Can Horror Help with Stress Levels? with Therapist Katy Jaramillo | Ep. 103

Hello. Welcome back to Holistic Inner Balance. This is a very special podcast episode because we are doing a theme and you all might not know, but I love a theme. Big theme. person. Anytime there can be like a theme party or like a celebration of a holiday, I am all about it. And so today we are, we are Halloween themed. Ooh. And we're going to talk about horror movies and actually how horror can be beneficial for psychology, for your psychology. Also, it can be detrimental as well. So we're going to talk about both. And, you know, we love, we love chatting about nuance on this podcast. So we're going to go into Both of these areas. And we actually have a special guest on the podcast today who is— yes, who is going to be talking to us about this because Dr. Kane and I, we don't know much about horror. We don't watch like any. We both have talked about how we will leave if people are like, let's watch a horror movie. Like, I've just— I've always been that way. I can't handle it. And so we have a special guest talking about this with us today. And this special guest is named Katie. Katie is a licensed professional counselor and a registered art therapist specializing using narrative and creative techniques in the treatment of trauma and medical challenges. She has a lifelong passion for stories, scary or otherwise, and she's become increasingly curious about the psychological and social implications of horror stories in the past 5 years. So she sees parallels in the struggles and the triumphs of her favorite fictional characters and in the resilience of her clients as well. So she's going to come on and really enlighten us on all of these topics today. So welcome, Katie. Thank you.

Yeah, I'm so happy you're here. This has been a long time coming. Katie and I work together, and we sit at lunch, and you talk about how you get this excited look on your face and about these books and these movies. And I'm always like, aren't you scared?

Yes. goal. I want to be scared. Yeah. And I'm often disappointed when I'm not scared enough.

I'm like scared all the time. So I'm like, I don't need any more of that. In fact, I was in therapy the other week. And I was having difficulty sleeping, which y'all know I'm an insomnia warrior. And so I was having difficulty sleeping. And I was doing EMDR and ego state work with my counselor. And I had this vision of a woman with curly blonde hair come up, and we were like, why is that coming up when you're talking to your parts about sleeping? And we were following the, the, the trail, you know, the, the treats trail that led to the, the cottage of my neuroses. And in that, it turned out that I had a part that saw Silence of the Lambs at a babysitter's house when I was little. And I'm a 41-year-old woman, and I was having a difficult time sleeping because this younger part that saw Silence of the Lambs got really scared and was hijacking me at 41 years of age. And once I processed through that, then my sleep got so much better. Wow. So horror is really confusing and scary for me. And so it's Halloween season, and I hate Halloween season.

So I love Halloween season, but I access it from a much more playful and slightly distanced place than a movie like Silence of the Lambs. So I was planning to get into this in a little bit, but I really don't care for movies, horror movies that center on cruelty, which Silence of the Lambs does. And it's one that I'm familiar with the plot, um, just being into scary things, but I will not watch it.

Yeah. Wow.

Yeah, I, I— there's certain franchises and certain movies I simply don't find to be healthy for being exposed to, and they're too much for me.

So there's like nuance.

Oh, absolutely.

In the horror. And So the perspective that you're bringing to the conversation today, I love this because Hadlee and I aren't able to offer that perspective, is you're going to teach us a little bit about how horror can be helpful. And I appreciate that you're like, but not all horror is created equal. Silence of the Lambs is in the nope zone.

For me, not for everyone.

Yeah. So tell us about what is horror. Talk to us about it.

So horror is anything that activates our nervous system, um, with a fear response. It can sometimes be more of a stress response. It's physiologically a very similar thing. I think one of the key differences between people who enjoy horror like me and people who are averse to horror like you two is the meaning that we assign the fear and kind of the secondary emotion we have about the fear. So I, when I say I like being scared, I mean that in a, in a very fictional way. I don't want to be scared of something happening to me in my real life, but I have a positive physiological arousal response when I am scared of something that is not actually threatening me. Growing up, my parents would jump out at me and startle me, and apparently I would go, ah, and then I would giggle. Um, and so I think it's an innate trait that I have because my brother didn't have the same response. And that's kind of how we figured out, oh, Katie likes being scared. Um, similarly, I would ride every roller coaster I could because it would give me a really positive thrill.

