Category: Traumafessions

The bean sí puts me paralytic with fear to this day, and as an atheist scientist that says something fierce. Back in Ireland in the ‘80s, when I was very little, my mother was attempting to brush my long and very unruly hair, and I would wail, oddly enough, much like a banshee. There was a particularly spectacular uproar about it one day (it hurt ffs!), so she had my Uncle Ernie scratch at the window behind me outside and told me it was the banshee coming to match my wails. That put the fear of God into me. Years later my cousin Derek would tell me he'd heard the banshee around my house, which meant someone at mine was going to die. None of this would have been particularly fearsome, I, to this day imagine, had it not been for that bloody banshee in DARBY O'GILL.

This is one of those Traumafessions that does NOT involve scary images on T.V. or book covers. This involves a sci-fi story called THE DAY OF THE DOLPHIN and it starred GEORGE C. SCOTT & his wife TRISH VAN DEVERE as scientists who are working on dolphin intelligence. If fact, some of the dolphins are taught to speak through their blowholes. Sounds silly but that's how they "talk." Well, what happens is that the backer of the research group works for a Right Wing organization that wants the Left Wing U.S. President dead. They kidnap two of the dolphins (named "Fa" and "Bea") to accomplish this. The dolphins are trained to carry bombs on their backs, swim under the President's boat and then have the bombs attach themselves magnetically to the bottom of his boat. Somehow PATTON and co. manage to get the dolphins to go back to the President's boat, take back the bombs and place them on the bottom of the assassin's boat. Of course they are blown to bits.

Right, so how is this traumatic? Well, as a kid I watched FLIPPER reruns on T.V. and when I saw that this was to be broadcast, I begged my mother to let me stay up late to see this (I think this was shown in the summer when school was out). Well, she a first said no but after some prodding she let me but she said that I'd regret it.

Why?

Well, at the end of the film, GEORGE and TRISH decide that they have to cut ties with Fa & Bea as other conspirators are going to show up at the research base to either use them again or even kill them. Now the tear jerking begins. GEORGE tells the dolphins to just eat, swim & play but not to talk while the dolphins are squeaking, "Fa love ma! Fa love pa!" He starts yelling at them while TRISH is just about crying knowing that she losing her "kids." GEORGE then tells her to stop talking as she keeps saying, "Ma loves Fa. Ma loves Bea." Finally they get up to leave. He tells her not to turn around. As they walk away there is the image of one of the dolphins sticking its head out of the water squeaking, "PA! MA!"

At this point I was losing it! The poor dolphins are being abandoned by their "parents." This is triggering some major separation anxiety issues in little 8-year-old me! To make things worse after the movie was over upset me ran over to mother for comfort. She just stood in the room & said, "I told you so!" and she walked out! Talk about tough love!

Here is the ending:

My traumafession is about the movie IT based on STEPHEN KING's book.

I'm not sure if this counts but, when I was four my Mother left me one night in care of my three older, teenage sadistic sisters. Right before bedtime the youngest of my eldest sisters (13-14) dressed me in my favorite nightgown and told me that could stay up with the big girls and watch a movie. Of course being four I jumped at the chance! I was a big girl after all. So there I sat with my sisters so happy and exited! They said it was a clown movie so it must of been funny, right?

To my discredit I stayed watching for a long while, and all I remember are these two parts:That there was a clown in the sewer! He had sharp monster teeth! HE ATE THE LITTLE BOY! And someone was in the bathroom and these red spiders or ants started crawling out of the sink drain and on him/her eating his/her face or something more….

There was blood! or red… yeah lots of red.

It was then I looked down at my nightgown and realized that it had the some clown on it (well same clown makeup and style) and thus I screamed, peed myself, ripped off the nightgown, and hid in my room until my mother got home. Not necessarily in that order.

I have since then never watched that movie ever again. To this day clowns make me shiver. Which really, really, REALLY sucks since my father is a professional clown……bitches…….

UNK SEZ: As promised, here is a follow up ARACHNOPHOBIA traumafession from kinderpal Spooky Sean. I guess when it rains spiders, it pours spiders!

If I had to guess, I'd say that I was seven or eight when I first saw this movie, based on the fact that the IMDb lists it as being released in 1990. Where do I even start with how badly ARACHNOPHOBIA traumatized my wee little noggin?

I've always been afraid of bugs. I don't like picturing them, underneath everything, in the walls. The infestations, the crawling and the insect noises. So, of course, someone thought, "Hey, let's rent that movie ARACHNOPHOBIA for Sean!" To be fair, I was a quiet child, so I don't know how often I spoke of this fear.

The one scene in particular that got to me was the scene about halfway through that takes place in the shower. It's some minor character's daughter or someone; I don't really remember who she was. The important thing was what happened to her. She was shampooing her hair; blissfully unaware a giant spider was crawling above her. She has her eyes closed, and feels like she is in a safe place. And then said spider…drops.

Needless to say, for months after the film I was traumatized. I would shampoo my hair very quickly, constantly on guard for a giant arachnid to drop onto my face. To this day, I have trouble keeping my eyes closed for very long, when washing my hair.

— Spooky Sean

I recently found your site and was amazed no one seems to have mentioned the 1990 film ARACHNOPHOBIA… It wasn't gory, it was a campy comedy horror, but seriously, tiny spiders that kill near-instantly with a single bite. Tiny. Deadly. Spiders.

