Sep
11
2009
Childhood Fears
Author: TraceyIt is interesting to me that in the process of writing my books I have managed to discuss some of my main childhood fears. I did not set out or intend to do so, but perhaps this is my way of letting go of the demons! Of course by now everyone knows of my greatest fear of dolls coming to life. Stop laughing. I still say watch any scary movie and you will see at least one scary looking doll or ESPECIALLY clown doll! There is a reason for this: they are freaky and deceptively inanimate!
Butterfly begins with our heroine cleaning out her closets. Wolf begins with our heroine hiding in a closet. Guess what? I was also afraid of closets. Funny that the heroine is not scared while in her closets and yet each story begins and ends with her in it. If my closet door was not shut completely, I couldn’t sleep…even into my thirties. Maybe I shouldn’t have shared that? Oh well, its out there now.
Another more subconscious fear that seems to come up throughout my books is that of abandonment and being left alone. I think a lot of people can relate to this fear. One doesn’t have to be a child to feel it. I hope that in Wolf I was able to find that nice balance of feeling “okay” with finding one’s alone time and being with one’s self.
But what I thought would be fun would be for us to share some childhood fears and how you have overcome them…or maybe not overcome them. I think what’s important is to know that no fear is silly or undeserving. Fears are real and by acknowledging them we can begin to discover their true meaning and hopefully let them go.
So, what are your childhood fears?
September 13th, 2009 at 9:31 am
For most of my life (since before I could remember) I have always been afraid of dogs. According to what I was told, a dog jumped on me when I was very little. For many years, I was deathly afraid of dogs, and just the sound of a dog’s chain was enough to cause fear. Then about 14 years ago, I reconnected with an old friend I’d lost touch with. When I went to her house, I discovered, to my horror, she had two English settters. I asked her if she would put them in another room, and she said no. I knew then if I wanted to continue to spend time with Nancy, I was going to have to get over my fear, and eventually, I did.
September 26th, 2009 at 11:43 am
Maybe the fear of dolls is genetic! Since way before “Chuckie” I’ve been freaked out by porcelain dolls, ventriloquist dummies and clowns. I don’t know why those delicate porcelain dolls creep me out, but they do. The lines going down from the mouths of ventriloquist dummies are just wrong. I just don’t trust clowns. Maybe it’s the makeup so you can’t see who they are. Haven’t been hampered in life by these “fears” so haven’t felt a need to get over them.
Abandonment…not genetic. For me it was learned. As I got older (and maybe less self-centered) I realized that people do what they do for reasons that seem right to them at the time, most of the time. Sometimes they are nursing their own wounds and have nothing to give. Recognizing that it’s not all about me and believing God when He said “I will never leave you nor will I ever forsake you.” Hebrews 13:5 and “For my father and my mother have forsaken me, But the Lord will take me up.” Psalm 27:10 healed me. And the love of a good man for nearly 38 years and counting!
November 13th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
When I was about between the ages of 8 and 10 we lived in the projects in North Trenton New Jersey. My mom and dad moved there when I was about a year old. We had an apartment on the first floor. We got on the first floor because my Dad had a artificial leg and had trouble going up the stairs, and right under my parents window was a ramp way that went into the basement of the whole building, the laundry room was there and there were big cages were people could hang their clothes to dry in case it was raining out…We used to play in that basement. Rollerskater on the nice concrete floors…We would play we were in a submarine…Now remember this was right after the WWII and kids played war games alot. Its funny but I had no fear of the basement in the daytime but the night was a different story..There was a strange eerie feeling about the place after the sun went down I thought demons and witches lived there at night I used to have nightmares about the place. Cats used do get caught in the basement and would make that weird cat sound to this day it gives me the creeps…..I would never go near the place in the evening anytime Summer or Winter….The Boogieman lived there in the dark corners of the basements…..
December 11th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
As a child I had nightmares about the Headless Horseman adn Headless HorseWoman. No idea why. To this day I still don’t do scary. No scary movies at all … ever. On a much deeper level I hae always had a fear of being normal and being able to stand out in a crowd. For friends and family it may sound strange but I think that is what fuels me to be so over the top.