#myfears

It’s awkward when it’s pointed out

When I think I hide so well

It’s a power that I proudly tout

And foolishly thought no one could tell.

What a silly man I am

I boldly try make a stand

Hello, lovelies!

So it’s the first of December and thus comes the time of thinking up resolutions and how to ‘better’ ourselves, to be the best version of ourselves that we can be. To strive to be perfect, or as close to that as we can.

Usually I don’t do resolutions or ‘goal setting’ in the normal sense because I think that its all very hollow. Usually people only do ‘true attempts’ at goal setting at new years because it’s the beginning of a cycle, but once they falter, the idea is ‘ruined’ and lots of times people will wait until the next new year to try again.

Horror and Me

Amidst growing up, the horror genre had been somewhat embedded within my life due to the primary socialisation in which I endured. My mother was the most influential, as she would watch films and television series including themes and ideas of the supernatural; vampires, witches, werewolves – you name it. My first vivid memory of being familiarised to aspects of horror, was my introductory to the 1998 series Charmed at the age of 4, then shortly after reaching the age of 5, Doctor Who made its return to the BBC, ultimately scaring me and many children with its pilot episode yet, the fundamental concept of fear intrigued my young self. And then… started my obsession.

The Autons in Doctor Who manifested an initial psychological fear, some labelling it as learned fear, for mannequins and antique-looking dolls. I remember refusing to enter shops or even pass shop windows with glass clearly shielding my skin from the human-shaped plastic. I also remember evading the once Georgian workhouse, the Red House Museum, or at least as much as I could. There was a corridor with a dead-end, lined with aisles of mannequins dressed from Georgian attire to Victorian and modern, showcasing how time and society had changed. Thus, all I could imagine when they entered the valley of plastic were my families deaths. And how this was it. How would I live without them? Where would I go? Who would I live with? By freeing my already huge imagination, those types of thoughts clouded my better judgment, up until I saw them emerge from the shadows alive.

Another early fear of mine, which has crossed over into my adult life, are anything and everything associated with clowns. I have avoided clowns for most of my life and I can’t remember and pinpoint a specific time for when I accumulated such a distasteful fear and discomfort for them as they have managed to bring me to tears before. Fiona Macdonald in 2016 for a BBC article delved into how the clown is seen as disturbing to many. A study was taken, asking more than a thousand individuals and tests ‘concluded that “being ‘creeped out’ is an evolved adaptive emotional response to ambiguity about the presence of threat” in other words… “a person is creepy if we are uncertain about whether he or she is someone to fear”.’[1] As in Kathryn Ptacek’s Dollies[2], horror notions of threat are seen in isolation and the destroying of innocence, further highlighting a commonly used motifs from the parent genre the Gothic such as ‘power and constraint’[3] leaving an audience in distress. Dollies closely link to the text titled Frightening Fiction, as it states ‘one effect… is likely to be the reinforcing of the status quo. By putting normality in jeopardy, it creates a desire for its return and future security’[4], underlining an understanding to the lore of attraction; that every action has an equal or opposite reaction. Yet, a stimulus of fear simultaneously became a reality as the article was written as lunatics dressed as killer clowns created hysteria across the globe, following a social media trend that proceeded further than it should have to begin with.

My belief is fear, whether it’s innate like my fear of heights, or learned through observation and experiences, function as subconscious warnings in our minds, stopping from mental self-infliction.

An unsettling quote from Ptacek’s Dollies lingered with me for a while after reading it as the words showcased why I love to write how I write now; I love to kill every character I create, adult or child to unease you there, reading this.

‘I laid my fingers gently across her nose and mouth. It didn’t take long. She didn’t really even struggle… I watched for her chest to rise and fall, and when it no longer did, I bent down and gave her a kiss on the top of her head, and then I got up and crossed to the closet and put her on the shelf beside the other Elizabeths.’[5]

 WORD COUNT (WITHOUT QUOTATIONS) - 537

[1] Fiona Macdonald, “A surprising history of the creepy clown.” BBC Culture, 19th October 2016, Accessed 5th February 2020 http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20161019-a-surprising-history-of-the-bad-clown [2] Mark Morris, eds., New Fears (London: Titan Publishing Group Ltd, 2017), 333. [3] Matt Elphick, “Horrific Origins,” Lecture, Winchester University, 2020. [4]Kimberley Reynolds, et al. eds., Frightening Fiction (London: Continuum, 2001), 8. [5] Mark Morris, eds., New Fears (London: Titan Publishing Group Ltd, 2017), 348.

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