BOB's Back!

So while blow drying my hair the other evening, I suddenly froze at the image that was reflected in the mirror from behind me. Just at that moment my boyfriend walked into the room, saw the terror on my face and got quite panicked himself, I think he may have thought I was in the process of being silently electrocuted. I may aswell have been, because what I witnessed was a vision that brought me right back to being 10 years of age, scared shitless and having to sleep with the lights on for more than a year...TWIN PEAKS!! The tv show that robbed me of my innocence and gave me my irrational fear of forests.


Yes, 10 years of age was a little too young to be watching such a show, but I was a mature kid, I thought I could handle it. Which is exactly what i said when my Dad caught me watching it and told me to get to bed. "No dad, I'll be fine, I can handle it". Bless his soul, he knew how stubborn I was, so instead he watched it with me (a very sweet exercise he repeated when I insisted on watching "Silence of the Lambs" the following year), pointing out "it's not real" everytime I threw the cushion over my face. After about the 10th time I did this he had enough and marched me up to bed. But would I learn, would I 'eck... I snuck down every Monday night for the next few weeks and watched from the crack in the doorway, then proceeded to give myself away by howling for the rest of the night that "BOB" was at the end of my bed waiting to pounce!

As well as giving me constant nightmares, meeting Laura Palmer was the recurring one, I also developed as I mentioned a fear of forests, or really just any cluster of trees, convinced I could see shadows of red velvet curtains and imagining midgets talking backwards and doing funny little dances behind them. Then there was the theme music. Sat at home in my bedroom many years later I again had the "frozen" moment when I heard the theme song of my night terrors coming from my brothers room. I knocked at his door and stood there sobbing trying to get the words "turn off the music" out. He very kindly did and never played it again, at least not without checking I was in a 5 mile radius, for fear of his sister having another meltdown!
Over the years I managed to overcome the night terrors and even ate the occasional piece of blueberry pie,I didn't think every firelog had a message for me, I could even watch Kyle McClachlan in Sex & The City without cowering in a corner... Laura Palmer's dad- not so much. I managed to live alone for a full year without having to call my Mam once, screaming "BOB'S TRYING TO KILL ME".

I did have occasional moments, mainly when my boyfriend though it was hilarious to pretend to speak backwards or a moment when we first moved in together and I was telling him one night of my childhood fear, after we finished speaking I went to brush my teeth and left the bathroom door open, when he appeared (in all innocence) behind me in the mirror and I burst into uncrontrollable tears. And that moment last year when I thought I was ready to watch it again but the vision of the opening credits brought on a near panic attack. But all in all I thought I was over it.
That was until a couple of weeks ago I had a random nightmare about BOB. I started to get the heebie jeebies and was wondering why I was suddenly regressing then that fateful night as I blow-dried my hair my dream came out... there it was... in the reflection of the mirror, on the TV behind me... TWIN PEAKS 20TH ANNIVERSARY DVD EDITION!!
So for fear of this thing gripping me again and the possibility of driving my boyfriend away, by screaming "BOB" too many times in my sleep, or by waking him to walk me to the bathroom in the middle of the night (it was just that one time after the BOB nightmare... so far)... I'm gonna do it, i'm gonna watch it, from start to finish, no cushions or doors to protect me.


Although... maybe I'll just start by googling BOB and see how that goes!! Think I'll hang on to one cushion, just in case!

By the way while explaing to my Mam last week that I was having BOB nightmares again, she impressed me, yet made me laugh when she exclaimed "If I get my hands on that David Lynch"... watch your back Lynchy, Patsy's out for ya!