Author: aunt john

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!