How Long Were You Afraid of Monsters?

I was asked this question recently. I didn’t know how to answer. As a child, I was haunted, hounded even by my fears. Vampires were my number one fear, but all things that go bump in the night chased me from the dark to the light.

Fear of monsters is completely natural. I used to wrap a handmade label around an air freshener and call it Monster Repellent. Every night as I put the kids to bed, I sprayed their room to keep the monsters away. It worked well for them.

But when did I stop fearing monsters? I have thought about it for a while and I realize it’s the wrong question. Have I stopped believing in things that go bump in the night? Sure, the adult logical brain says, no, monsters — vampires, werewolves — don’t exist. But that instinctual survival piece of my brain says bad things come out in the dark.

Then I also had my nightmares and I’m not talking about going to school without clothes or forgetting to study for a test. I’m talking about nightmares that wake you up completely paralyzed. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t move, I couldn’t scream. Not sure which was more terrifying the nightmare or waking up from it.

As I got older, my monster roster expanded. Kidnappers, nut jobs, rapists. Some of my creative brain created. Some are actual nightmares that haunt my memories. Where are the lines drawn? A man who holds a young girl down on her dorm room bed and tears apart her innocence or a creature that bites her neck and drains her blood? Is one less of a monster? If the second girl were to survive, would she be more traumatized than the first?

Yes, monsters exist and lurk everywhere. What becomes scary are the monsters that blend in and look perfectly normal. With supernatural monsters, there are rules, parameters. Human monsters? They have no rules. Night, day, full moon or not, evil is evil, just with creativity.

It has only been the last decade or so that I’ve been able to feel safe, even in my home at night, but not by anything I’ve done or changed in my beliefs. I found in another person a trust so complete that I know he will keep me safe.

I know I need to find the strength within myself not to fear the dark and the sounds that come out of it, but I’m not there. I’m not sure how I could get there either. My fear is almost as much a part of me as the color of my eyes. Strength has never been my strong suit.

Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes they win.

Stephen King