So, you can be different levels of allergic to things, right? Like, you might have a peanut allergy so serious that just touching peanut dust is enough to cause a serious reaction, or you might have to actually eat peanuts in order for there to be any problems. You can also reduce the severity of some allergies over time through careful, repeated, increasing exposure (probably under medical supervision, of course). Likewise with fear. You might have a phobia of spiders, being so afraid that brushing against one sends you into a full panic, or maybe you're afraid of spiders like I am: I reckon I could touch a spider without being too freaked out, but I wouldn't very much like to eat one. And you can become less afraid of something over time by being exposed to it, which some posts on here have inspired me to do about my own fear of spiders, to some success (thanks for the posts everyone).
Another way you can have an adverse reaction to food is by being intolerant to it. You probably have no obvious reaction at all upon eating the offending food, only to start having problems some time later. Using this metaphor, I want to say that I'm mildly allergic to spiders, but intolerant to horror stories. I can read SCPs or listen to a spooky story just fine, no immediate reaction, and often not even feeling that scared at the time, but when I'm trying to sleep the following night the fear seriously kicks in. It's as though I can't digest the horror, can't just accept it and move on.
What makes this more difficult is that this experience, for any given horror story, doesn't just last one night, but keeps coming back a seemingly unbounded amount of time into the future. Though almost entirely just when I'm trying to sleep. Not every night, but nonetheless, it's inconvenient. And - like some anecdotes I've heard about being lactose intolerant - I just can't help myself! I actually like reading the SCP wiki, and sometimes curiosity will get the better of me and I'll read the Wikipedia plot summary for a horror movie (which, yes, is enough to set this off). It's taken me serious willpower to not watch Brian David Gilbert's Teaching Jake about the Camcorder, Jan '97 because it seems really interesting1 but I just know it won't be good for me in the long run.
This metaphor has been completely destroyed by now but there is one more point I think it can make. Unlike an allergy, a food intolerance can generally not be treated by repeated exposure. No amount of drinking milk will give you the enzyme to digest lactose; I don't think any amount of exposure to horror could make it stop having this effect. At least that means I don't have to try.
...is this normal? This can't be a universal experience because there's no way horror as a genre could be successful if this happened to everyone.
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This isn't made any easier by the fact that Brian's previous horror short has one very funny line that almost makes the whole thing worth it.