Believe it or not there are people who enjoy being scared spitless. They watch horror movies on dark and stormy nights and sit around telling ghost stories, they attend seances and listen to urban legends about hook hands hanging from car doors, that kind of stuff. They think gruesome and blood-curdling is fun.
I am not one of them.
Oh, don’t get me wrong, I like murder and mayhem as much as the next guy. I like mysteries and thrillers and suspense, I do. But there’s a gamut, isn’t there, a spectrum? It runs from Murder She Wrote at one end to Stephen King at the other, from Nancy Drew to Alfred Hitchcock (the man who made it impossible to trust seagulls and take showers at night). As for me, I like the middle leaning toward Hitchcock.
As it turns out, though, I’m pretty good at terrifying my own self. And you can be, too. Seriously. All you need are:
1. A book about serial killers (fiction or non-fiction)
2. A windy night
3. A vivid imagination
I recommend Helter Skelter, the non-fiction account of creepy Charles Manson. Even though it’s been decades since I read it, I still remember how completely that book freaked me out. It was late, it was quiet, and I was deeply absorbed. Behind me, ice cubes settled and rattled in a glass. Well, the book flew, I screamed, and my rudely awakened roommate was rendered unblinking for hours after.
This weekend I had a similar experience, but with windy weather and loose window screens instead of ice cubes and gravity. Every creak in the night, every shadow on the wall, every sigh in the trees was all it took to transform my normally placid home into a haunted house of horrors. And me into a blithering fraidy-cat.
Which is different from the usual blithering idiot.
Copyright © Publikworks 2012
the whirly girl 
9 responses to “: how to freak yourself out :”
Scary movies = bad times
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Very well said.
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I love being scared. That said, when I am watching scarey movies Rob makes fun of me, because I typically have my hand over my face the entire movie. My response to him? “The sound effects are scarey enough!”
Glad you remained safe through the dark and windy night.
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You? Scared? I don’t buy it. You seem like the bravest woman since Diana Prince, aka Wonder Woman.
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Well, if I have the magic lasso that changes everything.
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Hehe – rings true with me this post! Although I scare myself more than films actually do – I work it up in my head that it will terrify me and I can’t watch it and then if the bf wins and I watch said scary film then I am a little deflated cause it wasn’t that scary! However leave me alone in the house reading ‘the jigsaw man’ by Paul britton (a book about real life crimes/murders/rapes etc) and I would happily hide under my bed scared out of my wits at the sound of a creaking floor board!!
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I’m so with you! Aren’t those the longest nights ever? Waiting for the sun to come up seems never-ending.
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Oh I’m such a wimp! I’m definitely erring towards Nancy Drew over here haha. My boyfriend bought me a box set of Criminal Minds a year ago and I still haven’t watched it because unless I watch it during the day I will be scared all night. My imagination is my own worst enemy, so after a scary film or whatever I’m always thinking there’s someone behind me in the dark. You know when you get that creepy feeling that makes you run up the stairs?!
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I know that feeling well. I’m usually okay with scary movies and such, but every once in a while I stumble onto one that just spooks the beejeebers out of me. Yikes! I’ve got to start sticking to comedies.
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