It’s that time of year again, isn’t it? Damn it to hellfire and brimstone, I’m staying in. There’ll be no clichéd “fang-tastic” nights out, no “spooktacular” sessions down the pub for a “brew” or (40 per cent proof) spirits, no matter how deliciously scary.
This Halloween, like last Halloween, and every Halloween before it, I’ll be indoors with the lights firmly switched off to deter errant trick-or-treaters – and Hell-haunting humbugs to the lot of you (with the exception of dragging the kids pumpkin-picking and to Legoland, because it’s half-term and I won’t get away without doing something scary).
It hurts to be someone who both looks (and loves) all things macabre and to have such a chronic phobia of what I fondly refer to as “goth Christmas”. I was raised on The Addams Family. My parents used to introduce me to people as Lydia from Beetlejuice (the original, obviously).
But I’m not scared of horror, loud noises, foam axe-wielding teenagers or fake blood, or the threat of eggs thrown at my window. My fear – and it is pure, unadulterated, heart-stopping fear; the kind that turns your legs to lead, your throat thick and suffocating, and your chest feel like it’s harbouring an entire aviary of tiny, panicky birds – is all too real, and entirely uncontrollable.
It will probably seem silly to you, as it does to me at times, but the threat of Halloween decorations (specifically, the eight-legged plastic kind, or the ones caught in cobwebs) are enough to stop me going into any mainstream supermarket or local shop for the entire month of October.
It’s a funny thing, having a phobia. Especially such a common one like arachnophobia, too, which let’s face it – everyone thinks they have, just because they might yelp a little at the sight of something small and furry. The difference is that after the initial shock, most would go on to grab a glass to rehouse the little critter to the garden, or – shudder – get close enough with a newspaper to swat them into another realm.
Not me, who is always the last person in the room left to deal with them (and if I’m alone in the house, I’ll either leave or call a local taxi company who’ll – top tip – come and do it for a fiver).
Here’s what having a real phobia is like: it’s not being able to listen to your latest “huge” and “terrifying” encounter with one in the bathroom (and everyone, always, has a story); it’s feeling my heart race like I’ve run a half-marathon at the mere mention of the “s-word” – and you can forget about the t-word entirely, to describe a particularly big and gruesome type. The very mention of it is like an aural shockwave; likely to make me scream and cry, while feeling a familiar white hot rush of adrenaline shoot through to the very tips of my fingers.
Having a phobia has, at times, forced me to sleep on the pavement on a freezing December night, because I was simply too afraid to put my key in the cobweb-covered lock; almost caused me to crash my car when a particularly nasty one did a bungee jump from the rear-view mirror; left me with panic attacks, hyperventilation and muscle tetany; caused me to cringe at every nursery rhyme rendition of “Incy Wincy Spider”, while trying desperately not to react and so risk passing on my phobia to my daughter (spoiler: I failed. She’s now scared of them, too).
Our natural “fight or flight” response to fear is at the root cause of it. Somewhere along the way I’ve probably “learned” to be scared of spiders, so my nervous system responds instantaneously to perception of a threat; forcing me to run, act or cower, no matter how many times I’m told it’s “irrational”, “they’re more afraid of you than you are of them” or – in Britain, at least – “they won’t hurt you”.
Critics, hear me out, for it’s not like I haven’t tried to self-cure. I’ve been through several, excruciating (and ultimately unsuccessful) rounds of hypnotherapy, cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) and even embarrassed myself on national television as part of a “mass phobia cure” with Paul McKenna, before the producers ruined any chance of recovery by surprising us with a couple of the enormous creatures on loan from London Zoo, to demonstrate to the audience how strong our fear was (all you can see from the clip, so I’m told, is me vaulting 180 degrees backwards over a bookcase before being tended to by paramedics).
I’ve taken part in a forthcoming documentary with a team of zoologists called “Sixteen Legs”, I wrote my undergraduate psychology dissertation on phobias and have even researched virtual reality as a cure.
But at this time of year, at Halloween, it’s worse than ever – a dizzying spiral of panic brought about by paper ones, plastic ones, wind-up ones or pencil-etched ones alike. And while I love The Craft and Practical Magic as much as the next self-respecting goth who grew up in the 1980s, I don’t love Halloween, and I probably never will.
So spare me your stories, talk of fancy dress and party invitations, but do save me a toffee apple. That would be nice.
