{"id":20653,"date":"2024-11-21T09:56:57","date_gmt":"2024-11-21T15:56:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/?p=20653"},"modified":"2024-11-21T09:56:58","modified_gmt":"2024-11-21T15:56:58","slug":"my-history-with-horror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/2024\/11\/21\/my-history-with-horror\/","title":{"rendered":"My History with Horror"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n

I am a horror enthusiast. I have been ever since I was young. Things that scared me ultimately lured me in. The elements of mystery and fear piqued my interest. When I was young, I would purposefully watch scary movies, but if it became too much I would hold my hand in front of the screen so I could only see parts of it. I would pick scary books to read, but I would have to read a few words at a time before putting the book down for a few seconds.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know where this initial love of being scared came from. Growing up, I was always afraid. I lived in constant fear. When I lived in Indonesia, I lived in a relatively dangerous place, I was left alone with sketchy adults and I am just now realizing how awful that sounds.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I’ve always been afraid of being alone. When I lived in Indonesia, I had my own bedroom, but it was always empty because I refused to sleep alone, even if it was just a few feet away from my dad. So he built me a little tent on my side of the bed we shared, the side closest to the wall<\/span>. I remember having a terrible nightmare where I came home and a zombie McDonalds worker (I’m so serious) jumped out of the bathroom at me. You know the thing where you can\u2019t run in your dreams? That started happening to me, so I had to crawl away but the rug I was crawling on kept moving with me so I was going nowhere. I called out to my dad and he didn\u2019t do anything to help. That was before I could differentiate dreams from reality so when I woke up, I was really angry at him and never told him why because I thought it was real. I still feel bad for that – I should\u2019ve told him. It’s really funny to look back on that now, though.<\/span><\/p>\n

When I moved to America, I felt safe for the first time. I actually lived in a house, I finally had friends and trusted adults around me, I had 3 meals a day <\/span>promised<\/span><\/i> to me. This was such a stark contrast to everything I had known, the fear that I had grown so familiar with. I started having terrible nightmares almost every night. I don\u2019t remember any of these, but my great aunt would always ask me if I remembered. I would hide under the bed and wouldn\u2019t come out. I would wake up screaming and crying in the middle of the night. I would claim to see things that no one else could see. I don\u2019t remember any of this but my great aunt would tell me these things and I would keep repeating \u201cI don\u2019t remember doing that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

When we moved houses, things seemed fine. I still slept with my dad, but the nightmares fizzled out. Then, I got my own bedroom. It was cute and pink and I had all of my stuffed animals in there and a bed crown with a curtain! I wonder where that thing went because I miss it. Anyways, things started to look up. I was able to sleep on my own (at the ripe age of 6) and I wasn\u2019t having nightmares. I was content and happy for once. Then I started developing insomnia. I would lay awake in bed for <\/span>hours<\/span><\/i> in a dimly lit, completely silent room all alone. To combat this, my great aunt gave me a bulky radio to put on my tiny little nightstand because she knew I loved music. We\u2019d set it on the pop music station and it didn\u2019t really work, but it definitely cheered me up. Now, I would just sit in a dimly lit room all alone with Timber by Pitbull and Kesha playing in the background. It got to a point where I would memorize all of the commercials that would play on the radio. Then I started seeing shapes in the shadows of my room. Not like an insane creepy way, in a way like when you see shapes in the clouds. Sometimes these shapes would scare me though and I would start crying.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Eventually, I had the worst nightmare that an 8 year old could ever conjure that I still think of to this day. It started off as if it was a point and click adventure game. I didn\u2019t see any arrows or a mouse or anything like that but the way the point of view moved so slowly and robotically, that was the only way I could describe it. The nightmare started off with me entering the house and walking straight to my room, again, like a point and click game. Then I opened the door to my bedroom and it was literally filled with a bunch of dead bodies. It feels kind of silly talking about this now after so many years but imagine a scared little 8 year old having this nightmare while sleeping in that very bedroom. There wasn\u2019t a single surface that wasn\u2019t covered in blood or corpses. The point of view went into the room and to my connected bathroom and there were even more bodies in there. I hope to never relive that memory or feel that kind of fear again in my life. After that, I refused to even go in my room for <\/span>2 years<\/span><\/i> and it was a rough process of getting me to sleep alone again.<\/span><\/p>\n

