大象传媒

In college, I used scary movies and books to challenge the monsters of my abuse-filled youth. As a 10-year-old and through my early teens, I was so convinced Freddy Krueger was trying to possess me, I slept with the light on and the door open. Out on my own as an undergraduate trying to be an adult, I used horror films and books to process my childhood traumas. I needed to prove to myself that I could be strong and resilient.

According to Margee Kerr, sociologist and author of Scream: Chilling Adventures in the Science of Fear, humans are hardwired to fear the dark, the sight of blood, being bitten or infected with a life-threatening virus, and the shape or movement of animals we鈥檝e evolved to fear (like snakes and spiders). These things trigger a fight-or-flight response, injecting adrenaline into our bloodstream, which raises our respiration and the oxygen supply to our brains and muscles. Experiencing fear elevates our heartbeat, initiates our sweat glands (fear pheromones are a real thing), and even activates white blood cells to fight off infection. It raises our metabolisms and burns calories.

Simultaneous with these physical reactions, our brains calculate whether the danger is familiar (something we鈥檝e survived before) or unfamiliar (never before encountered, the outcome uncertain) as well as how other humans are reacting. In the end, we are marked by the experience: We learn to avoid those things in the future. And then, as a reward for survival (and to keep us from crawling into a cave and never reemerging), our brains are flooded with pleasure chemicals, like endorphins and dopamine鈥攖he same natural painkillers we feel in response to exercise, orgasm, spicy food, and chocolate鈥攖o soothe the stress of the encounter.

My earlier-term miscarriages truly felt like disappearances.

Kerr asserts that watching horror on-screen is the vicarious version of real-life danger. Everything about it鈥攖he scenarios, of course, but also the lighting, the music, the camera angles, and the movement鈥攚orks together to provoke that same thrilling innate response. It floods the veins with adrenaline and sends the heart racing, breath panting. The aftereffects of a brain washed clean with pleasure chemicals can make a mere human feel at once calm and invincible. For years, horror鈥攁 sort of safe danger I knew had an end鈥攇ot me through some seriously traumatic situations. Walking away from scary novels and films laughing bolstered me.

But once I started having children, I seemed to fossilize in a state of I can鈥檛 watch. The empathy I鈥檇 cultivated in order to properly nurture my children didn鈥檛 allow for even vicarious experiences of peril. The constant anxiety of being responsible for the lives of dependent humans was horrifying enough. The few movies I鈥檇 tried watching during my child-rearing years were too much for me to process. The scenarios and images鈥攅ven the ones having nothing to do with children鈥攈ad me bolting out of bed in the middle of the night to check on my sleeping kids.

Today, all four of my children are thriving. My youngest is 8 and my oldest is 18, which means I鈥檓 trying to prepare myself for the eventual empty nest. When Midnight Mass came out in September of this year, Mike Flanagan鈥檚 7-episode series on Netflix, I figured it was time for me to repair my relationship with horror, to slowly regrow the calluses I鈥檇 built in college. Flanagan鈥檚 horror series are known for having a lot of downtime鈥攎oments in between scare scenes where viewers get to know the characters through lengthy emotional monologues鈥攄iluting the horror, postponing the thrills. The perfect show for someone trying to ease back into scary stuff.

WARNING: MIDNIGHT MASS SPOILERS

In the show, Crockett Island, a Catholic community, falls prey to a well-meaning priest who lovingly exposes his congregation to what he tells himself is an angel but who the audience quickly understands is a vampiric creature. During the priest鈥檚 daily masses, he slips drops of the 鈥渁ngel鈥檚鈥� blood into the sacrament鈥攖he wine and bread meant to represent the body of Christ鈥攚hich begins to heal the congregants鈥� ailments and restore their youth.

I was fascinated by Flanagan鈥檚 creative and potentially controversial idea to put a Christian spin鈥攁 religion founded on supernatural blood鈥攐n a blood-fueled monster that has traditionally been seen as evil. While I still couldn鈥檛 look at the gory parts head-on鈥擨 watched adjacently so I could turn away at slasher scenes鈥擨 was relieved to be enjoying horror again. With each new episode, I further congratulated myself on my progress. Right up until Erin Greene鈥檚 ultrasound.

