Note: This month’s newsletter discusses suicidal ideation and may be too stressful for some. There are also spoilers for A Quiet Place: Day One ahead. Please take care!
October is bittersweet, like most beautiful things. This October makes eight years since my stay at a psychiatric facility after a suicide attempt. I missed Halloween that year, and it felt like punishment for harming myself. The next few years were about putting it in the past and moving on like I’d summited some mountain for sport, but I was staving off what had been tracking me in the trees the whole time. It never stopped. Group therapy, DBT therapist after DBT therapist, EMDR, medication after medication, insurance hurdles, differing diagnoses, disbelief from providers and family, missing work and doing work poorly, marriage struggles, friendships ending— this all followed my release. Nothing was fixed while I was in there. It was just the first step. That was never clearer than when I saw A Quiet Place: Day One. Lupita Nyong’o’s Samira is a terminal cancer patient living in hospice when the sound-triggered creatures we’ve come to associate with the franchise swarm New York, shutting the city down immediately. Samira struggles to get along without her medication, her cat, Frodo, acting as her lookout and lifeline. In the end, Joseph Quinn’s Eric takes Frodo and escapes New York on a ferry as Samira distracts the monsters with a boombox blaring Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good.” We hear them roaring as they move in before the screen goes black. Pretty similar to the first one, right? A sacrificial sweetheart saves their loved ones but not the world, and the cool bad guys live another day. But my whole body began to writhe as the credits rolled. In the bathroom, I opened my mouth and let out a silent, horrified scream. It was back. Did it ever leave? That resoluteness in Nyong’o’s eyes as she held the boombox over her head clapped me square and solid on the back, knocking the wind out of me. I cried and shook with recognition and disappointment. That old, soggy feeling of wanting to unzip the top of my head and float away made me feel dirty. I worked so hard to fix this. Maybe it wasn’t something to fix. Over the years, it has gotten easier to navigate bouts of suicidal ideation. But time didn’t do that, I did. Having a decent-paying job didn’t disappear those feelings that everyone would be better off without me. Forging a support system and learning to lean on it didn’t make me whole. Finding the right medication didn’t magically make me a happy person who sees value in my life. I don’t know that I’ll ever be those things. I don’t know if that’s the goal. All those tools I gathered after the hospital did, however, help me see my humanity and others’. Our fallibility and what we truly owe each other. What I owe myself. They’ve helped me simplify and curate my life on my terms, which, in a way, is what I thought I’d accomplish by dying. It’s not at all easier, but it feels better. Cleaner. Each Halloween since I was released has been a reclamation of the holiday, but this year feels softer. I no longer feel the need to make up for lost time, and instead want new, uncompromised experiences of enjoying October. Those old feelings will come up, but I see them more as memories or a phantom limb—ghosts of me. Right now, though, I’m feeling good. . . . In the Halloween episode of the EW, HAG pod, I talk about trauma anniversaries and how horror movies can help with the brilliant spooky therapist, Colleen Madrigale, LCSW. Tune into this month’s episode. Need a lighter Halloween essay? Check out last year’s reminiscings on trick-or-treating as a tween.
‘TIS TIME. Eat your candy. Drink that cider. Dress outlandishly. Make a toddler scream-giggle before giving them sugar and sending them back to their parents. Everyone deserves one good scare. There’s a playlist for that. Feel free to let this blare in the background ominously. It’s 37 hours long, so set it and forget it. TRICK OR TREAT. Pick an icon below and click through for your Halloween movie recommendation. Careful, though. Don’t want a dud.
How’d you do? Find the right flick for you with my This Is Halloween list.
2024 has been a goregeous year for horror. Here are the newbies I’m looking forward to in October. MOVIES‘SALEM’S LOT | Dir. Gary Dauberman LITTLE BITES | Dir. Spider One V/H/S/BEYOND | Dirs. Jordan Downey, Justin Long, Christian Long, Kate Siegel, Virat Pal, Justin Martinez, Jay Cheel MADS | Dir. David Moreau SMILE 2 | Dir. Parker Finn YOUR MONSTER | Dir. Caroline Lindy BOOKSDEENA UNDONE by Debra Every A GRIM REAPER’S GUIDE TO CATCHING A KILLER by Maxie Dara THIS CURSED HOUSE by Del Sandeen ALL THE HEARTS YOU EAT by Hailey Piper
Enjoy your spooky season! Please be safe, take pictures, and tip everyone a little extra if you’re out and about. Holidays can be tough for fellow mentally ill folks for a variety of reasons, so please don’t pressure yourself into an experience you’re not up for. If you get caught up in your head and need help, call or text 988. A bad day or a gross feeling is just that — it’s not who you are. Love you. See you Monday, Nov. 4!
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