Kindertrauma

What scared you as a child?

That was the group question at last night's ward prayer. (Each week, everyone in the circle answers a question. It's a get-to-know-you thing we do, and it has helped me to learn tidbits about people that I might not have otherwise known.) With Halloween coming up next week, 'tis the season, I suppose.

I don't know if my childhood phobias were what you would call "normal" ones. I feel like I had my share of them, though. It can be therapeutic to share them with friends, right? (Don't make fun of mine, and I won't make fun of yours. Deal?)

Years ago, a Primary activity was held in our cultural hall. It was advertised, I believe, as a puppet show. I have no problems with puppets, per se. I was a faithful viewer of The Muppet Show for years. But this "puppet show" involved marionettes - not the same thing at all. I don't know what it was about them that scared me so (and still scares me, I will admit), but I did not stay in my seat for very long. I ran out into the hallway and tucked myself into the fetal position. (I'm not kidding.)

The E.T. poster that hung on the wall outside of my bedroom also gave me the creeps. Sure, E.T. is a kind and friendly (albeit odd-looking) alien creature. But when you're seven or eight years old - I really forget how old I was when this happened - your mind can play tricks on you at night. (It can play tricks on you at any age, really. Well, mine does.) For me, E.T. was the boogeyman.


Speaking of movies, the conclusion of Raiders of the Lost Ark - when the Nazis finally open the ark (you know what I'm talking about; don't make me go into the details) - caused me to lose sleep more than once. I saw Raiders a few more times over the years since that initial viewing but always closed my eyes during that last part. Like Indy and Marion, I kept them shut tight. (Only when I saw Raiders recently could I finally muster up the courage to watch the whole film with my eyes open.)


Fire in the Sky, IT, and Poltergeist are just a handful of the other flicks that have given me the willies. But nothing got to me like Raiders.

Then again, maybe it's just films by Steven Spielberg.

For a number of years, I helped with my family's paper route. It was good money when I was nine or 10 years old. During that time, we would get up at 5:30 a.m. every day, no matter what the weather outside was like, to put The Salt Lake Tribune on several dozen doorsteps in Bountiful.

More often than not, it was pitch-black outside as we made our deliveries. (As I wrote earlier, your mind plays tricks on you in the dark.) One morning, I carried an armful of newspapers to go on a "run" (as we called them) on foot. The others, in the truck, would meet me at a predetermined point and pick me up. All alone, I headed off on the run. At one house, I threw the paper near the door, which was always our goal. I watched it land on the porch. My eyes then looked up from the newspaper, and I saw that someone was sitting there and had been watching me the whole time! I took off running for my life, or so I thought.

When I caught up with the truck, it dawned on me that what I had seen was not a person but was actually a stuffed Santa Claus doll. I can laugh about it now. (My brothers sure gave me a hard time about it at the time.) But, at the moment, it scared the Dickens out of me. I've hardly ever felt the fight-or-flight response to such a degree.


What's so scary about good old Santa Claus, you may ask? Plenty.

Well! Now that this is all off of my chest, I realize that I've been sitting here, writing this in the dark, at night. I'm going to go and turn on the lights, put in a Church DVD or turn on some cartoons, and think happy thoughts.