Nightmare on Emerson Street
Navigating mental health through a horror lens
For too many of us in 2020, insomnia is no stranger. Many of us are at its beck and call. For some, it’s knowing that babies are sleeping in cages at the border tonight, or that another defenseless person has been gunned down in the street. Others, because the daily stress of minimal yet antagonizing drama weighs on our psyches and prevents us from ever feeling truly at peace.
My personal insomnia seems trivial compared to current events, but is still there nevertheless: good ol’ classic nightmares. There are nights I feel like a kid on Elm Street who isn’t ready to say goodbye to today, because of what awaits me in the dark alleyways of my mind. Now, the genesis of these nightmares? I’m sure a psycho-whats-it could tell me something useful but I won’t go to one because the idea of a therapist taking advantage of my mind in a Hannibal Lecter-type way (i.e. mind control and manipulation, not the cannibalism, that’s fine) seems too plausible a reality.
But I’m not, not self-aware enough to know that typing all of this out loud could also very well be a cry out to make it official and certify me. The specific nightmares that have frightened me the most over the years are always of “haunted women.” Maybe someone can just leave a comment as to what deep-seated issue this is related to so I can avoid exploring anything in a group session with no shoe laces? I have shitty insurance after all.
There are three specific disturbed women who use the dark corners of my mind as their playground:
#3) Zelda from Pet Sematary
#2) Mrs. Massey aka The Lady in the Tub from The Shining
And the real ringer:
#1) Regan from The Exorcist
At the age of 27, these are the images that still make me sit up in bed gasping for air at 3 AM. These are the women standing outside of my bedroom door biding their time, scraping their torn fingernails along the walls until I come out. These are the women I see whenever I walk by a dark, opaque window and am greeted by wide eyes and jarring grins instead of my own reflection. These pictures are the root of every nightmare and night terror (oh lord — and the sleep walking!) I have ever had. I didn’t even want to type their names into my browser to double check spelling.
Sometimes other “haunted women” from pop culture and the depths of my tortured mind supplement these images. For instance, one woman I have seen over the years wears a pale blue nightgown, whose long, blonde hair drags on the floor, and masquerades as my mother…
Oh! I wouldn’t have such issues if I didn’t listen to Stephen King podcasts on my morning commute you say? Oh! I shouldn’t read I’ll Be Gone in the Dark and The Stranger Beside Me, home alone? Oh! I shouldn’t watch Joe Bob Briggs to help me wait out the wee hours of the night? I don’t think consuming horror is the cause of my nightmares and anxiety. Instead, I think it may be the solution.
Horror is the warm blanket wrapped around me that faintly smells of my mama’s $11 chardonnay that she just cracked open to watch The X-Files in her leather rocking chair on a Sunday night. Horror is my brother telling me stories about his evil twin brother, Zeke, who lives in the walls of our house and looks suspiciously a lot like the Joker, before tucking me into bed. Horror is my dad helping me with my Freddy Krueger makeup in the morning before school on Halloween. (Remember the days when a sixth grader could dress up like a pedophile serial killer, glove and all?) Horror is the lens I use to explore my debilitating anxiety or through which I search the archives for examples of strong women who fight back against their shitty circumstances. I’m that person that popped open The Stand the night Chicago went into quarantine in order to find coping mechanisms and survival tactics (M-O-O-N, that spells COVID-19!)
I’ve known for a while that high stress causes me to sleep walk and have night terrors. It was most active when I was a kid dealing with a brain that was firing on all cylinders, while managing a stack of cliche trauma and self pity. One night I woke up needing to pee and to my alarm, I found my room covered in snakes! The floor, the ceiling, everything was covered in black and red snakes swirling around each other.
All I knew was that I would be in trouble if I wet the bed yet again that week. So my only option, even if it surely meant death, was to get to the bathroom. I jumped from my bed to the top of my dresser with the acrobatics that are only possible for a six year old in mortal danger. By the grace of Peter Venkman, I made it to the hallway where the door to the porcelain sanctuary awaited me. I ran in, happy and literally relieved. I did it! I was mother fucking Indiana Jones and I hadn’t wet the bed. Take that you fucking Nazis! Smiling with pride, I pulled up my day-of-the-week princess underwear. And that’s when I saw her.
