Welcome to my Birthday Week during which I post random, interesting or embarrassing facts about myself. If you missed the introductory post, you can find it here. Today you’ll venture into the dangerous territory of Melfka’s personal horrors. Of course, since it’s my Birthday Week, I won’t be talking about those real and well-grounded fears probably almost every human being has. Instead, I’ll amuse you with those absurd things that shouldn’t cause a flinch reaction.
Spiders
When I was a girl, maybe 10 or so, I playing outside with my friends. At some point, one of them told me, “There’s a spider on you,” in a quite informative manner. My reaction wasn’t anywhere near that stoic. I still remember running in a circle, screaming, “Get it off me!” repeatedly.
As I grew older, I tried to work on my reactions, and I thought I had it under control… until I moved over to Ireland. St. Patrick might have removed all the snakes from that beautiful island, but surely forgot to do something about spiders. And spiders in Ireland are huge compared to Poland (some bigger than my palm).
Once, I had a chance of conquering my fear. When I was working in childcare, a man with a mini-zoo visited us. Among other creatures, he had a tarantula, and I got to watch the pure fluff walking on the hands of children. I kept away. I might be regretting that chance, but unsure whether I’d be able to control my reaction, I didn’t want to make the children scared. After all, so far they were fear-free.
Nowadays I still flinch at the sight of spiders and shameless use Inq as my One and True Defender. And if you aware of the short movie with Lucas the Spider, I watched it. Sadly, it didn’t help me much. I appreciated the attempt to make the creature look cute, but in the end I still hated spiders as much as I do. I guess that’s one very un-witchy thing about me.
Needles
If you think Melfka running in a circle is funny, you’ll enjoy the needle-related story.
My grandmother taught me embroidery early. I was probably 4 or 5 back then. I often poked myself with a needle, because this it how it goes, and it never bothered me.
But doctors’ and nurses’ needles? Hell no!
A simple task like drawing blood from my finger would have me in tears. I was 8 when I got quite sick and had have a blood test. I steeled myself to not cause a scene, sat on a chair… and it turned out the doctor was going to draw blood from my elbow vein, not from my finger.
Imagine small Melfka running around the lab. There was a long table in the middle, filled with blood samples, and I ran around it, screaming and artfully dodging the arms of two broad-shouldered male nurses and the doctor himself. It took them a while before they finally caught me, pinned me to the chair, and made for the doctor possible to draw my blood.
Now, I’m older, but I still don’t like needles. I don’t mind the pain, but I hate the sight of those steel-made pokers closing in on my body, and I prefer to avoid them whenever I can.
Horror movies and books?
As you might guess, Melfka’s not a fan of those. Every now and then I might feel tempted to read something in the horror vein, like the eerie and unsettling Slade House by David Mitchell, but I’m more likely to pick up some dark fantasy than a pure horror book.
When it comes to the movies, I tend to avoid them. It’s not even the monsters and murderers that scare me, and I don’t flinch at the sight of blood. I just hate… those tension-building moments when nothing is happening. But you know it will. The longer they last, the more frustrated I get: give me the action or the monsters already! As you can imagine, I’m not really a target for thrillers either.
At the same time, I like twists. I love Zombieland for its humorous take on the somewhat worn out genre. I was amazed by Cabin in the Woods, and I enjoyed 13 Ghosts and Tucker and Dale vs. Evil. More traditional horrors? I’ll likely pass.
What about you? Do you like horrors? What irrational fears do you have – if you feel like sharing them?
This post is a part of Melfka’s Birthday Week 2018. Check out other posts in the series:
- Melfka’s Birthday Week 2018: Introduction
- The Sweet Tooth Witch
- All the Pretty Dragonflies
- Those Horror Things (this post)
- Melfka’s Accent
Oh, that needles story sounds familiar to me. 2-3 year old Jo taken to the Dr’s for a checkup. Nice and innocent. Then suddenly my Mum’s arms clamp around me an I ‘know’ I’m in danger.
This is confirmed when the Dr turns around with a needle in hand. I scream the house down and try to squirm free. I didn’t know what was going to happen with the needle, but Mum was holding on tight so I knew it was going to be bad.
If they’d told me before hand, and not pinned me down, it might have gone a lot smoother. I never developed a fear of needles, but after having an injection in my mouth, so I could have a wisdom tooth out, I’m more squeamish of them.
I had a few injections in my mouth, and the dentists can’t seem to understand why I prefer my teeth cleaning and fillings without numbing. It feels pointless to suffer bigger pain just to get numbed for smaller pain.
I’ve only had one filling before, they didn’t ask whether or not I wanted to be numbed, but since I hadn’t had it I wasn’t sure what to expect. Never needed to be numbed for teeth cleaning though.
Over here they seem to be numbing for everything and they don’t ask you either, so unless you explicitly say you don’t want it, you’re going to get it. And when you do say, they’ll still try to numb you anyway.
I can understand it though. Once bitten, twice, maybe don’t believe people when they say they can handle it 😀
I think your horrors are perfectly reasonable – I’m not mad about needles, either. Though I am fond of spiders… Thank you for a lovely set of interesting articles letting us know all about you.
I try to get over spiders, but it seems it’s too deep, so I just let it go. There are fears I can work through, and some that apparently aren’t fixable. 🙂
Sounds like me and mice – I have been known to scramble to the top of the children’s climbing frame without recalling how I got there…
I agree with Sarah – those fears are totally understandable! I’m not afraid of medical needles, but I definitely don’t like them. And while spiders don’t bother me, bees / wasps / hornets freak me out. I’ve never been stung, but.. (*shudders*)
I can relate about the bugs. I think the only reason I don’t freak out about them is because I let Inq handle them. Though a huge moth back in Arizona that got into our apartment, and then, a day later, suddenly flew out from the corner, did give me a fright!