Why I Won't Be Watching a Scary Movie on Halloween

 

With Halloween coming up at the end of the month, we’re well into “Spooky Season,” and everyone is talking about their favorite scary movies and TV shows. Not me.

About a year or so after my first psychotic break, when I heard voices and experienced severe delusions until an antipsychotic kicked in, I remember talking with my psychiatrist about how I could no longer watch horror movies because they triggered symptoms. But this didn’t get really bad until the TV series The Walking Dead came out. That show scared me! My husband, Tom, used to watch it alone, and he called it his “stupid show” because, as he put it, it was stupid of him to be watching a show that silly instead of spending time with me.

Even after I was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, and even after I had that conversation with my psychiatrist, I could still tolerate some gore, violence, and spookiness in movies and media. I made it through The Sixth Sense, a movie about the little boy who sees ghosts (or, as he puts it, he sees “dead people”), even if I did have to chain smoke after watching it. (I quit smoking early in the 2010s.)

And Tom and I had a tradition of watching scary or horror movies on Halloween. When my own “horror” of spooky movies started to get merciless, but not to the point where it is now, we would watch Ed Wood, a ‘90s film by Tim Burton in which Johnny Depp stars as the B-movie director Ed Wood who befriended aging Dracula star Bela Lugosi. Well, there’s a scene that suggests suicide and, when we watched Ed Wood last year, I just couldn’t bear it. So this year we’re watching The Wizard of Oz. I know it’s still a bit spooky with the Wicked Witch of the West, the wizard’s giant head, and the flying monkeys. But there’s always a note of satire. I just hope I don’t cry when Judy Garland sings “Over the Rainbow!” That song has made me cry a lot.

For the record, I can no longer stomach violence and gore in movies and TV shows about cops, criminals, or the Mafia, either. Martin Scorcese's movies, like Goodfellas, Casino, and Taxi Driver (the latter of which used to be my favorite movie), are out the window. So are TV shows like Criminal Minds and even books like Columbine by Dave Cullen. When I read Columbine, I couldn’t get through the ending, which was leading up to the actual shooting. And, actually, I don’t know if it took you through the shooting. I just couldn’t bring myself to read it and find out.

Sometimes I wonder if it’s my anxiety that makes me have an aversion to gore, violence, and horror or if it’s all the death I’ve seen, especially the deaths of friends in our early 20s–one drug overdose, one due to liver failure from a medication, and two suicides. Maybe it’s a combination of anxiety and witnessing death. At any rate, since fall is my favorite season, I still manage to enjoy Halloween. Even if it’s just with Tom. So, Happy Halloween, and a Blessed Samhain to those who celebrate!

I Am NAMI Walks

 

My husband, Tom, and I went on the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Walk on Sept. 28 near where we live north of Chicago. The t-shirts this year say, “I AM NAMI Walks,” along with their standard slogan, “Mental Health for All.” Or, at least, that’s been their slogan for the past several years. We’ve been raising money for NAMI as part of our walk since 2007. Tom and I have raised at least $500 for NAMI every year. We only missed in 2018 when the walk coincided with our 10^th anniversary celebration in Door County. And that year, I did a Facebook fundraiser for NAMI for my birthday.

I like that the latest t-shirts this year say, “I AM NAMI Walks.” I always make sure I’ll get a t-shirt by donating $100 to our walk page after I register for us. My mom has been going with us too for the past few years, but she couldn’t go this year due to a work conflict. NAMI is one of the few causes Tom and I agree on supporting, and I am passionate about it. I am passionate about mental health awareness. That’s why I’m still writing about it even though I’m not getting paid for the columns anymore as I was when I wrote them for HealthyPlace before the website recently discontinued the blog where I was a contributor. Also, I had planned to donate to two other causes on Giving Tuesday (the Tuesday after Thanksgiving) but I donated the money budgeted to our NAMI Walk instead.

We haven’t been able to go on the actual walk in a few years, first because of COVID (when Tom, my mom, and I took NAMI up on their offer to have us raise money for them and go for a 5K walk on our own) and now because of my knees. I had to have total knee replacement surgery on both knees because I had bone-on-bone osteoarthritis (meaning, I had no cartilage). I had the surgeries last year, but my knees still hurt and I still have trouble using stairs and walking long distances such as a 5K. Running and jumping are out of the question. So, this year, we walked as far as we could for a while.

So, I was very happy we could get at least a little walking in after so long. And, afterward, we went out for brunch and I had my first ever pumpkin spice latte. Sorry, they’re overrated. But NAMI isn’t overrated! And the NAMI Walk is always a great time. Until next year!

Strategies of Healing and Hope to Fight Suicidal Thoughts

 

 

September is National Suicide Prevention Month so I wanted to write an article about suicide. I sometimes have suicidal thoughts, but they’re just that—thoughts. I have never had a plan worked out in my brain of how I would take my own life.  That doesn’t mean I haven’t given my family and friends all kinds of grief and fear with my suicidal thoughts. One time when I was with my family in Door County, Wisconsin (yes, Door County, my happy place) I called up some friends and told them I was going to die by suicide. Also, I’ve been hospitalized in a psychiatric ward for suicidal thoughts, and I’ve been in intensive outpatient programs (IOPs) twice. In an IOP, you’re in a group of people learning mental health skills.

I was actually in an IOP very recently and its ending was a contributing factor to a round of suicidal thoughts I was having a couple of weeks ago. However, the skills I learned in the IOP and other skills I brought to the program carried me through. Before I get ahead of myself, the biggest thing that helps me with suicidal thoughts is knowing that my first reaction to them is to be scared by them, and to know that I don’t really want to die. It took me 20 years to learn this.

The most helpful thing for suicidal thoughts that I did in the IOP was to draw up a Safety Plan. It’s a sheet that includes things I can do or people I can contact. One of the questions therapists in the IOP ask is if I want to go to sleep and never wake up. My alarm went off when I recently experienced this symptom. So I took action. Remember, I knew I didn’t want to die. I turned to my Safety Plan. I had written down that looking at a semicolon, a symbol of suicide prevention, or holding a piece of amber helped ground me in the fact that I know I don’t want to die. So I made a “medicine bag” that I carry with me. It includes an amber ring from my Great Aunt Elsie who passed away 10 years ago at the age of 97, and semicolon buttons (see picture above). My favorite is the one that says “Your Life Matters.” I also have a miniature rosary—a little Catholic voodoo can’t hurt!

The reason amber is significant is that I’ve read that amber is good for easing depression or suicidal thoughts. I don’t honestly think it does, but it’s a soothing idea. Also, it’s pretty. Pretty things help.

The medicine bag is just part of my strategy in working through suicidal thoughts and I carry it around with me. I also reach out to people and tell them I am struggling. But I didn’t tell anyone I was feeling suicidal until after the fact this time around. Again, reaching out to people keeps me grounded.

I don’t know what to say beyond that. I told my therapist how I’d been feeling at a recent visit and she told me I should contact her if I’m having suicidal thoughts. From now on, I will. I hope you call 9-8-8 or go to your nearest emergency room if you feel like hurting yourself or someone else. Or tell your therapist. Or tell someone. If I had told someone when I was in the thick of it, I probably would have felt better sooner.

I had suicidal thoughts very late last night. So this morning I texted my therapist and called my mom. I talked about it with my mom and my therapist and I talked about it in a therapy session today. So I’m starting to follow my own advice and the advice of others who care about me!