Childhood Trauma
The Little Ones With The Big Impact
I was supposed to write my Sunday letter about the Chevalier des Grieux's misadventures in love, but I'm running on inspiration and what inspires me this morning are those childhood moments that change everything.
Not the big traumas, since I'm not brave enough to talk about them. But also because Aramis is absolutely right:
“My friend, hide your wounds. Silence is the last joy of the unhappy. Beware of putting anyone on the trail of your sorrows, the curious pump our tears like flies do the blood of a wounded deer.”
We're going to talk about the little traumas we feel when we watch a movie that marks us for life.
If you remember this: you've come to the right place.
When I was 7 years old. I was invited to a friend's house. Everything was perfect until his mother decided to watch The Exorcist. Nothing too bad except... I was sleeping in the living room. And... I wasn't asleep yet.
So I “listened” to the Exorcist while pretending to be asleep, and yes: it was a traumatic experience. I remember most of the movie. The sounds were vile. A mixture of screams, grunts, insults and hellish roars.
I didn't sleep that night. And for months, I had trouble sleeping. Even today, I still get an uneasy shiver when people mention this movie. When people ask me if I've seen it, I say “Yes, I think so...”.
That's probably what made me lose my love of horror films.
I thought maybe I could exorcise myself by watching The Exorcist as an adult. But... I never dared. One day, maybe.
A lesson from this unforgettable experience: never let your children sleep at other people's houses. Without meaning to, these mishaps happen.
Because it wasn't enough. One year later. One evening, I was exceptionally alone at home. Flipping on the TV around 11:00 p.m., I came across Freddy, A Nightmare on Elm Street. I didn't have time to change the scene. It all happened too fast. Worst or second worst night of my life, I couldn't say.
But these two scares are nothing compared to the impact of this last story. When we were little, cartoons didn't spare children. Both physical and psychological violence.
Looking back, Mufasa's death is dramatic. Poor Simba cowering beneath his paw.
Calling for help. And the infamous son of a bitch coming to tell him it's his fault but... there's much worse...
There was a Japanese anime, based on a French novel. “Nobody's boy Remy”. The story of a happy little boy who, one day, is sold by his stepfather to an old man. (It's already creepy.)
(Luckily) The old man is just an itinerant artist, accompanied by his animals. And he's going to become Remy's father figure and take care of him. From then on, the new friends will live one dramatic adventure after another. The author relentlessly punishes ALL his characters in Game of Thrones style.
Extreme poverty, death, abandonment, separation... Nothing is spared for little Remy. It's as if he were cursed and every time he found a little happiness, it had to be taken away.
It's sad, and the most dramatic part is the ending, which is supposed to be a happy one. I'm going to talk about the manga's ending because it seems to me that the book has a different ending.
Remy is reunited with his mother. She's a rich English woman. His mother had been looking for him for years. She takes in him and the other little child who was wandering around with him.
But after some time with his wealthy family, Remy and Mathias don't quite fit in. Having always lived on the streets, they find themselves in a world where people love each other and eat their fill.
They flee to resume their lives as street artists.
“I don't feel any happier than when I wanted to be happy. It doesn't do me much good to be surrounded by such nice, caring people. Since we've been with Mrs. Milligan, we've all been served up on a platter. A man has to learn to live for himself. An adult must depend only on himself. He mustn't rely on anyone.”
When I was a kid, I didn't understand what had happened. But I knew something was off. I kept asking myself.
“What is wrong with Remy?”
And with a few life experiences, I've come to understand that some people have suffered so much that unhappiness has become their comfort zone. When you've been through hell, it's hard to appreciate heaven.
As soon as something good happens, they throw it out the window. They self-sabotage all their lives. Happiness becomes an anomaly in a life that has always been punctuated by bad fortune.
I expected Remy to be happy with his family. Pampered by his mother. Fed, housed, under a warm roof. He's suffered so much that he can't even understand that he's just a child who has the right to be loved and cared for.
When you consume a story, whatever it is. You tend to hope for a happy ending.
What's the point of suffering if not for something?
Maybe that's why some works with realistic endings are frightening. Because in life, sometimes, suffering is just suffering.
There's no happy ending.
Thank you for all the replies to my previous post. I have read all your answers. Thanks to all of you.
Very good post.
I feel bad that your tentative interest in horror movies was stamped out in this way. I remember watching Interview With the Vampire through the cracks in my bedroom wall. There are some good ones out there, though I've never had a strong love for the Exorcist.
I was four years old when I first watched The Lion King at the drive in movie theater. I only saw up to the part where Mufasa died, due to spending the rest of the evening curled up crying in the back of the pickup.
What a fascinating subject!
I can still remember watching The Golden Child with my friend during one of our sleepovers. It’s a rather fun and funny Eddie Murphy movie about a little boy who’s enlightened, like a lil Buddha who needs Eddie to protect him from a man who’s the Devil in disguise. It’s all fun and games — lots of laughs — until the man transforms into this massive demon flying out of a dark cave. Needless to say, my friend and I had to pause the movie and take bathroom breaks together. An innocuous toilet never looked so ominous…like a hole that’d swallow you alive. 😂
I was certainly scared, and we laughed about how scared we were when looking back on the memory years later.
But, interestingly, it didn’t make me swear off scary movies. Perhaps because I watched the scariest movies (like the Exorcist) later on, when I was older. And believing it was not real prevented me from feeling a true sense of fear.
Most importantly, I experienced some real-life trauma that made the movies less scary. I think watching scary movies allowed me to process real-life fear in a safer make-believe context.
That’s probably why I can still enjoy scary movies of all types today…from demonic possession, to haunted houses, to the lighter types like Coraline and my absolute Halloween favorite The Nightmare Before Christmas.
It’s amazing how emotionally charged events can impact our childhoods and shape how willing we are to watch/read certain stories for the rest of our lives.