks like no one is home, and forget about putting candy out unattended. My mom tried that a few years ago. I told her it wouldn't work. Wasn't 15 minutes before someone took everything, bowl and all.