Scaredy Cat

I dislike scary movies. At one point in my life, I thought I liked them. I would go to scary movies with friends and cringe and clutch their hands and then laugh about the whole thing afterward.

But around the time I turned 19, I realized that watching scary movies makes my stomach hurt and makes me jump at noises and shadows and gives me all new things to have nightmares about. I realized that I don’t particularly like feeling that way, so I swore off scary movies then and there.

It’s a good thing, too, because I managed to miss Saws 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, etc. I feel confident I dodged a slew of bullets there.

Unfortunately, even scenes from scary movies have the ability to freak me right the heck out. I was at the gym last night (yay!) and watching one of the TV’s. A commercial break showed a preview for some new scary movie and it really bummed me out, because there was one scene in particular that was really disturbing and I knew it would go home with me.

Sure enough, I was walking up the stairs to go to bed and felt the heebey-jeebeys go waltzing up my spine. I got that crawly feeling like there was something on the stairs below me that was going to reach out and get me so I sprinted up the rest of the staircase and dove under my covers.

It’s a good thing my kids were already in bed and couldn’t see me acting so foolish.

Still, I can’t deny the fact that scary movies mess me right up. They override all the good sense that tells me I’m safe in my locked-up-tight suburbs house and instead insist that there are dangerous things lurking in the shadows, that nightmares are what make my stairs creak at night.

What I want to know is, why do they do that to me? Why does even just one scene from a scary movie freak me out, but other people can watch scary movies in the dark by themselves and then sleep soundly afterward? Is it a threshold of thrill thing, or am I just a huge wuss?