Greene arrives on Crockett Island prodigal and pregnant. She attends mass every day to redeem herself as a divorcee and soon-to-be single mother. But when she goes in for an ultrasound, the fetus鈥攚hom she鈥檇 nicknamed 鈥淟ittle Foot鈥� at her previous ultrasound appointment鈥攈as vanished. She goes to a hospital on the mainland to get a second opinion, where doctors not only confirm there is no fetus but also fail to find any physical trace she was ever pregnant.

I have miscarried five times. Two were late-term losses wherein I had to deliver and cremate the fetuses. Greene鈥檚 ultrasound appointment hurled me back in time to relive my own prenatal appointments where I went in breathless, expecting to see blurry images of my healthy swimming fetuses, only for the doctor to be unable to find heartbeats, with subsequent ultrasounds confirming that the babies had, for all intents and purposes, vanished. Though my most recent miscarriage happened more than eight years ago, I am still nearly daily affected by these horrible losses. Watching Midnight Mass was supposed to be my foray back into horror with an imaginary scenario, but the show had suddenly transformed into my very real nightmare, reopening wounds I hadn鈥檛 addressed in nearly a decade.

My earlier-term miscarriages truly felt like disappearances. Those three fetuses were just ideas, plus signs on plastic sticks, movie reels in my mind of the future. Their chubby cheeks, giggling voices, and bumbling steps鈥攔eal only in my imagination鈥攆aded away gently, without medical intervention. A heavy period at the end of an incomplete sentence. Friends and family further rushed this erasure with their well-meaning platitudes, insisting 鈥測ou can make more鈥� and 鈥測ou already have three beautiful children.鈥� Their violent smiles shamed me for wallowing, for daring to publicly process my grief.

With my later-term miscarriages, having to go through labor and delivery actually soothed my grief. These births meant no one could deny my children鈥檚 existences; they forced those around me to acknowledge that our dead babies were real people, not just in my head. There were two bodies for which I was legally required to make funeral plans. There were two tiny urns delivered by hearse. Two death certificates in black-and-white print that could not be smudged or erased. People sent flowers. My dead fetuses and I were co-starring in a real-life nightmare, stalked and chased by a system and a society that wanted us to shut up and move on, to smile and to be OK. So stubborn am I that these little people deserve to be remembered, I post photographs of their tiny fingers to my social media accounts on their stillbirth dates.

In the show, mainland doctors try to gently dissuade Greene from what to them must have seemed like hysteria鈥攁 miscarriage that far into a pregnancy would have left behind elevated hormone levels and a swollen uterus, conditions she does not have. While watching, I relived the rage and despair Greene must have felt in that moment, having doctors erase her child鈥攈er only physical trace being that first ultrasound photo. I ached to climb inside the screen, to shake my fists and shout that Little Foot was just as real as anyone in that room. I was no longer horrified by and cowering from these losses. I was royally pissed off, my dukes up, ready to fight for Little Foot鈥檚 memory.

Later in the episode, back on the island, Greene delivers a monologue about how her fetus might have experienced death. How it must have been a gentle passing in a safe place. I remembered thinking the same as I walked away from my own devastating ultrasound appointments. How at least my babies would never know the pain of a skinned knee, or loneliness, or bullying, or being taken for granted. They had spent the entire duration of their fleeting existences loved and worshipped in warm, soft safety.

Greene goes on to say that she鈥檚 comforted by the thought of Little Foot being in heaven, held by her ancestors and never being alone鈥攁 life of pure imagination that made it easier for Greene to move forward.

I found myself doubled over sobbing, the image of Greene paused on the screen, my own trauma scab picked and hemorrhaging. I am no longer religious, but I allowed myself to follow Greene鈥檚 thinking, to imagine my own five lost children living on in some imaginary place, surrounded by people who love and celebrate them as I had done before they passed.

I do wonder if the show should have some kind of content warning so other folks with pregnancy loss memories might be spared my jolting, bloodcurdling experience. If there had been, would I have watched it anyway?

At the end of the episode, my brain soaking in the feel-good chemicals only a horror show and a good cry can bring, I caught my breath, wiped my eyes, and laughed at myself. I had finally summoned the nerve to ease back into horror, only to have the show heave me back into my own very real torment. But in a way, the show fulfilled my expectations, albeit painfully. I finished Midnight Mass having further processed my own monstrous grief鈥攆eeling stronger and no longer as skittish in the face of fictional peril.