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Don't fight a good fright Halloween scares are fun, but living with real phobias can be a nightmare Tuesday, October 31, 2000 By Gary Rotstein, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Mark DeMatteis had just paid money to treat himself to a dark walk past screaming corpses, creepy clowns and a chainsaw-wielding madman, and he was loving every minute of it.
"I love to be scared. ... I love the art of it," said the 38-year-old from Boyer, Butler County, who drove with friends to Station Square one recent night to experience both the U.S.S. Nightmare and eighth annual Super Phar-Mor Fright Fest. The federal government clerk is a connoisseur of haunted houses and horror movies, who's never encountered a fantasy fright he didn't like.
The key word there is fantasy for DeMatteis, a stocky bachelor who enjoys designing and operating haunted houses himself at this time of year. He's been in so many that it's hard to jolt him any more, but he likes to study how different special effects are employed. He prefers experiencing that kind of scare to the real thing.
"I've never been in a situation where I saw a killing," he noted. "Now that would scare me."
Tonight's celebration of Halloween represents the climax of a season of voluntary scares by twisted souls delightfully exposing themselves to spooky stories, blood-splashed films and costumed creatures. There might even be someone truly terrifying out on the streets, wearing a Bush mask or Gore wig,.
But while plenty of people are indulging the frights of Halloween, others are living day to day with fears that hold no respect for the season. An estimated 19 million Americans have anxiety disorders of some type, living with phobias, recurring nightmares or stress that most people can't imagine, on Flag Day or Arbor Day just as much as on Halloween.
There's no doubt that real life can be scary sometimes, or downright dangerous to one's health. That is evidently part of the reason people love a good fright at this time of year in a haunted house or movie theater, which they can manage with little actual risk involved.
"It's a gratifying thing for people to confront something that resembles something they're really scared of, and come out on the other side knowing, 'I did it, I controlled it, I didn't fall apart,' " said Glenn Sparks, a Purdue University communications professor who has studied how people handle fear from media images.
He said that in modern society, the ability of a young male in particular to withstand a scary image or amusement park thrill ride could represent the kind of rite of passage to prove himself once associated with tribal cultures, except that it's a lot safer now than in the Dark Ages.
Observing how haunted houses and horror films are common dating experiences for young couples, Sparks also theorized that males and females go into them with expectations of how the other should act as part of a "sexual attraction dynamic.
"If a male goes into one of those situations and expresses mastery and control, females tend to find that response more attractive and the person is admired more," he said. "Similarly, for a female, the normal reaction is to show fear. If a female doesn't show that, the female becomes less attractive."
Independently, DeMatteis buttressed the theory, when asked who reacts the most in haunted houses.
"Girls 16 to 30 are the main ones that scream, without a doubt."
The elation a man, woman or child feels at the end of frightening experiences is intensified by the adrenaline surge the brain triggers during the event, when building its response to stress.
It's rare for anyone to actually be harmed by fright alone, although DeMatteis recalled working at a haunted house in Mercer a few years ago where a man with a pacemaker collapsed inside. He was taken out by paramedics and recovered, but the incident heightened the nervous excitement among those waiting in line to experience the horror show.
Allegheny County Coroner Dr. Cyril Wecht, who recalls being disturbed by the shower scene in "Psycho" as a young man, is unaware of any cases in which anyone reacted to frightening images so strongly to be literally scared to death, though he doesn't rule out the possibility. It depends on the strength of the person's heart at the time he experiences intense fear, and Wecht and others say a real-life fear is more likely to affect one's health than voluntary exposure to frightening settings.
"Any time you have shock, fear, fright or great elation or joy, it can make a change, which for almost everybody amounts to nothing," Wecht said. "There are a lot of people who have that kind of psychological instability, who are easily shocked or frightened. If they have good hearts, they might be upset psychologically, but it's not going to affect their heart."
Dr. Peter Counihan, a UPMC Presbyterian cardiologist, agreed that theoretically, a person's heart can stop "from just the sheer terror of the moment," but he's never heard of it happening. More commonly, individuals may faint from the sight of blood or from fear overtaking them in an anxiety-provoking setting such as a dentist's office.
"I think reality fear is much more dangerous" than fictional frights, said Counihan, who himself is terrified by roller coasters. "Your level of adrenaline rush from 'Psycho' or a movie like that is much less than if you were faced in a dark alley by a man with a loaded gun or knife."
Yet, there have been cases of people requiring psychiatric admission after viewing "The Exorcist" and other similarly effective films for the first time. Some people change their habits, avoiding showers after "Psycho" or ocean water after "Jaws," and may need therapy to overcome their fears.
Strong visual images can scare children, but how frightened they get also depends on their age.
Research into real-life fear has focused in part on the human body's "fight or flight" response, in which automatic reactions develop to perceived threats or stress. Adrenaline is typically released into the bloodstream, the respiratory rate rises, sweat glands are activated and blood flow increases to the muscles and limbs, which make use of the extra energy for running or fighting.
In studies of how rats react to potential danger, Dr. Joseph LeDoux of the New York University Center for Neural Science has centered on the amygdala as the emotional computer in the brain that guides such responses to both innate and learned fears. The amygdala's neural wiring makes note of frightening events from the past, and triggers responses that can help when they recur.
"The mind basically remembers the more emotionally intense events rather than those that aren't charged," said Dr. Patricia Shinnick-Gallagher, a fear researcher and professor of pharmacology and toxicology at the University of Texas-Galveston. "Some people have greater susceptibility to forming associations [about those past events] and become more anxious."
Such anxieties, when they affect someone's normal functions or abilities, enter the realm of nervous disorders that typically require medication or therapy to help someone manage. Phobias, panic disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorders, post-traumatic stress disorders and generalized anxieties all fall into that category.
People with post-traumatic stress, in particular, suffer from repeated nightmares from some ordeal they've experienced. The population at large generally reports only a couple of nightmares a year, just as likely to be triggered by indigestion as by a frightening movie or real-life stress, said Dr. Eric Nofzinger, a UPMC associate professor of psychiatry.
A combination of genetics and life experiences evidently makes some people more vulnerable than others to fear-related disorders, but no one's sure exactly why. Nothing about Halloween seems to trigger more anxieties in such people, because they're dealing with irrational fears that typically have nothing to do with ghosts or ghouls, researchers and clinicians say.
"For most people, fear and anxiety and spooking yourself on a certain level is kind of exciting," said Jerilyn Ross, a social worker who is president of the Anxiety Disorders Association of America. "People that deal with anxiety disorders appreciate a real reason to feel fear. It's just kind of fun."
At the I.C. Light Amphitheatre's Fright Fest on a recent night, Theresa Streshenkoff, 16, was indulging herself in a third trip to the haunted house even though she said she's often scared, whether there or going through her daily routine. The high school student ran screaming from a menacing figure in costume her first time in line at Fright Fest this year. She felt a thrill going through again days later, even after she knew what to expect.
"It isn't supposed to be fun to be scared, but if it's frightening and you know it's not going to hurt you, it's fun," she explained.
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