My Fear of a Full Moon.

I was a very complicated teenager as most teenagers are when they are coming of Age but I over complicated my life something which stayed with me well into my adult hood. I was and still very much am a huge fan of the Horror Genre and I just loved being scared watching a horror movie but little did I think it would have traumatic consequences for me in my teenage years. I guess it all started when I was going through puberty and I had no idea what was happening to my body and the changes I was going through. For some unknown reason which I will never really comprehend I put together in my head a full Moon; the dark hairs growing all over my body even on my fingers and twelve o clock Midnight. I had come up with the idea that a full moon glowing down on us from the sky meant that I was going to turn into a monster in the form of a werewolf and that I was going to harm people. I was scared beyond belief because I thought I really was going to turn into a werewolf during a full Moon. I would be sitting in my house watching the television when I would see the full moon shining through my curtains. My body would become sweaty and my mouth would turn very dry. I would try my very best to Ignore the full moon but the more I Ignored it the more intense my body would become. A tight chest and shallow breathing would overcome me and my back would be soaking wet where I was breaking out in a sweat of pure Fear. I would have tears in my eyes and I would try my best not to cry. I would look down at my hands to see hairs growing over my fingers and my body would tremble and I prayed to god that I would not hurt anybody when I turned into a werewolf. I would feel my face and I could feel hairs on my face where my beard was coming through and panic got so bad that I would run up into my bathroom and lock the door still praying that I would not harm my family. The full moon was shining through my bathroom window and I thought the moon was following me wanting me to turn into a werewolf. I plucked up the courage to look in the mirror and I begged and I pleaded not to turn into a werewolf. I could see hairs on my face which were not there yesterday and my teeth were growing in size this was all due to a natural thing called puberty but for me it was not puberty it was all the signs that I was a werewolf. My mind got more and more worked up and my imagination ran wild and I thought I could see in the mirror my mouth growing out of my face and my teeth getting sharp. I dropped to the floor having a panic attack and I could not breathe and the moon was making my anxiety worse. I was on the bathroom floor trying to fight my body not to become a werewolf and I was begging the moon not to let me turn. I managed to get up and splash water over my face and the moon moved away from the bathroom window and my breathing came back and I looked at myself in the mirror and it was still me and I could feel the relief come back into my soul. I felt like I had just come through a car crash and survived it. My clothes were soaking wet and my tee shirt on the back was covered in sweat. I could smell my own fear because for me this was such a reality and it was terrifying for me. I kept this madness to myself for as long as I could because if I spoke out about it I was afraid that I would be deemed insane. It all came to a head when I went on holidays to Spain with my dad and we stayed up late past twelve O clock and there was always a huge full moon in the Spanish skies. I had to tell my dad what I was experiencing because come twelve Midnight and the Spanish full moon my body would go into a frenzy. My dad laughed as anybody would and he explained to me that there was no such things as Werewolves they were only in Movies and that I must have a very over active imagination. My dad took me to a Child Psychiatrist many months later and even the Psychiatrist laughed when I told him what I was going through with the Full Moon and the Werewolf. The Psychiatrist made it clear to me that I was suffering from Anxiety coming from a Dysfunctional Family and that I must do relaxing exercises using the tapes he supplied to me. It just all seemed so real and it was a terrifying time for me because I really did think a monster was going to take over my body and harm the people I loved. Even today in my forties I look at the full Moon and it brings back those traumatic years and my very over active Imagination. It was a traumatic time in my life and one I am sure I will never fully recover from. My family still laugh about it today and my dad still howls at the moon when he see's me. I can or we can laugh about it now but back then it all seemed so very real and I had never been so afraid. I have had therapy since and I always speak about this very traumatic time in my life because again it seemed so very real or as my therapists say ' I made it seem so very real ' . My therapists have explained to me that very often the mind can control the body and that the human mind can be very powerful even making me think that during the full moon and when the clock strikes twelve midnight I would turn into something which I feared the most the very fictional werewolf.