[HPFGU-OTChatter] Re: Irrational childhood (and afterward...) fears

[Iggy McSnurd]

>A. Vulgarweed:
> But those are GOOD horror movies. For me, it was a BAD horror movie that
> did it. Anybody remember a horrible little cheapie, circa 1979 or so,
> called 'Prophecy'? Paper mill in Maine dumping nasty chemicals in the
> water. Ancient Indian prophecy about the revenge of the mountain. Fugly
> giant mutated fish, then.....fugly giant slimy mutated BEARS, who had
> super-ursine powers (couldn't be shot) and killed people. Did anybody else
> see this thing? Oh MAN. See, I grew up in the woods. My dad was a park
> ranger. He was always on about the destruction of the environment and
> conservation (still is). This movie seemed very PLAUSIBLE to me, and while
> I didn't give up playing in the woods (couldn't really, as there was
> nowhere to play for miles that wasn't woods), I spent a lot of time
running
> out of them in screaming terror because some songbird or bunny rabbit was
> rustling in the leaves and startled me.

Iggy here:

I heard about the movie... my sister saw it and told me all about it.  I can
actually see something like that potentially happening... but it didn't
worry me too much, since I didn't live in an area with bears.  (Mountain
lions, on the other hande, definately lived in the area.  As a matter of
fact, UCSC has signs at the start of every path that leads into the woods
warning about mountain lions and telling how to deal with them if you
encounter one.)

There was a movie about the same time as Prophecy, called Manitou... THIS
was the one that freaked out my sister.  It was about a woman who had a
swelling on the back of her neck that kept growing.  When the doctors cut it
open, out came a monstrous Indian spirit or something... It started killing
people and had to be defeated.  Shortly after seeing the movie, my sister
got a big ingrown zit (aka, aboil) on the back of her neck.  She freaked
like you wouldn't imagine...

The other one that used to get to her was a movie called "It's Alive" about
a couple who have this mutated monster baby that scrabbles around killing
people until they finally manage to kill it.

Then of course, there was "Amityville Horror" and "Rosemary's Baby."  Both
of those movies freaked her out as well.

>A. Vulgarweed:
> Oh yeah, also reading. I read Stephen King with no lasting trauma. What
got
> me was Poe's "The Premature Burial"--which contains a VERY VIVID
> description of *exactly* what it might be like to be buried prematurely,
in
> loving sensual detail. Gaaah. I blame him for my enduring claustrophobia.

Iggy here:

One of my favorite Poe stories, and one that wierds out a lot of people, is
"the Cask of Amontillado."  It's about a man who is seeking revenge for a
possibly real, or imagined, slight against his family.  He lures a man from
the other family down into his wine cellar during a citywide celebration,
using promises of a cask of a rare wine knonw as Amontillado.  There's
nothing in the small cellar cubby but a set of shackles set into the wall.
He locks the drunkard into the shackles, and then proceeds to brick him up
into the cubbyhole of the wall.

>
> Which brings me to: Flying. (On airplanes, silly) SOMETIMES. The worst
part
> is, the panic attacks come and go with no rhyme or reason--when I buy a
> ticket to go somewhere, I never know if on the day of the flight I'm gonna
> be all chill, having my bad canned Bloody Mary and reading Harry Potter
and
> watching the pretty clouds below, or if I'm going to be _whimpering in
> mortal terror and begging a flight attendant to hold my hand_ (yes, I
> really have done this.) I was fine coming back from New York from a
> friend's wedding--in August 2001. (When I went back about a month and a
> half later to help some friends through the aftermath, I took the friggin'
> Amtrak, oh yes.)

Iggy here:

Ok, about Amtrak trains first... I refuse to ride cross country on a train,
even though I *really* want to, because I had a very vivid dream about me
being in a train wreck and possibly dying.  (Everything going head over
heels, then going black...)

On the other part of the above statements...

I'll assume that, with your reference to Panic Attacks, that you are a
fellow sufferer.

A major positive event actually happened in my life due to severe panic.
(This is a "silver lining" story here...)

My mom had turned in a heap of her frequent flyer miles to get me a ticket
back east to Syracuse, NY, to visit family.  The night before I was supposed
to go, I started to get incredibly anxious, so my mom told me to just see
what happened in the morning and decide if I wanted to still go in the
morning.  (I was staying at her house that night since she was going to
drive me to the airport the next morning.)  The morning I was supposed to
go, I was pretty much curled up on the floor in the fetal position, staring
at the wall.  We decided that I wasn't going to go...

Now for the good part...  I met my wife on-line about 3 months before, and
we had been in pretty much constant contact over the phone and via e-mail.
We both knew a good deal about eachother (the good and the bad) and had
pretty much fallen in love, though I was in Santa Cruz, California, and she
was in northern Alabama.  Well, during the week I ended up staying home on
vacation (since I wasn't in NY) she and I decided that I would be moving
down here to Alabama.  This was with the intent for me to live with her and
her son, and intent to become engaged (unless something went really wrong,
which it didn't, obviously).

I am convinced to this day that, had I gone to NY, it would have been a
*lot* longer before we had reached the decision for me to move down here...
if ever.  Now we're married, have a 2 year old daughter, and I have a 13
year old step-son.

My family thought I was insane for deciding to move down here... that is
until they met my wife, then they accepted her.  My mom had even been on the
verge of disowning me entirely.  I think what told her I was serious was
when I told her that if she felt the need to disown me, I would accept that,
and she would have no son... but that even that would not deter me.  Every
part of me told me that it was something I had to do.. for good or bad.

To this day, whenever anyone asks my mom how I'm doing down here, she tells
them "You know, I thought he was out of his mind when he told me he was
moving to Alabama to be with a woman he met on-line, but I'll be damned if
the kid didn't know exactly what he was doing."  *grin*  (My southern wife
actually gets along better with my Italian mother better than I do most of
the time... *chuckle*)


Iggy McSnurd