In 2004, I was committed to a mental hospital in Cherry Hill, N.J., in the middle of the night. I couldn\u2019t recall why. The last thing I remembered flittered through my consciousness like static between radio stations. <\/span><\/p>\n It was the movie Darkness Falls<\/i> and three of Montclair\u2019s finest firemen standing over me with plastic tie restraints.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The 2003 horror flick follows the story of Kyle Walsh, a man who never turns the light off at night, never leaves home without a flashlight. All because he met the Tooth Fairy and lived to see another sleepless night. <\/span><\/p>\n Yes\u2026the tooth fairy.<\/span><\/p>\n The tooth fairy\u2019s name is Matilda, the kind town widow who exchanged coins for children\u2019s teeth until she sustained severe burns during a house fire. After the fire, she\u2019d only leave home in her porcelain mask during the night. A child goes missing; because Matilda is disfigured she is accused, lynched, and left without a proper burial for her spirit to roam the earth, seeking vengeance on the children of Darkness Falls.<\/span><\/p>\n It was just days before I was committed to the unit. I was sitting on the carpet at my friend\u2019s house with her two sisters and their cousin. The lights were off. We rented the movie from Blockbuster. They had surround sound and, at one point, I was hiding in the bathroom, the movie being so loud it felt as if Matilda would fly right through the mirror. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s not real,\u201d my friend said later that night when everyone was trying to fall asleep. I wouldn\u2019t let her turn off the light. Whenever she did, I thought I saw something.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYeah,\u201d I said, \u201cI know she\u2019s not real<\/i>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n But she was real, in a way. I couldn\u2019t explain it. I was old enough to know fiction from reality, but something left an impression on me. <\/span><\/p>\n I didn\u2019t sleep in the room with my friends that night. I went to the bathroom and stayed in there until the sun peeked out the next morning. When I got home, I slept the entire day and was wide awake during the night. It took three days before my mother noticed I wasn\u2019t turning the light off. Once, I fell asleep and woke up shrouded in darkness. I screamed like a college student with backstage passes to Coachella. She called my friend\u2019s mother to ask what happened.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cA movie?\u201d My mother said incredulously.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt scared her, bad. The girls said she wouldn\u2019t sleep.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n After the call, my mother came to my room.<\/span><\/p>\n She sat on the edge of my bed, \u201cIf you won\u2019t tell me what\u2019s wrong, maybe you\u2019ll be able to talk to a professional.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n My mother decided to take me to the beach to get my mind off the movie. Going to the Jersey Shore after being frightened by a villain terrorizing a coastal town wasn\u2019t the brightest move. In those dark breaks between the shoreline, I lost my mind. I cried so hard in the car, I fell asleep. My mother put me in her bed and with the light on, but when I woke up it was pitch black. I wouldn\u2019t stop hitting her, biting, and fighting. I was sleep deprived and talking in \u201ctongues.\u201d The fire department and an ambulance came, whisking me to the closest mental ward 40 minutes away.<\/span><\/p>\n I was diagnosed in under 10 minutes as being severely nyctophobic and no one explained it.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a fear of the dark,\u201d said intake, handing mom a clipboard. \u201cYou\u2019ll need to fill out this release and leave her here tonight.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n They put me in restraints in a room by myself with the lights on the entire night. The next morning, I was introduced to the general population during snack time. <\/span><\/p>\n As crazy as everyone else was, they looked at me as if I was the only nut in the bunch.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWas the movie that scary?\u201d One girl approached me. I walked away from her, she followed me. \u201cIf I could tell you why you\u2019re in here, will you give me those Snackwell cookies?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI have nyctophobia,\u201d I said.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cNo, you have PTSD.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t get PTSD from watching Darkness Falls<\/i>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t say that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cBut you\u2019re wrong,\u201d I insisted.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cSo, you weren\u2019t molested?\u201d she asked flatly. I blinked as if slapped for the first time. She held her hand out for the Snackwell cookies and I saw her butchered wrists. \u201cI\u2019m here for the same reason. I lit my father\u2019s house on fire. So, am I right?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n I wasn\u2019t going to admit to a stranger I’d known less than three minutes that I was molested when I hadn\u2019t even told my mother.\u00a0<\/span>I gave her the cookies. I went down the hall to use the restroom and forgot to turn the light on. When I realized what I\u2019d done, it was over.<\/span><\/p>\n The next morning, my assigned therapist said, \u201cWhen we really connect to a narrative, it\u2019s because we can relate. You\u2019re not afraid of this movie,\u201d she said, \u201cyou\u2019re afraid of the dark.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not afraid of the dark,\u201d I said, I was afraid of all the things that hide in it. The things that hurt children, the monsters who were people and the people who weren\u2019t meant to be monsters. <\/span><\/p>\n When most people are referred to as having nyctophobia, it is usually because they have surpassed their youthful fear of the darkness. As an adult, the fear of darkness is considered irrational. But what\u2019s irrational to one is sane to another. I didn\u2019t fear the dark, I was not afraid of the movie Darkness Falls<\/i>. To prove this, I seek films that deal specifically with darkness such as Dead Silence <\/i>and Don\u2019t Be Afraid of the Dark.<\/i> Matilda\u2019s character frightened me because she experienced a traumatic event and tried to mask it. When she was exposed, she died. In many ways, Darkness Falls<\/i> ruined my life by exposing my greatest fear, that I too could lose my humanity, warped by darkness.<\/span><\/p>\n
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