6. Have you ever feared anything either in the reality or in your imagination?
Write an account of your feelings in 300 words.
Answers
Answer:
I hid away behind the couch when I was about 7 or 8 years old. It was past bedtime, all lights were out except for the gleam off the television screen. My parents were up watching something and I had discovered that it was a good spot to settle into without being noticed.
It was Halloween-time so the movie was appropriate to the season. I remember it was about vampires. The scene that stuck out and stayed burned into my memory was one of a person sitting in a dark room, rocking back and forth slowly in a wooden rocking chair. They open their eyes. The eyes are red and shining.
That was enough. I went back to bed. Terror. I don’t know if it was that same night or another such night that I snuck out for another vampire movie scene and was struck by the sounds of screaming as they attacked people. Either way, a vampire phobia settled into my bones, and stayed well into my 30s.
I went to my elementary school library and did all the research a person could in the 80s to learn about vampires. Keep the windows closed at night, as a vampire can turn into smoke and drift into your room that way. Sleep with a crucifix above your bed. They are afraid of them and will hiss but likely not come close. They prefer to bite on the left side of your neck so never sleep with that side exposed. Vampires tend to be born on or close to Christmas so beware of people who tell you that’s their birthday. Male vampires prefer female prey. Female vampires have no preference for gender, therefore being a girl is the worst thing in this situation. Dracula might make you fall in love with him. Unless they’re tearing you to shreds in packs, or are especially vicious, it might actually not hurt when they bite. Don’t invite them into your house as they need permission (most people know those last bits, right?)
Now, you’d think that all this would be easy to grow out of, but I promise you I was fully grown, owned my own mortgage on my own very adult apartment, and one winter night when visiting my parents, I chanced watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and had to spend the weekend there as I couldn’t go home alone. And a few times here and there, I would make people watch me walk to my car alone so that nothing would get me on the way there in the dark.
How did I reason the possibility into existence? Well, I am Catholic, and so, the reasoning was, if God exists, then the devil exists, and if the devil exists and enjoys human suffering, well, why wouldn’t he create and send a monster like that out to torture me? He knows it would be the best way to terrify me, right? Easy payoff for the worst creature in existence.
When I turned 30, a friend of mine bought me a Van Helsing DVD and told me it was time to get over it! She was only half-joking and it only took me a few more years but eventually I put myself through a careful exposure-therapy with that movie and another friend’s Buffy set to get there.
I think I’m mostly over it now. Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt were worth the effort in Interview with a Vampire.
But I did have to get that DVD out of my house last year… I guess it comes and goes!