Which is so interesting because the— as a physiolo— physiology person, I think about the chemicals that your body releases when you're excited versus when you're frightened. And they're both adrenaline or noradrenaline and cortisol. So what I hear you saying is that there's the meaning we assign to fear and then that secondary emotion that comes from it. And so I'm loving this. Keep going. This is so good.

Yeah, that's amazing. So for me, if it's fictional horror, it's a pleasurable experience. I'm like, oh, this is exciting. It's like riding that roller coaster. The stress response is very similar to the narrative arc, and horror kind of has the most distinct ups and downs that you're riding as you read, as does thriller. And it's creating that highest arousal, physiological arousal state. So I think it might be helpful to go over types of horror because you brought up Silence of the Lambs. I would put that in the category of psychological and gore and disturbing horror. So psychological horror relies on mental and emotional fears rather than just violence or monsters. Gore and disturbing is exactly what it sounds like. It's kind of grotesque visuals. It can often involve cruelty or pain or injury, and I really respond negatively to those. I don't enjoy them at all, and I'm very averse to movies that rely on that. Other, other types of horror involve the, you know, the infamous masked killer, and a lot of franchises have like a killer character who is almost superhuman. Um, think Halloween. Mm-hmm. I enjoy those because the violence, at least in the older versions, is, is low in terms of what you can visually see. It's more about the chase and the thrill. Um, I enjoy monster-based horror because it's got— monsters can symbolize a lot of aspects of our own psychology and our own society, and it doesn't involve that specific human-unhuman cruelty that I'm averse to. Paranormal and existential are my favorite 2. Paranormal is just incorporeal entities like ghosts or forces, and a lot of These are the most psychological kind of stand-ins, if you ask me. And then existential horror has to deal with kind of our sense of dread and our anxiety about the unknown. Like, I think, I think, Nicole, you said something once that space scares you.

Yes.

Space horror is a thing. Oh. Because we have an inability to comprehend the vastness of space or the vastness of the depths of the ocean. And it calls into question our own place in the universe as a small human being. And we get to explore that in a fun, thrilling, scary way.

So I'm gonna make sure that I'm tracking with what I'm hearing. So there's different elements of it, there's different ways that it can show up. So there's like the chase and the thrill. So like, would a Jason movie be that? Like, there's some sort of Okay. And then there's monsters, which is interesting, and I want to hear you expand on, which I'm sure you will, is how it can symbolize aspects of society. So it can help us work through different aspects of society in a fictional character. And then you described there's also paranormal thrillers or horror. There's existential, like you said, space or oceans. It's like figuring out—

Or time.

Or time.

There's some really eerie time-based horror movies that I really, really like.

Ooh, like what?

There's one called The Endless, and I think it's really underrated. And a lot of horror fans wouldn't consider this horror, but I think because I respond so deeply to my mental inability to perceive infinity, to me it's horrifying.

Yes, I resonate too with that.

Yeah, it's a neat small little kind of indie movie. Um, The Endless is excellent. Very creepy.

Have— when you guys were growing up, did you ever get anxiety about the concept of heaven? I grew up very religious and the pastors were always like, don't worry, you're gonna spend eternity in heaven. And I remember being an adolescent and like tossing and turning and being like, heaven and eternity sounds terrifying because you just—

Eternity is terrifying.

It like never, it never ends.

Yeah.

I've thought everything, done everything, and yet I have eternity. Like,

yeah,

I don't— I did. So I was afraid of that growing up.

There's actually a really cool podcast. It's my favorite horror podcast. It's called The Magnus Archives. And the creator has explored— he's kind of come up with these main forces of our main fears. And one of them is the vast. And there's different short stories that deal with how we experience our fear of things that are vast and incomprehensible on our scale.

