My name is Kelli, and I watch ghost shows.
Now, I’m sure there are some of you who will scoff at this. Some of you may think I’m strange. But please, let me explain.
A few years ago, I came to the realization that I binge-watch shows as a way to block my anxiety. I’ve done it my whole life, but never realized what I was doing or why until the last few years. From an incredibly young age, I would marathon-read books. Book after book finished. I could watch the same movie on repeat (and did) sometimes seven or more times in a day. I thought it was totally normal until I got married and found out that not everyone likes to re-watch the exact same movie or even multiple episodes of the same show for more than a few hours.
Over the years, I’d grown pretty good at hiding my compulsive show-watching. I tried to jump around from show to show in hopes that my husband wouldn’t realize what I was doing. I was embarrassed. I was ashamed.
One day, I happened upon a ghost hunting show. You know the kind—where the host and his crew go to some allegedly haunted location and spend the night searching for clues about the paranormal. This is definitely not the kind of thing that I’m into. I mean, I love myself a good horror novel (the psychological kind, not blood and guts), but ghost stuff has always kind of creeped me out. Made me feel uncomfortable. But for some reason on that day I didn’t turn it off.
Over the next few months, life got crazy, things got stressful, and I found myself tuning into more of these shows. Soon, they were all I was watching.
After a while, I took a step back to try to figure out why I was becoming borderline obsessed with watching people hunting for the unknown. Why I had to watch them over and over. Why they were suddenly the only thing that could take my attention off of what was going on around me.
We all have our vices right? Some turn to alcohol, others to food. Well, apparently, I turn to paranormal TV shows. It’s strange, yes, but it’s what works for me. Watching them helps me focus on something other than my anxiety. Watching them helps me escape, even if it’s just for a few minutes. Anytime my reality becomes overwhelming, I can abscond into the world of ghosts and scary stories and, for an hour (or several), everything around me disappears. My brain is so focused on what is happening on the TV, I can shut off my thoughts, if only for a little while.
Recognizing this perceptively odd element of my personality has helped me to understand myself a little better. Some may find it strange, but this is my truth.
My name is Kelli, and I watch ghost shows to help me cope with my anxiety. And I’m okay with that.