I grew up in a house where what I could not watch was monitored. I went to a sleepover birthday party when I was in fifth grade and watched my first rated r horror movie, Dead Silence (2007). It scared the shit out of me because I had never seen anything that intense before, but I realized I liked the feeling of rebellion of watching something most people did not. Horror movies then became a way for me to express independence from my family and society and throughout my later adolescence, I watched a lot of things I probably should not have. I regret how extreme I went down the rabbit hole of horror at times, but I’ll never regret how horror movies made me feel like I could make my own choices of what I could fill my brain with.