This is one of those things that are off the telly and shouldn't actually work in real life because it's that flippin' weird. I mean, seriously, it's controversial and has apparently been proved to be utter nonsense on many occasions. On that basis, it can't be actually real, right? Uh, no. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you...
Mogrophobia*
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| What cats look like to Caroline. |
This friend of mine -- let's call her Caroline, came to my house one day, and to be polite, I offered her a cup of tea. My favourite mug, the one with the kitten, I kept for myself, but when she saw me approach with it, she said, "That's not for me, is it?"
"No," I replied, and gave her the one with the comedy dinosaur. "Why?"
"Try not to laugh," said Caroline, "but I'm terrified of cats."
"That's not quite as weird as the woman who is terrified of Daleks," I reassured her. "Do you know why?"
She couldn't tell me. The first significant memory she has of freaking out at the sight of a cat was when she was on holiday and felt. Something. Strange. She looked beneath her deck chair. A cat! She screamed and ran back to her hotel room. Seriously. The weirdest thing for her was that she had always liked kitties before. It's just that something she could not explain had made her fear them so much she couldn't bear to be in the same room as one.
The theory
Naturally I thought there was probably a rational explanation such as weather balloons or counter-currents to explain this but gentle probing revealed nothing. Caroline had no idea why she was absolutely crap-your-knickers terrified of cats. Apparently it's better these days: she can bear to sit three feet away from a mug with a picture of a sleeping kitten printed on it. That's when I suggested that a repressed memory might be the cause of a fear that she couldn't explain.
We discussed it a few times with no light being shed on the subject and the more she told me, the more I was convinced that she was repressing something -- based on stuff I half-remembered from television shows. One episode of Law and Order or CSI Something-or-other (one without that prat who takes his shades off dramatically. I think it was the one with Jerry Orbach. You know, the dad from Dirty Dancing. Him.) came to mind, to wit, the one where some girlie shot and killed her own father because some deranged counselor told her he'd abused her and other members of her family (although he had done no such thing) and she had repressed the memories because it was all so vile and puke-worthy. It reminded me to not put ideas into Caroline's head and insist I was right, but to let her find out by herself by looking over the past few years and coming to her own conclusions.
The twist in thetail tale
I thought nothing of it for a while, and a few times when she came to my house again I hardly mentioned it. Then one day she came to see me and was excited to tell me that she'd worked out why she was so scared of cats that if you gave her a mug with a cat printed on it, she'd get all queasy and refuse to drink from it. Naturally, I was curious and eager to hear her story.
Caroline told me she had told her family and friends that I'd said she was probably suppressing a memory and one of them sat her down to tell her why I was right.
It seems that, a few years ago when Caroline was driving along a street near where she lived, a cat ran out in front of her and she couldn't brake in time. A considerate and law-abiding person, she stopped and went to check on the animal. It was twitching in its death throes and there was nothing she could do. She called the police to report the incident and went on her way. Then she blocked it so completely that she never even thought of it again. When her nephew confirmed this, memories of that day floated back and now she has full technicolour recall of the incident.
Confounded, I could think of nothing to say for a while, then I confessed that I was guessing about the whole suppressed memory thing and didn't actually take it seriously.
"But why am I afraid of them?" she asked, evidently seeing me as a fountain of knowledge.
"Guilt, I suppose," I replied, as the fountain of lucky guesses and half-remembered snippets of television programmes. "I suppose you're half expecting the Vengeful Cat From Beyond The Grave to appear one night and claim your soul or something."
She didn't think that was funny but conceded that I had a point.
Deep down, I think it would be rather cool if a Giant Zombie Cat came back from the grave to avenge its bretheren. Someone has got to make a film about that. But don't tell Caroline.
* Aw come on, it sounds better than Ailurophobia, doesn't it? No? But it's easier to say!
The theory
Naturally I thought there was probably a rational explanation such as weather balloons or counter-currents to explain this but gentle probing revealed nothing. Caroline had no idea why she was absolutely crap-your-knickers terrified of cats. Apparently it's better these days: she can bear to sit three feet away from a mug with a picture of a sleeping kitten printed on it. That's when I suggested that a repressed memory might be the cause of a fear that she couldn't explain.
We discussed it a few times with no light being shed on the subject and the more she told me, the more I was convinced that she was repressing something -- based on stuff I half-remembered from television shows. One episode of Law and Order or CSI Something-or-other (one without that prat who takes his shades off dramatically. I think it was the one with Jerry Orbach. You know, the dad from Dirty Dancing. Him.) came to mind, to wit, the one where some girlie shot and killed her own father because some deranged counselor told her he'd abused her and other members of her family (although he had done no such thing) and she had repressed the memories because it was all so vile and puke-worthy. It reminded me to not put ideas into Caroline's head and insist I was right, but to let her find out by herself by looking over the past few years and coming to her own conclusions.
The twist in the
I thought nothing of it for a while, and a few times when she came to my house again I hardly mentioned it. Then one day she came to see me and was excited to tell me that she'd worked out why she was so scared of cats that if you gave her a mug with a cat printed on it, she'd get all queasy and refuse to drink from it. Naturally, I was curious and eager to hear her story.
Caroline told me she had told her family and friends that I'd said she was probably suppressing a memory and one of them sat her down to tell her why I was right.
It seems that, a few years ago when Caroline was driving along a street near where she lived, a cat ran out in front of her and she couldn't brake in time. A considerate and law-abiding person, she stopped and went to check on the animal. It was twitching in its death throes and there was nothing she could do. She called the police to report the incident and went on her way. Then she blocked it so completely that she never even thought of it again. When her nephew confirmed this, memories of that day floated back and now she has full technicolour recall of the incident.
Confounded, I could think of nothing to say for a while, then I confessed that I was guessing about the whole suppressed memory thing and didn't actually take it seriously.
"But why am I afraid of them?" she asked, evidently seeing me as a fountain of knowledge.
"Guilt, I suppose," I replied, as the fountain of lucky guesses and half-remembered snippets of television programmes. "I suppose you're half expecting the Vengeful Cat From Beyond The Grave to appear one night and claim your soul or something."
She didn't think that was funny but conceded that I had a point.
Deep down, I think it would be rather cool if a Giant Zombie Cat came back from the grave to avenge its bretheren. Someone has got to make a film about that. But don't tell Caroline.
* Aw come on, it sounds better than Ailurophobia, doesn't it? No? But it's easier to say!
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