you're too scared to

i am disclosing this information with full faith that any of you ever reading this will not abuse the knowledge i'm about to give you. i scare easily. very easily. insanley easily. having 3 younger brothers and a dad who all knew this and took advantage of it only made things worse. the reason i bring this up is because i was just reading a blog post, scared myself silly, and couldn't get up to close the door that was eerily a couple of inches open. (i left it open, it didn't open itself, and i knew why i left it open, but suddenly i couldn't bring myself to touch it. and the post wasn't even scary.) here are some examples of my strange, neurotic, irrational, fear.


- i watched "the sixth sense" twice, and the second time i was squeezing my good friend karey's hand so tightly i left marks that were there for a couple days, i'm sure. i knew what was happening and i was still scared out of my pants. (karey, by the way, is a great texan gentleman and never complained. either that, or he's a tough tough tough man. whatever the truth is, i'm grateful to him. and thinking about that movie still gives me shivers.) now, that movie is meant to be frightening, so it may seem perfectly normal to be scared of it. on the other hand, after i watched "a beautiful mind" (by myself, at 10:00 pm, in my dark basement) i slept on the couch with a light on because i couldn't bring myself to walk the 10 foot round trip to turn off the light and go to my room. also, when i was in china, i watched an episode of lost while my roommate was sleeping and stayed stiffly in one position on my bed until i finally fell asleep.


-during high school, my room was in the basement. sometimes, that was a nice arrangement - i could stay up as late as i wanted and it was the coolest room in the house, an advantage for someone who likes lots of blankets. however, it did have its downsides. on weekends, when i would stay out later than i would during the week, my dad would watch tv down in the tv room (ha). but really, i think the tv watching was an excuse to watch for me to come home. the windows in the tv room are right next to the driveway, making it easy for anyone in the room to know when someone pulled into the driveway, either because they spotted the headlights or heard the car. on occasional weekends, when the details worked out just right, my dad would hurredly turn off the tv and the lights in the basement when he noticed i was home. knowing i would have to walk by every doorway in the basement to get to my room, he would pick one and jump out at me as i walked by, making me scream bloody murder. no one else in the house loved this, because they were usually all asleep, and i have great lungs and vocal cords. and, silly me, i would always forget this happened in between scarings, setting myself up perfectly every time he jumped out at me.

here are some other things that scare me, for no reason.
-lots of episodes of lost
-when i watched the deleted scenes from "the ring." (i never saw the movie. just the deleted scenes. i almost cried.)
-reading "the lovely bones"
-"fight club" (that trip to nashville was a big big big mistake)
- sitting anywhere with my back exposed
-night hikes at girls camp
-watching "lady in white" at that cabin up provo canyon, and then the generator goes out...
-walking by a mirror when it is dark
-the movie "proof"
-listening to people talk about, or reading about, voices in heads
-every story my uncle, the ex-coroner, has ever told
-making a list of things that scare me


some of those things may be scary to others of you, and some of them will seem ridiculous, i'm sure. i have lost sleep because of every single one of them. writing them down is freaking me out, though, so i am going to have to stop. all of these incidents, and the many other ones i can't bring myself to think about, have scarred me irrevocably. i am sure i have missed out on some cuddling occasions because i can't bring myself to watch any scary movies or go to any haunted houses. i have lost countless hours of sleep because someone mentioned the word "ghost" or "imaginary" or something along those lines and i let my imagination run away with me. and it's funny, because i don't get scared of blood and guts, or murders, or people abducting me, or things like that. it really is thinking about ghosts, or people who don't exist, that brings me that debilitating fear. and now that i have revealed this knowledge to all of you, i am going to trust that none of you who ever read this will ever use this knowledge against me. if you do, just be warned that i will call you at 3:00 in the morning when i can't sleep...