And that's called the Madness or— Oh,

the Magnus Archives.

M-A-G-N-E-S.

N-U-S. Magnus, like the name.

Oh, okay. So the Magnus Archives, the Vast. That's freaky. Hadley, have you had

that?

No. I also like— it brings to mind Ayurveda because I have a lot of— my constitution is Pitta Kapha. I don't have a lot of air and space. in my constitution. And so vastness to me is my medicine. Having more space is my medicine. Whereas for— I mean, I'm not sure about you, Katie, but I know for Dr. Caine, it's literally like that. It makes sense that you are like— you already have a bunch of air and ether in your constitution. And so it's like, oh my God. Yeah.

Do you happen to fear enclosed spaces at all? Me? Uh, Hadley.

Oh,

um, not really. My mom does,

because that's the opposite on that dichotomy.

Totally.

Claustrophobia is a very common fear.

Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, I— no, I don't. Not particularly. I fear— I don't have that many, like, Super deep fears, but I do have a lot of nightmares. Really? Yes. Which is also a very pizza thing.

You're suppressed. It's coming out.

Yeah, I know, I know, I know. It's like my subconscious, like, yeah, yeah. If I remember my dreams, it's usually— they're usually not like so scary, but they're like something that I'm like, I don't want this. And they're very realistic too. It's like, you know, someone someone is like cheating on someone and they tell me about it and I'm supposed to like keep it a secret, you know, it's like weird, like very realistic kind of things.

Yeah,

so

I think, yeah, that touches on 2 reasons I like the horror genre. I don't want to read about realistic problems that people are having. I love fiction, I love to read, I also love movies and TV shows, but I'm not really wanting to confront things that I can really relate to on a realistic level because then I'm stressed about it.

Yeah.

If there's that imaginative, unreal component that creates something that we call reflective distance in art therapy. And what reflective distance means is that this is close enough to my experience, but there is something that is making it separate from me so that I can explore it in a safe place. In art therapy, that means we, we put our thoughts or feelings down visually with art materials by creating a picture. In horror, that means the ghost represents trauma, and I don't have to watch a movie about someone who is being traumatized by, you know, some kind of abuse or major car accident. If maybe if that's what I've been through, I just want to watch someone fight this ghost and recognize symbolically this represents trauma that I faced.

Yeah, I like it. Yeah, that's so good.

Yeah, thanks.

Like a powerful reframe. And in my brain, which I'm so grateful for this opportunity, is in my brain, I'm like, who's this person that thought of this evil, sinister ghost? They're out in this world, like, reproducing information. I'm like, oh my gosh. And

then what's wrong with them?

What's wrong with them? And in your mind, you're like, okay, this is a metaphorical representation of something so that I can work through it. So you were using a lot of really smart words that, um, I want to make sure that our audience is vibing with and understanding. As you said, the stress response can kind of take a narrative arc or follow a narrative arc.

Ah, yeah, yeah. I actually have a whole slide about that in my visual presentation that I don't have up today. So a narrative arc, if you think about the beginning of the story, kind of starts here. It introduces you to your characters, to your setting, to the context. You get a sense of what's going on. There's not a lot of energy going on. And then the energy starts to build. You start to get a sense that not everything is perfect in the story. And it continues to build, and you are introduced to your conflict by what we call an inciting incident. So something happens that sets the stage for the story itself to begin. And then we have rising action. As characters are dealing with things building, there can come a crisis point or a climax, which is like the big battle. This can be in like a rom-com, will they or won't they? There was a betrayal and we have to get past it. In a horror movie, that can be like the big confrontation with the big baddie, the monster, the killer, the ghost, the haunted house. So we— our stress is mirroring that. We kind of start neutral and we're introduced to the story. The inciting incident happens. And that's what first triggers our stress response. And we're like, oh, because we're empathizing and sympathizing with the characters the whole time. We're following them and joining them on their journey, but we're safe because we're not them. The rising action is building our tension internally. The climax comes, and it's— if it's scary, we're like, oh my God, what's gonna happen? So we're at this heightened stress response, but still from a safe place. We're not living it. We're not actually in danger. We're on our couch or in our bed watching or reading this. The characters resolve the climax in some way, and then we have this falling action. There's a sense of relief. We're getting back to certainty. We're figuring out what's just happened, and we're seeing loose ends being wrapped up because after the climax, we're approaching the end of the story. And this is when our parasympathetic response comes in. That's the gas pedal. of our arousal system. So we're slowing down. This is where you start to experience calm. And these are the chemicals that I think people like me respond to because I'm a stressed out person and I want to be calm. So I stress myself out in a fake way, and then I calm down as the characters calm down.

