MY BIGGEST FEAR-

 

Coulrophobia

The fear of clowns. It has made me avoid almost everything with clowns involved, except for the clown emoji, that is. I can’t sleep without the closet closed, I always wake up at some ridiculous time early in the morning, if/when I do, looking into the blackness of the closet will get me to go crazy because I fear that there will be a clown in there, waiting for me. Sometimes, I don’t even want to go into McDonald’s because I think Ronald McDonald could be in there. When the clowns were roaming the country, my biggest fear was that I would run into one, but luckily for me, they didn’t come to my city, if they did, I didn’t hear about it. I heard stories about those clowns chasing kids, knocking on windows, hiding in areas of the woods, laughing and talking quietly. I heard stories about clowns being rapists and murders, those scared me the most. My friend told me weeks ago that while he was walking into (or out of, I can’t remember) a store he saw a clown (though, he hasn’t told me if it was a real clown or if it was just a person who had done something funny to him), but he keeps saying it over and over, and now I’m scared that they’re here :(

THIS:

 

 

Their cackle. That grimace. What could be less menacing than an individual that disguises their identity and mocks things and people for the amusement of others? That’s the definition of a nightmare.

Some theories suggest that this fear stems from the uncanny valley hypothesis (1): the fact that clowns are close to being human in some respects, but not others.

Whatever the reason, they aren’t funny or cute. They’re horrifying. Recollecting on childhood memories, it’s difficult to forget the memory (age six) , of being too paralyzed in fear, to walk up the stairs of a family friend’s house because the staircase wall was covered in framed clown paintings and hanging clown masks. Halfway up the staircase I started to cry and ran to the bottom again, making up an excuse, to the other house guests, about the reason I couldn’t go upstairs.

Why anyone would love clowns so much, to frame pictures of clowns and put them on their staircase is beyond me- it’s almost as if they didn’t want anyone going upstairs in the firstplace.

And interesting enough, that’s almost part of what’s so terrifying about them, there is lack of familiarity or humanity in their character. They’re uninviting.

You don’t know who they are or what they want. Just think about clowns is enough to incite a certain amount of fear in me. I’m not even sure where the closest clown is, but it needs to be stopped- now.