People who genuinely believe they have seen a ghost - care to share your experience? Did you believe in ghosts beforehand?

Seen one? I'd call it an experience rather than seeing with my eyes and it left me living in terror in my own home for more than two years. I NEVER believed in ghosts. I thought all of these people were trolling and trying to be edgelords for attention. I honestly hated even hearing the word ghost. I should add I do not and have never experienced any psychosis or anything like this before. It happened in my current home. I lived here for 18 months before anything happened. It was November, shortly before 11pm and I was playing Among Us. I went to the toilet, peed and as I was sorting my trousers out I heard a weird noise a few feet away. The shampoo bottle (more than half full) was rocking side to side SLOWLY. No windows were open, nothing came into contact with (not even possible from that distance). It rocked left, right, left, right and stopped. I was so scared I couldn't move. More incidents occurred. Every night between 10:52- early morning I began hearing strange sounds. I would sit on my pc focusing on a game or studying and suddenly feel like someone was standing in my kitchen or a few feet away watching me. It was enough to distract me. I walked into the kitchen and felt areas of sudden cold. We had a carpet at the time and behind me around this time I heard a loud plucking sound in the corner as though an animal was yanking at the carpet. We do not have a pet capable of this and our pet was in his cage at the time. When I searched, there was nothing there. One of these nights I went to the toilet, we had a mirror above the sink and when I was washing my hands I glimpsed something in the mirror behind me. I didn't see what it was but when I turned around my entire body felt cold. It was like another person was standing there menacingly a few feet away staring at me. I was so afraid I couldn't move. I kept washing my hands for 2-3 minutes before the feeling faded and I ran out of the room. These encounters happened a number of times, the worst was when I felt someone step up behind me to turn around and nobody was there. He did this multiple times. These incidents were so bad I was frightened to go to the toilet at night. I could hear him walk around sometimes at night too. This presence continued the entire time. A few weeks later I woke up in the middle of the night and felt like someone was standing over me. I had this horrible feeling and in my mind I could see this old man with a balding head and very piercing black, unnatural eyes staring at me. A few weeks later I woke up and saw black writing all over the walls in the hall and a horrible darkness in the doorway to my daughter's bedroom. I blinked twice and it all disappeared. I was so frightened it was hard to get back to sleep. The image of this man was in my mind, I knew where he was, I felt him like another person standing there but I couldn't see him with eyes if that makes sense. I had nightmares about him that felt very different to normal nightmares. Always the same man with the black eyes and the evil smile. They were always malicious, one contained a creepy house in the woods full of saws and things to kill people. I'd wake up and he was in the room. I would be falling asleep and suddenly feel someone in the room. I could tell when he was in my daughter's room, he would go and look at her and then leave. Around this time I also began having severe nightmares and my first incidents of sleep paralysis. I'd never experienced anything like it before. One time my husband and I were sitting on our computers around 7pm. Behind us was our daughter's table with two wooden chairs placed neatly on the top. Suddenly, both chairs came crashing down and ended up around 2-3 feet away on the floor. Nothing touched them and they were far too heavy for any breeze to take down. He did not believe me until he witnessed his incident and he started yelling at the ghost. He was annoyed with my constant panicking (he went to be a few hours earlier than me every night). Over time the image of this man came clearer. He would stand over me when I was on the computer at night. Sometimes he would blow a sudden puff of freezing air down my neck. He would do it in the kitchen too. I heard him laugh twice but he never spoke with words. The man was around 5'7-8, slim build, elderly and balding. Definitely white. I think he was the ghost of the elderly man who lived in the house before that was forced into a care home and passed away shortly before these incidents happened (I didn't find out until later that he'd died). I learned to ignore him, fear is what fuelled him. I could tell he wanted me to do something and he kept loitering near the kitchen window and back door. He would watch me on the pc constantly and one time he laughed at the music I listened to. And then one day this monster of a man saved my life. I was on the PC gaming and ignoring him. He was there, as usual, looming and walking between me and the kitchen. He started being really pushy, standing up against me and freezing me and breathing on me. Eventually he huffed so loudly I heard it the same as if another person was sitting next to me. I took my headset off and he immediately went into the kitchen, so I followed. He was standing outside the kitchen window staring in at me with his slightly rotten face. I went to the window and he drew back. There was a man wearing a hood and a black face mask in my back garden STARING at me. An actual man this time, not this ghost man. I was so scared my entire body seized up. I made it back to the doorway but I couldn't move from terror. The freeze response is horrid. I told myself I would hide and check in 2 minutes and if he was there I would call the police. Needless to say, I was fine that night. I genuinely believe if I hadn't have jumped up and followed that damn corpse that intruder may have broken in and done something horrible. I locked eyes with that intruder. I don't know if the ghost (I called Derrick) did something to chase the intruder or if it was that I'd seen him that made him run. I realised that this man was tormenting me because his beautiful garden had fallen to absolute disrepair. When I began sorting it, he started to calm down and eventually became somewhat friendly. We had a few normal interactions too, he didn't scare me and I'd roll my eyes at him when he tried. He wasn't that scary any more and by the time the garden was was in better condition, he disappeared. For a little while after I heard a cat at night running up and down our stairs (we don't have a cat). I haven't seen this man in more than a year now and I'm glad but I also miss him. If you're still around, Derrick, I hope you've found peace. I'll never forget you.