So a big topic right now in mental health is nervous system recalibration. And this is a way to do that, a bottom-up way to do that, right?

I think so. However, it works with my physiology. It probably wouldn't work with you. You're 2.

You

probably wouldn't come down the same way that I would because these images and stories are familiar to me. And so even starting a scary movie, if I know it's in my wheelhouse and doesn't have any triggers that I want to avoid, it's a safe feeling. Mm-hmm. I have some expectation of what I'm getting into. Like riding a roller coaster. I can see the rises and the falls, um, and I can— I expect that I'm going to be surprised. So there's like a little bit of an interesting, um, like a dichotomy there.

Totally. Well, and we talk a lot about how trauma is essentially like too much, too fast, too soon, and then there's no— there's no resolving. And so when there's the movie that actually has the resolve point, I can see how that would create that. Like, okay, now there's a resolution. So now I can kind of make that cycle. Like, I can complete that cycle.

Exactly.

Yeah.

It helps us complete the stress cycle.

Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. I will say that for me, it definitely does not. The feelings of calm don't really come up. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, like, again, that's the difference in our physiology.

That's so interesting. Yeah. I also want to mention that, like, the way that you're talking about how it's like a metaphor, I love that. And I have always identified that I tend to be a super literal person. I have a really hard time seeing metaphors, like in English classes and stuff where— Okay. The curtain is blue because there's like a sadness or whatever. And I'm like, Yeah, I don't see that. I just think, like, I just— this is just how it is. Yeah. So I wonder if that has something to do with the fact that, like, if you have— if you are more artistic, like being able to see the metaphors and see that kind of thing versus if you tend to have more of that literal view, like, I feel like I'm in the movie. I am like, it's happening to me.

Yeah. So if I were to do exposure therapy with you, which is Exposing you to scary things to help you get over your level of fear. When we finally— when we worked up, I'd show you some scary pictures. I'd talk about monsters. We would kind of build up your tolerance or like nervous system resilience to those scary things. But then when it's time to watch the movie, every couple minutes I would be like pointing out, like, do you see that you're still in your living room? Do you see that you're in a movie theater? This is just on the screen. Mm-hmm. And this is taking your nervous system for a roller coaster ride.

That's awesome. Yeah, because I tend to get sucked into any movie, like any, you know, like if I'm watching a TV show, I like don't watch that many TV shows because if I do, I'm constantly thinking about what's going on with the characters and it like impedes in my life.

And that's like a high empathy response, which I also consider that I have. But it's kind of a dual process where I am really empathizing with the characters and their plight, but at the same time I'm holding the idea that this is not real.

Yeah.

And for me, the movies that move into this is real and this involves cruelty, that I lose— I over-empathize and I lose that distance. And so that becomes a no-go for me.

