Saved by Horror

I had horrible nightmares as a child. The kind that woke you dripping in sweat and unable to think about anything else. Even movies like Jurassic Park would send me into weeks of nightmares about dinosaurs eating my loved ones. I was a weird kid, but I didn't know that some of the weirdness I was dealing with in myself weren't just the pings and pangs of growing up, they were mental health monsters rearing their ugly heads.

I'm Josey. I'm autistic with OCD & social anxiety to start with. My life is ruled by routines, compulsions and fighting impulses & intrusive thoughts. For a while, I was losing the battle. Wait- what does this have to do with nightmares? Mike Flanagan??? I'll get there!

When I was 13 I saw the Exorcist for the first time and it changed me as a person. The movie terrified and yet thrilled me. I was blown away by a girl my age becoming a full on demon of hell and giving a performance that people have never stopped talking about. The weirdest part? The nightmares stopped. After that night, everything changed. Something clicked in my mind, movies no longer were the source of my terror. They were pretend. Something I could turn off and move on from. Besides, I was learning that reality was far more terrifying, and the things going on in my mind soon became far scarier than anything I'd ever seen in a movie, including Faces of Death. Horror movies became a solace, and escape, a place I could go and escape my mind. I almost felt like every film I watched, I was tackling one of my own demons. It was as if I was looking into my own mind and saying, you CAN'T scare me...none of the monsters on screen have yet!

I was first introduced to Mike Flanagan's work in 2013 with his film Oculus. My wife and I got to attend a screening of it while it was still in post-production and then went and saw it again when it was released in theaters. We'd already be Karen Gillan fans for years, so her combined with horror was a brilliant idea for us, and even to this day, the scene where she bites down into a lightbulb lives vividly in my mind. It was the beginning of a deep appreciation that's still here and growing 8 years later. Each of his films have given me a little bit of something, hope, motivation, whatever I needed. In Hush, it was seeing a disabled character overcome and use what society sees as weakness to overcome. I saw pieces of who I wanted to be in Maddie, who I COULD be. I wanted her strength and didn't even realize I had it all along. In Oujia: Origin of Evil, I related to Doris losing her father and wanted to find ANY means possible to talk to him again. And while I've never been handcuffed to a bed to find my dead lover a la Gerald's Game, I do know what it's like to fight to live in my own dark way.

Haunting of Hill House though...it gave me so many things I can never put into words. In a time where I was losing myself to my darkness, it helped me feel human again. I cried, I laughed, I longed, I loved. It helped me LIVE. In each of the Crain family, I found myself. Even in their flaws, I found myself, and in their strengths, I found my own. Theodora Crain though will always hold the biggest space in my heart. Kate Siegel's performance, yet again, made me want to fight and find my strength. As Theo finds herself, heals her trauma and takes her baby steps into truly living her life, I was desperate to do the same. I was living my life like a clenched fist with hair too. Locking myself away, drowning in my own sorrows and trauma. Living my life in my own black gloves, afraid to truly touch people. There's a scene in the 8th episode, Witness Marks, that I use sometimes to just...help me feel. Its when Nell appears to Shirley and Theo arguing in the car. Kate Siegel's performance in that scene to this day gives me chills, it makes me FEEL. She breaks down to her sister about the nothingness consuming her, how she was desperate to feel, how she NEEDED to feel anything. There's so many moments in my life where I couldn't feel, like the stone statues scattered around the grounds of Hill House, I felt an empty nothing too many times. I have broken down pleading for people to understand me, pleading for forgiveness and just to feel. When I start to lose myself, I watch that scene along with Nell's incredible monologue behind the red door. Hill House became the start of my therapeutic experience, but Doctor Sleep cemented Mike Flanagan's magic over my mind.

I cannot tell you how many times I've seen Doctor Sleep now in the two years since it was released. It's over 100 for sure. I have a Rose the Hat hat I wear around the house sometimes and yes, I have Rebecca Ferguson's name in a heart tattooed on my leg. I love Rose the Hat, but in Danny Torrance, I found a savior. At one point in the film, Dick Halloran speaks to Danny Torrance about his ghosts. He shows him a small box, has him feel it, smell it, memorize it. He's to use those boxes to store each of his ghosts from the Overlook Hotel, and keep them in his mind, organized and in their mental prison. A few years ago, I started seeing a new therapist after a couple years without. I was nervous about connection, but my therapist, Robert, found ways to reach me. He knew that being autistic I had fixations that were intense, and at that time, Doctor Sleep was VERY dominant. He decided to place me in the shoes of Danny Torrance. I needed to take every impulsive thought, every dark creeping temptation...name them, give them a persona....put them in their own boxes. I have my own woman in the bathtub, my own Grady sisters and my own Jack Torrance, the ghost of my deceased father and the weight of my grief. When I need to face them, I take out a box, open it, and tackle the spirits inside. When I've had enough, I file them back in my mind. It has helped me time and time again. It has helped me burn off some of my demons completely, nothing but ash like the Overlook Hotel now.

Last night, like some kind of beacon of hope, I met Mike Flanagan and Kate Siegel. What's most miraculous about it is, my mind tried playing tricks on me. We got there around 6pm but by 730 my body and mind were already at a breaking point. My brain kept trying to tell me all the horrible things that could happen if I stayed, but I verbally fought against it. No, we'll stay, I've got this, I kept telling my wife. At 9 pm, we met them. Me fighting my thoughts, putting them into their boxes rewarded me with one of the greatest and most meaningful moments of my life. I got to show them my Hill House tattoo, and I got to tell Kate how much Theo means to me and how much I love every single one of her performance. But I finally got to tell Mike Flanagan how he saved my life. I got to talk to someone whose work fundamentally changed me. I got to thank him. This week, I get to tell my therapist and I know he will be overjoyed. Things really do come full circle. Last night, I boxed up even more demons, and got to say a big FUCK YOU to my mental health. It tried to drag me down, and I got to literally triumph and experience something so magical. I am as strong as Danny Torrance & Theo Crain. I can and WILL overcome.

And the rest? The rest is confetti.