I remember waking up at 2 a.m., not sure what woke me, hearing my dad on the phone with the police. I began to piece together what I was happening when my mom came in to tell me that someone had broken into our house.

A year ago, I knew that there was a burglar going around the Great Falls area, but I never thought the burglar would hit my house. Recent robberies in the area are a constant reminder of the night last year when someone broke into my house. It wasn’t just that night though. Weeks after, I was paranoid whenever I was home alone.

The night of the break-in, it felt like forever before the police arrived. Soon enough they were at our house, along with detectives, search dogs and even helicopters circling outside. People were at our house for the next four hours and my dad didn’t get to go back to sleep: he just went straight to work.

Soon the story came together. The burglar had pried open the side door to our garage, which didn’t have an alarm connected to it. However, the door that led from the outside into the house did have an alarm, and when the burglar heard the beep-beep-beep he left without taking anything.

From then on it seemed like it was so easy for someone to break in, even if the doors were locked and the alarm was set.

For a couple of weeks after the break-in, I made my friends or my mom talk to me on the phone while I was walking home from the bus stop. I made sure every door in the house was always locked and some nights I had trouble sleeping, questioning every noise I heard.

Now I’m no longer paranoid, but I do check to make sure that the doors are locked whenever I’m home alone. I ask you to do the same and avoid the months of paranoia I had to go through.