Childhood Fears

I was recently reading about Pop-culture-induced anxieties over at A.V. Club and thought I'd share my own, just for fun.

At the tender age of 9 years old, I was blissfully unaware of the idea of mortality. I knew there was such a thing as death, but I never really understood it or how it would affect me personally. That all changed after seeing


This movie introduced me to the fear of death. And not only death, but scary, prolonged, painful death by alien invasion and abduction. People died by explosion, falling debris, vicious alien take over, crashing airplanes, and even suicide. And suddenly, I knew I would die when aliens invaded at any point in the near future.

I was terrified.

This terror resulted in a month-long, constant stomachache. A real sickness, caused by psychological damage from a silly Will Smith movie.

I finally spoke to my Dad about my fears of alien abduction and death. I'm sure he was taken off guard by my irrational thoughts. But, being the upstanding man that he is, he sat me down and helped me understand that not only was the fear of an alien take-over quite silly, but that life does not end at death. He shared his testimony of the truth of life after death, and helped me gain an understanding of post-life existence.

And my stomachache was gone and has never returned. I now own and enjoy watching this movie.

Thanks, Dad!