fear – Clementine Fraser

I’m going to get this out of the way at the start – I hate scary movies. To be more accurate – I’ve tried to like scary movies but I’m the kind of person who screams at jump scares, and creepy stuff leaves me awake and alert and catastrophising all night.

The first horror movie I saw was House. I was 11, at a friend’s house, and she’d assured me it was a comedy horror. Now I think back and I can see some of the comedy, but at the time it was deeply traumatising. It took a long while for me to be able to open my wardrobe door at night. Or even during the day… I made my little sister do it – in the classic ‘little siblings are indestructible” way that older siblings have. Scream (another light horror) was the nail in the coffin (so to speak) of me ever wanting to live in an isolated house out in the country. I like having neighbours I can run to when the scary baddies arrive. And the bit at the beginning of Scream where Drew Barrymore’s character is trying to call out to her parents, who are so close to being able to save her, and her voice doesn’t work? Oh that’s only my recurring nightmare. I really wanted to watch Supernatural recently but made the mistake of watching the first one while I was at home alone and decided maybe I need to wait until my kids are at home with me (they somehow take on the indestructibility of siblings; when they are in their rooms asleep I feel a whole lot braver than if it is just me by myself). Continue reading “The Monster under the Bed – Why do people like scaring themselves?” →

A month before my 16th birthday, on a school camp, I fell down a mountain.

The mountain I fell down was Mount Doom (alright, Mt. Ngauruhoe but following LOTR filming it’s always Mt. Doom to me). Technically, I started sliding down it on my bum first, but when the snow turned into boulders and I dug my feet in to try and slow down, I flipped, and smashed head first into the rocks. I split my face open – you could see my cheek bone through the hole in my face. I ended up with 11 stitches in my cheek, forehead, and temple – 4 fewer than the man in the hospital at the same time as me who had 15 stitches in the massive wound the rebounding chainsaw had left in his face. I knew then that I was incredibly fortunate – I hadn’t broken any bones, I still had both eyes, and a helluva story to tell when I got back to school (and hadn’t had to deal with a chainsaw eating into my face).

What I didn’t anticipate is how much it would affect me afterwards. When my parents drove down to the national park to pick me up from hospital and camp the day after the accident, I had been with my friends and was feeling cheerful and happy, but on the drive back when we stopped for lunch I refused to get out of the car. I didn’t want anyone to look at me. Your face is so much a part of your identity that when it is misshapen by stitches and swelling and bruises, you feel monstrous. Especially at the age of 15. I was so worried that I’d still look bashed and broken by the time of the school ball and my 16th Birthday. My mother made me get out of the car that day and I’m happy she did. She taught me that strength came in all forms and sometimes you need to be brave so you can see that the stares you dread hold compassion, not disgust. Continue reading “Facing Fear, Acknowledging it, Beating it.” →