I've got a zombie plan (as we all should). Nightmare-based killers? Lucid dreaming. Psycho killers? I don't meander into run-down buildings in the middle of nowhere and I'm not a prep or jock so I know I'm not at the top of the kill list. Ancient curses, demonic entities, vengeful ghosts? Always some motivating reason with a means of cleansing, avoiding or placating. Little spider that might not even be noticed until it's too late? You got me there.

I know my brother and sister (roughly 8 and 12 at the time) were fairly traumatized, not by any scene in particular but just how… feasible it is, you could say. Nothing like a film you can watch and laugh at, then over-think once you're in bed and think you saw something on the wall or felt something on your foot.

UNK SEZ: Thanks Patrick! Funny you you should mention the absence of ARACHNOPHOBIA traumas. We found another traumafession concerning that movie crawling around in the KT mailbag and we'll have it up very soon!

Grade school in the '80s was bizarre. If you weren't dying of dysentery in Oregon Trail on the classroom Apple II C, you were watching films like CIPHER IN THE SNOW (1973).

CIPHER IN THE SNOW was the CITIZEN KANE of educational films. Made by Brigham Young University, it revolved around a sad pasty boy that everyone ignored until he just ups and dies right before the opening credits. The rest of the film plays in flashbacks as one teacher investigates the dead boy's life, learning that if he paid attention to the boy's feelings instead of teaching math, he would still be alive today.

Seeing this as a grade schooler was pretty shocking, but I fear it did no good to the "loner" kids because kids are kids and they will continue to mock and make fun of others because they're evil. I remember the classroom giggling at the over the top drunken Step-Father and his use of the word, "Pussywillow" (which they edit out for some reason on the YouTube video.)

The film had a good message, but I think it did more harm than good since now counselors outnumber teachers it seems. Kids, be good to the loners. I'm not talking about the emo ones, I'm talking about the real ones. The ones that just want to pick some pussywillows.

— Turnidoff

AUNT JOHN SEZ: Thanks so much Turnidoff for having the courage to remind us that the never rightfully credited Brigham Young University was the first the first to throw down the anti-bullying gauntlet nearly thirty years before it became the cause de célèbres. Stick that in your Slushie cup, cast of GLEE.

Your dear old Aunt John would also like to comment on how touchingly Turnidoff's traumafession aligns with the other consciousness raising efforts he has brought to the Internet as of late. You see, when he is not giving a voice to those who cannot speak or recording catchy odes to lure a cultural icon out her self-imposed exile, Turnidoff is fighting the good fight over at DEATH TO CGI!

Back in the '70s, when I was around 6 or 7, my sister and I were obsessed with THE BIONIC WOMAN and, to a lesser extent, THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN.

We would lay on our stomachs on the floor in front of the huge wooden T.V. console and bask in the weekly hour-long glow of bionic metal bending and jumping and listening – all done in slo-mo. I loved Jamie so much and wanted to be like her so much that my next door neighbor and I would place a magazine with her picture on it between us on the concrete front steps of my childhood home, and scribble furiously on pads of paper in hopes of building up our bionic strength. I guess the whole bionic surgery thing sort of eluded me at that age.

There were a few BIONIC WOMAN episodes that scared me back then – the Fembots and the doomsday one – but the one that really took the cake was actually an episode of THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN where Jamie starts to reject her bionics. It starts out with some spazzy hand action, but then escalates to a meltdown of gargantuan proportions where she runs around in the rain and freaks out in a phone booth.

This whole thing took place before my Jamie love developed, so I was basically just watching a pretty lady turn into a melty-faced freak show before my eyes. Sadly, I couldn't find a clip of the meltdown – but here are some screen shots of one of my earliest childhood T.V. traumas.

Thanks guys!!!

xoxo,

— Craftypants Carol

AUNT JOHN SEZ: For more on those fantastic Fembots, be sure to check out Kinderpal Brother Bill's bionic post over at THE HAUNTED CLOSET.

T.V.:THE BRADY BUNCH episode when Bobby idolizes Jesse James. Mr. Brady has the old man whose father was killed by J.J. come talk to him to show him J.J. was not a good person. At the end, Bobby dreams that he's on a train in the old West with the rest of the Bradys, and J.J. and his gang ride up on horses and get on board. Bobby is initially excited, till J.J. starts shooting his family! The guy playing J.J. keeps yelling "Bang, Bang" when he would shoot someone.

Movies:

• SALEM'S LOT: Ralphie and Mark Glick floating outside the windows! Holy crap!
• RACE WITH THE DEVIL: The initial Devil Worship scene. Creepy chanting and yelling.
• THE HOWLING: The scene with the silhouettes of werewolves standing upright on 2 legs, howling. 2 legs?? And the fact they were even transforming in the daytime! That was a game changer for me! Not even safe during the day!

The movie posters for CAT PEOPLE (never saw the movie). I was in N.Y. City for the first time, around 6 years old, and that movie was out. The posters were on bus stops etc. I think it was NASTASSJA KINSKI that was in the poster (i didn't know who she was at the time of course, it was just a creepy poster). The poster was a combination of erotic and scary, both confusing for a six year old.

Book Cover: COMA. My mother was reading it. I was maybe 4. What the hell was with all the naked bodies suspended???

Thanks,

— Bill B.

Florida

UNK SEZ: Thanks Bill B. for the excellent (and timely-we were just talking about CAT PEOPLE!) traumafessions! I too was disturbed by that episode of THE BRADY BUNCH. That cardboard dream train was strangely surreal & there's something so wrong with seeing an entire family shot in the back like that! Stay tuned folks, Bill B. also sent us some NAME THAT TRAUMAS to figure out which we shall post tomorrow. I think I know the answer to at least one! (I hope!)