My favourite childhood trauma. How cute!
Among the wide variety of mental ailments, phobias, traumas and compulsions that haunt me from childhood, I dedicate this first post to my basic and primary trauma, the one that drives me crazy since 1975, when I saw Jaws. The result is that I can’t even dip my toe into the seawater. What is worse, no sooner had I planted my beach parasol into the sand (far from the shore, of course) than in my head I start hearing this pavorous music.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvCI-gNK_y4
I feel sick, have blurry vision and soon you have me sweating like a geyser (I will talk about my hysterical hyperhidrosis in another post). I can’t stop scanning the horizon like a madwoman looking for the fearful fin. I am convinced that, unexpectedly, a giant brownish-grey triangle will emerge from the depths and will drag down in a ravenous frenzy, in the middle of a whirlpool of blood and cries , every defenseless and creature the beast finds by surprise in its way.
If, to cap it all, there is at that precise moment a kid playing the fool on a YELLOW mattress, then I flip out. I lock myself in my car and stay there with my tablet until my husband and my daughter tire of diving.
What is more suprising is that, in spite of the cinematographic deep terror I have of sharks, every summer I watch Jaws (the original film) and all its subsequent sequels, including Jaws IV, The Revenge (in this film Ellen Brody, Chief Brody’s wife, kills the beast). But still not satisfied with the watching of the entire saga, I go on watching other killer sharks films: Deep Blue Sea, Bait and also rubbish films made for tv like Sand Sharks.
I also have absolutely no doubt I am kind of a masochist.