What I love is that You're talking about dual awareness processing, which is a central part of trauma work with EMDR. Oh, yeah. For those, those who are listening, so Katie, you like know all about that. You're a trauma specialist. And so for those who are, who are listening, who aren't familiar with it, is we have a ton of information on our podcast. But EMDR is a form of therapy that is very effective at creating a relationship between what is coming up in your thoughts, feelings and sensations, and then pairing that with, I'm here, it is now, and pulling you out of that time warp that is inherent in trauma. And so that's kind of what you're describing, is that you're watching this movie, you're reading this book, you're seeing this whole autonomic arousal, like I'm going into that fight, flight, freeze, while at the same time you're evoking that dual awareness of, oh, they memorized a script, or, oh, I wonder if that fake blood tastes weird, or, oh, I'm in my living room, I can pause this and go to the bathroom and get popcorn or whatever I'm doing.

And that awareness is very unconscious for me because I really do get sucked into the story, and it's— but it's there enough that I'm not frightened in a realistic sense. And when I talk about reflective distance and the different genres of horror, one of the reasons that cruelty and kind of gory horror franchises are a no-go for me is that I spent several years working on a crisis line before I entered into group practice. And so those kinds of things, those kinds of real-world things are all too real for me. And it smacks me right up against things that are actual possibilities. Like, so the horror I enjoy, nothing can happen to an animal unless it's off screen. And I don't want people assaulting other people unless that's not the main focus. And there are websites where you can put in movies or books, and they will tell you the triggers. Because there's a lot of, a lot of fans of the scary stuff out there who say that some things are too far. Some people can't handle, understandably, reading about a child being harmed. Um, I can if it's a supernatural entity like a ghost, but not a person. Um, I really draw the lines at animals being harmed in a gratuitous sense. But if a horde of zombies runs over a hill and a dog is running away and suddenly I can't see the dog anymore, I know the dog doesn't have a good end, but I'm not exposed to the visceral reality within that fictional universe.

So you're, you're making a leap though. I want to understand it a little bit better.

Okay.

From— I'm going from fight, flight, freeze, autonomic arousal, finishing that trauma sequence because it creates the resolution for you going into parasympathetic, being like, ah, that's good. So we're making that jump into pleasure. And so I'm wondering, why do we like, or why do some people like being scared?

Ah, so I have a couple of, I kind of came up with this 3 C's when I was putting together a PowerPoint presentation to talk about this at a different time. So the first one is comfort. Scary movies might feel comforting if we've experienced trauma or just general stress because it feels familiar. Our nervous system is like, oh, I know what this is like. This is very familiar to me. The scary movies offer a sense of control over our fears. They're, they're put into something outside of ourselves. We, we are not responsible for it. We can anticipate things. Um, like jump scares in movies. If you watch enough of them, you know they're coming.

You've been talking about how they've changed it by like 3 seconds.

Yes, I— and that is— I have no evidence for that besides my own gut. When I'm watching more modern scary movies made in the last 5 years, the jump scares are taking just about 3 seconds longer than the classics. I don't have evidence for this. Please don't correct me. That's how it feels, like my timing is off now for Depending on when the movie came out. The 3rd C is catharsis. When the protagonist survives or triumphs in some way, we get a cathartic release. We're like, ah, that was good. Like, that feels good for us. Likewise, if there's some— some scary movies have really unhappy and tragic endings, and sometimes that allows us to release the things in ourselves that are unhappy or tragic. Um, one of my favorite movies that's not horror is 50/50. And sometimes if I know I need to cry, I'll just put 50/50 on and watch that and let my nervous system go through that narrative arc. Um, and my release at the end isn't, oh, I feel better and my stress response is resolved. That comes in the form of crying.

That's interesting. And so there's 3 C's that we can think about where horror can be pleasurable: comfort, control, and catharsis. And I really honor and appreciate especially the comfort piece, where we've all gone through our own unique type of adversity. And I think the comfort piece is an underdiscussed component of trauma and why we do what we do, even if it means we're repeating old patterns that we know. Yeah. maybe harmful for us. And I think this is such an amazing strategy for doing that in a way that could be healthy. Can you speak a little bit more about that comfort piece?

