Happiful April 2021

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“ Never give up, for that is just the place and time the tide will turn HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 94 | April 2021 | happiful.com Photography | Gift Habeshaw
true story My monsters and me: how a love of horror helped me face my demons Katie spent much of her life feeling as though she didn’t fit anywhere. Years of bullying, loneliness, and anxiety eventually led her to self-harm and suicide attempts. However, it was in the dark world of monsters and horror that she found comfort, an understanding of herself, and a place to belong Writing | Katie Evans Have you found that place where you feel you truly belong? That sense of warmth, joy, and relief? Well for me, it was Halloween. As a therapist, I feel I should be talking about something more spiritual or tranquil, but it was, and still is, Halloween. You might ask why this corny event should mean so much to a 35-year-old woman from Liverpool, but the reason is quite simple. Halloween is a place for the misfits to belong. I have always felt like a misfit, either because I hated the way I looked, or because as an only child I didn’t develop the best social skills. I struggled to make friends, and was painfully shy. Everybody else seemed to manage in the world, but for me it felt like a nightmare. I was lonely and sad, and by the time I was in my midteens the depression and desire to die seemed inescapable. I had a pretty normal upbringing. I lived with my parents in a quiet area on the outskirts of Liverpool. I was close to my grandparents, had some friends, and enjoyed trips away and playing outside. I attended a small primary school and started to do pretty well, despite my shyness. It was towards the end of primary school that the bullying started, a theme that would stay with me, in different forms, until my 20s. In high school it only got worse. I was a lanky teenager who hit puberty late. I had bad skin, needed glasses in class, and at one point had a head brace to rectify my overbite. I looked in the mirror and hated who I was. I tried everything to fix my looks, and I fantasised about being somebody – anybody – else. In reality, I was an average looking girl, but in my head, I was a monster. I didn’t have the tools to control any of this, or to manage the huge feelings that I was experiencing. So much was building up inside me, and the medication that was supposed to help only seemed to make things worse. When I was around 15, I began self-harming. I don’t think it was a cry for help, because I didn’t want anyone to see. But I knew that I needed something. I wanted the pain to go away, I needed to find relief of some kind. I clearly remember sitting in the garden with my parents on a sunny day, and telling them that my life felt like a prison sentence, and I wanted to be free. It was not long after that I took an overdose; I still feel tremendous guilt about that day. My later teens saw me start to discover and embrace counterculture. I had one big passion that had been with me since childhood; monsters. The first picture of me from Halloween is at around 18 months old, clinging to a mask and smiling. From then on, I threw myself fully into everything spooky. >>> happiful.com | April 2021 | 95
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