Saturday, January 26, 2013

Scary Stuff

I love being scared. Not scared for my life or scared of anything involving my family, but dropping off the highest tip of a roller coaster, reading a book while hiding under the covers or watching a movie that makes my skin crawl.

Probably one of my favorite films of all time is "Se7en". I've seen it a hundred times and it still wigs me out. The murders are dark and twisted, making you afraid to look, yet still wanting to see more. (And Brad Pitt in his prime probably doesn't hurt anything either.)

I've been a huge Stephen King fan since a very early age. I guess he has a bigger influence on me than I realized as I recently changed my fourth novel from a somewhat sappy love story into a creepy tale of a girl who can see ghosts and has something dark chasing after her soul. It feels amazing to be back in the saddle, writing about spooky stuff.

Why is this?

According to Wikipedia, I may be an adrenaline junkie:

An adrenaline junkie is somebody appearing to be addicted to endogenous epinephrine. The "high" is caused by self-inducing a fight-or-flight response by intentionally engaging in stressful or risky behavior, which causes a release of epinephrine by the adrenal gland. Adrenaline junkies appear to favor stressful activities for the release of epinephrine as a stress response. Whether or not the positive response is caused specifically by epinephrine is difficult to determine, as endorphins are also released during the fight-or-flight response to such activities.

Yeah my ADD just skimmed through a big part of this, but at least now I may have an idea as to why I crave these thrill-seeking things.

Does being an adrenaline junkie mean I'm going to start sky diving or charming snakes? That would be a big fat NO. I'm still a major baby about some things. But will I be at the next zombie movie release or zip-lining a few weeks in Mexico? Hell yes. My mental health may be counting on it.

~Jen

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