Yeah. Um, so one of the main tropes in horror movies that really benefits me because I'm in my 30s and I'm female is called the final girl. And that was a trope that played on social expectations that girls are weak and fearful and less likely to survive. Um, and it's been done so many times that now it's expected. So the final girl usually applies to when there's a group of young people, or usually young teenagers, being chased by often a killer or a monster, and everyone is caught and killed except for this one final girl. And in the older movies, there were a lot of associations between Oh, she was pure, she was a virgin, and her goodness is what allowed her to survive. But, and that was, you know, so a trope can both reinforce cultural norms or stand them on their head. These modern final girls are pretty— can I say badass? You can bleep me if you need to. They are out there fighting. they are taking on some more traditionally masculine skills. Um, and so it kind of plays with those gender things. Um, but the final girl is a really neat role that we see in horror movies, and she is a character that I can relate to. She is facing a ton of adversity. Often she starts with a community, but then she ends up on her own fighting this, this, this enemy. Um, that can stand in for anything that we feel like we're fighting or facing in our real lives. Um, and so I, being my age and gender, am lucky enough to have a ton of horror protagonists that I'm like, that's like me. Um, so that's, that's really a positive aspect of horror for me. But we do need— I mean, a lot of these are white women. We do need more diverse horror, and that's why I'm so excited to see more movies from Jordan Peele specifically.

Totally. Yeah, yeah. It reminds me of the very first horror movie I ever watched was Scream.

Okay. Love that one.

Drew Barrymore going in the closet. Yeah.

Well, and it's like base— it's like a parody of—

Exactly.

Horror movies. In 7th grade, it did not feel like parody to me.

Yeah,

same.

But Sidney Prescott, she's the ultimate final girl. Right. You know, she— the, the Ghostface is, um, a masked killer and is different killers throughout the series and keeps coming back to her as unresolved trauma, as a metaphor for unresolved trauma. And she actually exhibits PTSD symptoms in one of the movies, maybe 3. Um, I'm getting them a little mixed up, but it's, it's her coming back to face trauma and to protect people from the same trauma that she went through, and then to help those who have been through the same attacks because there's other survivors in the franchise, but she was the, the sole survivor of the original. Um, yeah, she's, she's pretty awesome.

You're bringing to mind, uh, the ACOTAR series, A Crown of Roses and Thorns.

Oh yeah,

yeah, because you have this main protagonist Feyre and she goes through some really horrific stuff and the author Is like pretty explicit in describing like violence and gore. And yeah, and what I love about that is you're bringing that to mind with the final girl, and I feel like Feyre is represented as this like badass woman who is saving like gods of the, the fairy realm and humans. And so I, I love— I kind of love that instead of like Drew Barrymore getting like running upstairs into a closet and getting killed. Oh yeah.

Drew Barrymore is, is the arc we expected to see, and after that, Scream continues to subvert our expectations. And like you mentioned, Farrah, um, she starts out as a very traditionally feminine and somewhat soft character. She doesn't have a lot of spunk yet, a lot of backbone, but she has to find it through the process of the narrative. These, these final girls, I get a little critical of the movies where they start out and they're just a complete, um, badass. Sorry, I'm trying not to swear.

You can say badass. Okay, we say ass all the time.

Okay, when they start as a complete badass, there's no character growth, there's no character arc. Because like, we think about, oh, if I had to fight a killer, I don't want to do that. I'm a horror fan, I would not want to fight a killer. But if we see someone starting kind of where we're at, we feel empowered through their journey.

Oh, yeah, that's cool. That's cool.

And we see that she goes through really severe PTSD. And I think that is so beautifully represented with the flashbacks, the associations with the color red, the vomiting, and the nightmares. And I feel like the author is really honest about how, like you just said, Katie, is that we don't just pop out of the wound as a fighting demons badass. It's almost like the journey. Oh my gosh, what is the journey that the hero's journey? Yeah, it's like the hero's journey. And I think horror, like you're describing, Katie, I'm kind of hearing that it can take us through almost a hero's journey, but with a different lens.