Mrs. Massey, with her green putrid skin, kelp hair, and nasty elongated nipples, was taking a bath. I could smell her decay underneath my mother’s lavender bubble bath. I ran out of the bathroom and was about to run to the safety of my bed, but one problem: the goddamn snakes still covered my entire floor. Fuck! So there I began my harrowing climb back up my dresser, a climb far more hazardous than even Everest. I did my best to avoid stepping on my precious Beanie Babies that my dad had recently won for me on an eBay auction, until I was able to jump down onto my dinosaur quilt. Triumphant, I stole under the covers and turned my back to the snakes in order to drift back to sleep.
And then I heard the shower curtain close.
In March, I walked into a dilapidated Chicago Catholic hospital. I pushed the button for the coffin-paneled elevator, waiting under flashing fluorescent lights that really set a House on Haunted Hill vibe. As the elevator ticked off 4th floor, then 3rd floor, I heard it. An agonizing scream and moan came down the elevator shaft. The elevator doors opened and there she sat in a wheelchair: Zelda.
Everything about her was twisted. Her skin was paper white, her tabby-colored hair matted. She was screaming at me, demanding to know why I was doing this to her. Tears formed in the center of my pupils in a panic. “I don’t know!” I whispered to myself, my chest tightening. “I don’t know! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Her nurse then asked me politely to get out of the way.
My doctor put me on Prozac 30 minutes later.
In the last few months since I started taking Prozac my nightmares have alleviated. I know that this is one of the great things about the drugs helping with the chemical imbalances in my brain but I can’t help but worry that I’m now missing something that’s innately a part of me.
I know that dreams are more powerful than the average person gives them credit for. I’m not saying my dreams will help me solve who killed Laura Palmer but I do believe that dreams, and nightmares, help us work out problems and situations that are drowning in our subconsciouses somewhere. According to Special Agent Fox Mulder, “Dreams are answers to questions we haven’t yet figured out how to ask.” So if that’s the case, what answers is my brain trying to supply me with these haunted women? Am I worried that they are who I’ll become? Do I have deep-seated mommy issues? (Who doesn’t.) Or are they warning me against the horrors that must be out there…somewhere…and while taking Prozac means I get to push the snooze button on my weekly panic attacks, am I also dulling my evolutionary survival instincts?
What’s most likely is that I saw three beautifully horrific films when I was young and dealing with trauma, sadness, and pain, and therefore each of these three women represent a very specific and disquieting moment in time for me. But that’s something to work out at another time in the therapy sessions I can’t scrounge up the courage to go to.
I think the Prozac is working. I’m feeling more in control of my emotions and have eased back a bit on my feelings of anger and total self-failure. And the nightmares have…paused. For the first time since I can remember, I haven’t rolled over in bed and smelt Regan in her dirty nightgown lying next to me. I haven’t sleep-walked to the bathroom and felt water splash my bare feet as Mrs. Massey crawls out of the tub. I haven’t heard Zelda whisper my name from down the dark hallway. I’m finally okay with going to sleep because I want to and not because it’s a necessary evil that awaits me on the other side of my eyelids.
But what if these nightmares are vital to something we can’t yet know or explain? What if Mulder’s right and these haunted women are the answers to questions I can’t yet ask? At this moment, I’m eyeing my little white pill with the green stripes and can’t help but wonder if taking this Hypnocil is the right thing?
Not because I buy into pharmaceuticals being bad for you. Nah. Fix me, fix me! Help me be the best functioning person I can! But, what if these nightmares are telling me something that I need to know? Or maybe I’m just feeling what Against Me! sings is “the remorse of a loss of a feeling” and even though they were terrible times we spent together, now that they’re suddenly gone, I’m realizing these women are all I’ve know for a long, long time.
But, then I turn off my light, snuggle Phoebe, my smelly cat, and wake up in the light of the new day, rested.