I meant to focus this blog on my love for the horror genre but I felt like it was important to explain my history with the feeling of fear and why I love it so much now as a 16 year old.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t remember the last time I\u2019ve had a nightmare (knock on wood) and I\u2019m so grateful for that. Nightmares are literally the worst thing imaginable. Being at complete mercy of the horrors your brain has created until your body decides to wake you up again is a terrifying idea.<\/span><\/p>\n

As I\u2019ve mentioned, I loved horror as a little girl. I watched scary movies, read scary stories, watched other people play scary games because I couldn\u2019t. It\u2019s no surprise that I haven\u2019t changed. Horror is my favorite genre in everything. Movies, shows, books, Tik Toks, \u2026Pinterest??? Yeah, I have a horror board on Pinterest and then I get upset when I\u2019m jump scared on my feed when I\u2019m looking for craft projects at 2 AM – <\/span>nothing new<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One thing that is still also present in 16 year old me now, is the fact that I don\u2019t like to be alone. Typing this out now has made me realize that I have not changed much from the scared, sad little girl I used to be. I still love scary things and I\u2019m still afraid of being alone. I\u2019ve just gotten a little bit taller. And hopefully a little bit prettier and skinnier.<\/span><\/p>\n

I still like horror, but I like to have someone there with me. I don\u2019t like to enjoy horror content by myself so I would rather have someone tell me the story along with their input and opinions and how <\/span>they<\/span><\/i> enjoyed it. Some people might think that\u2019s silly or lazy, even. I’ll admit, it\u2019s not something I\u2019m proud of but it\u2019s true and that\u2019s okay. This blog was meant to talk about how I had a void in my enjoyment of horror. Most things I was interested in as a kid never really connected to me<\/em> specifically. I couldn\u2019t find anything that really resonated with me and I think that\u2019s what makes an <\/span>amazing<\/span><\/i> story. Obviously, it resonated with other people – just not me and that\u2019s perfectly fine.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A few years after I decided I wanted to be an author in the 6th grade, I wondered about what I wanted to write. I knew I could write whatever genre felt right for the story, but that just didn\u2019t feel right. I wanted something I would be known for. I wanted something I knew I would enjoy, and something other people would enjoy. I thought about my childhood and how much I loved horror, but I felt like there was a void in what I really found joy in. I remember reading this series in the 4th grade called \u201cYou\u2019re Invited to a Creepover\u201d but I just remembered it as \u201cCreepover.\u201d It was basically scary stories about\/for young girls. I <\/span>loved<\/span><\/i> that series. I felt like I could relate to it, I found joy in the stories and they were also really scary to me.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s exactly what I wanted to make as an author. Horror stories for weird teenage girls. Horror stories that will embrace femininity and make real people, real young girls, feel like they\u2019ve been heard. I want teenage girls to find something that they enjoy rather than just having to deal with creative media created by boys <\/span>for<\/span><\/i> boys. Of course, horror should be for everyone. But growing up, I never had an outlet that represents my femininity and love for scary things and that\u2019s what I want to be for teenage girls. I want to grow into a creative idol that younger me would <\/span>adore.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am a horror enthusiast. I have been ever since I was young. Things that scared me ultimately lured me in. The elements of mystery and fear piqued my interest. When I was young, I would purposefully watch scary movies, but if it became too much I would hold my hand in front of the … Continue reading “My History with Horror”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20653"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/100"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20653"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20653\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20709,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20653\/revisions\/20709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}