For making the presentation that I'm going to give in a couple of weeks, I pulled an article that talks about horror through the ages. And it goes decade by decade, showing us that specific monsters or horror tropes that are frequently seen reflect the fears and beliefs of the age. So what we're seeing in the 2020s is that the monster is trauma, and it's about reflecting back the monster as a symbolic representation of the traumas and the memories that plague us. And that's actually why I love haunted house narratives so much, even though it's a little overdone, and some of them are just not as well done. Ultimately, a haunted house— if we're using EMDR language, the haunted house serves as the container. And in this case, it's a container for things that happen in the past. So very EMDR-friendly. But in this narrative, a character moves into that container. Imagine living in a container full of traumatic memories. And those memories manifest as spirits or ghosts. And that's the— that's why I love paranormal and supernatural horror so much. It's all horror is psychological, but that's one of the more psychological genres. It's a little bit higher level than just, I'm scared and I'm having a fear response by running away.

This fear response, I'm kind of curious about it, where if we can figure out How to guide our clients or our patients to the right type of treatment. Because maybe with the context that you're giving in this conversation and doing that approach where it's like systematic desensitization, where you're doing exposure therapy, like talking about it, showing pictures before something is— I wonder if there's a way that we could select, like, okay, this is going to be a really therapeutic process for you. And so what's coming to my mind Is you have somebody who's going into autonomic arousal, right? And people go into autonomic arousal in different ways. And I'm borrowing from Emily Nagowski, who wrote Come As You Are. Yes. And she talks about brakes and accelerator. And I'm wondering if there's a nervous system application to this where some people, they have a really sensitive accelerator. So the littlest things send them into fight, flight, freeze. Other people, you like stomp on the accelerator and like nothing happens. They're like, uh, gotta gear up, right?

Yeah.

So there's that. And then there's the brakes, which I think I'm relating to, where some people, they, you just gently tap the brakes and then they can calm down. It's like, doesn't take much and they're just chill again. I'm thinking of Todd Hadley, your partner. I feel like he's—

Yes.

He can chill so easily. He can handle anything. Versus some people, you stomp on the brakes and nothing happens. And I'm wondering if that might be part of the variable, is when I'm watching something really scary, is that it can bring me through that cycle, but my brakes don't work. In fact, I have recurrent nightmares about being in a car and the brakes don't work.

Well,

there you go.

There I go. So I'm like going through this cycle, but like that wrap-up, that conclusion, I can't bring myself to that place. And so I end up staying in fight, flight, freeze. And then, yeah, 40 years later, I'm having like sleeping issues because of Silence of the Lambs from when I was little, right?

This is the same for me. Like, I literally— actually, during the movie, I— it's not that bad for me. Like, during, you know, I— like, the first time when I watched Scream when I was in 7th grade, I was like, oh, haha, like, we're all just kind of like making fun of it, like, you know, whatever. So consciously, I'm like, I'm fine. But then for weeks and months later, I couldn't take a shower if other people weren't home. It was bad. So I'm resonating a ton with what you're saying there. And I really want to hear what you have to say about that, Katie.

I think you're on to something. I also have a very sensitive gas pedal. It does not take much to stress me out, and I wish that was not true. And I have a fussy brake pedal where I have a really hard time braking and accessing that calm in real life. When it comes to horror movies, I think I see something close to the reverse, especially in the brake pedal. The movie's done, and I think I just get to go right back down to a calmer state because it's fictional for me.

Mm.

