Jonathan Wilson (10) is afraid to go downstairs to the toilet at night since a pipe bomb exploded at the front door of his home in Larne seven weeks ago.
"I wouldn't want anything to blow my legs off," he said. "I'd just be scared so I keep it in. When it comes light maybe I'd go to the toilet."
Loyalist paramilitaries left the device on June 18th outside the house where Jonathan lives with his father, grandmother, uncle and aunt.
When the attack took place, the boy was sleeping in the room he shares with his father, Mr Martin Wilson. Jonathan's mother, who was a Protestant, died before his second birthday, and he is being brought up as a Protestant in a Catholic family.
The sectarian attack occurred soon after Mr Wilson had been elected as one of two SDLP councillors on Larne Borough Council.
Afterwards, Mr Wilson told RUC officers he did not know the exact time of the attack but Jonathan remembered looking at his digital clock and seeing it was 2.13 a.m.
He looked out the window and saw flowerpots scattered all over the ground. Downstairs, there was a hole in the front door and pieces of metal and PVC in the hallway.
Jonathan and his family went to his uncle's house across the street for the night. As he approached the front door, Jonathan discovered another pipebomb, which was later defused by British army bomb experts.
Jonathan said people have told him to try to forget about that night but he is still worried. "I can't help it. Some nights it's hard to sleep, in case something does come through."
Sometimes he is so tired he almost doses off in school but his teacher never gets cross. She understands what happened.
At the end of the next academic year, Jonathan is due to sit his 11-plus exam, which will determine which second-level school he goes to. Now there is doubt over whether he will be able to sit the exam. "There was practice tests but I never done them. I couldn't concentrate," he said.
Mr Wilson said there were "questions, questions, questions" about pipe bombs from Jonathan for about a week after the incident. He has settled down but has become withdrawn and clingy.
Mr Wilson's sister, who was on her way down the stairs when the device exploded, has been taking tranquilisers since and his brother's "nerves are shot".
His mother, Kathleen, who was also in the house that night, has been unable to sleep since. She used to enjoy working in a local bar but her doctor told her she had to give it up.
"I miss it but I know myself I couldn't hold down a job now. You lose all your self-confidence with all the mental torture they put you through," she said.
Mr Wilson said three generations of his family had been made to feel vulnerable by what had happened.
"Regardless of whether it's a pipe bomb, petrol bomb, paint bomb or a stone, once you attack someone's home the impact is the same because the intention is the same. The intention is to intimidate."
He has not been sleeping well since but has resisted going to the doctor. "But I'm going to go and see what he says. When you see your son, mother, brother and sister and the way they're affected, it does have an effect on you."
Many of Mr Wilson's friends have told him his troubles would be over if he moved out of the area. That was not as easy as it sounded, he said. "If you've lived in a place all your life and your family is there, the whole fabric of everything you've ever done is there, how do you move away?"