Like, in my mindset. So watching a horror movie helps me slam my brakes on. And helps me, helps my stress ride come to an end. And so if I'm in a highly stressed state, I will actually turn on a horror movie because it will match where I'm starting. I use a framework with my clients. I like, I love dichotomies and spectrums. Art therapy, the expressive therapy continuum, is one of the main frameworks we use to figure out interventions to use with clients. Um, and it's a series of dichotomies and spectrums, um, that mirror the hemispheres of the brain. But that's a whole nother podcast. Um, essentially, I, I use matching and managing. If we're stressed out, do we need to do something, an activity that matches our current level of stress so that we can match that and then Come down with it, or do we need to manage our current level of stress by doing something very opposite? So an example of this would be, if I'm super stressed out, do I want to match my energy and kind of be— have a cathartic experience? And I tell my clients, go vacuum. If you're really angry, do some angry vacuuming, like vacuum really hard and really fast, and use that energy, match that energy, use it all up. Or if you're really angry and stressed, meditate. That would be managing it. That would be taking an opposite response to your arousal system. So horror movies essentially are matching our fear if you're starting in a stressed position. And then because my brake pedal is, is very hard to use in the real world and is very easy for me to use in a horror context. I'll turn on a horror movie to relax. That's my idea of a good time.

Then you're tonifying and strengthening that brake pedal so that you can then use it in real life.

Maybe I should write these movies and books off my taxes.

I think you should. So I know we have to finish up here. I'm— I feel like we could probably talk for another like 3 days.

I know I could.

Yeah, it's like time just went by in such a flash. And so I feel like there's a really good take-home message here, though, is if you're experiencing stress or anxiety or overwhelm or even physical sensations like your heart is pounding or you have numbness and tingling in your fingers, is ask yourself, like you just said, Katie, is this a situation where I need to match or manage? And doing whatever feels in alignment with that, maybe with respect to experimentation and seeing how you feel.

Yes.

Well, and it sounds like we can also match and then manage as we— like, after— like, and, and that sounds like that's what the horror movies are doing for you too, is because then they have the resolution at the end.

Yeah, precisely. You start at a neutral, which is kind of where you're not if you're already stressed out, and then the building action increasingly matches your nervous system activation if you're coming in from a stressful place. That climax hits, it might peak you up a little bit, or if you're coming from a super stressful place, you're like, ah, those characters are feeling exactly what I feel. Then the, the falling action of the narrative, um, which is the parasympathetic response, which is also the brake pedal, um, is you beginning to manage this.

So good.

That's amazing.

Yeah, that's, that's like the kind of, uh, meditation— meditations that I do with my clients is like I actually start with like we're doing something with the mind first because your mind is— most people, like, that's where they, that's where they are. And so we're doing something with the mind and with the physical body, and then, and then we can go into more of that, like, the, like, just emptiness, right?

Yeah.

So I really like how you said that. That's really cool.

And this, this isn't just specific to horror. The, the horror focus came up because of my love for the genre, um, which also moves over into thriller. But this can apply to any story, and it's why I love narrative therapy so much. They all have the same rising-falling action, the same arc that matches our stress arc. Um, this is just the one that activates me in the way I experience kind of the thrill that I tend to seek out.

So find your thrill, y'all. Figure out what lights your fire and recalibrates your nervous system.

Katie, how— Ride roller coasters this weekend.

I would love that.

I love that too.

I love that.

Good point, y'all.

I want to make sure y'all know how to find Katie. I'm going to spell her name for you, and then of course her info is going to be in the show notes. Katie is a counselor in Grand Rapids, Michigan. You can find her by looking at healthforlifegr.com, and you could read all about her. She's A public speaker. And so keep an eye out for her awesome, amazing work. And her name is spelled K-A-T-Y space J-A-R-A M-I-L-L-O. And so if you want to have her on your podcast or come speak to you, you could definitely find her there because she's amazing. And thank you. Thank you for being here on this podcast. You rock, sister.

Thank you so much for having me.

Yeah, it's been fun. This was awesome.

Sweet. All right.

I would do it again. We're

gonna have you back. We need more.

I'm game. Yeah, we can talk more about the sociology too.

We gotta get into sociology.

All right, I'm in.

All right, thanks y'all for listening.

Thank you.

Bye.