Posts Tagged ‘writing’

Mother’s Gift

Posted: December 31, 2024 in horror, writing
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It has been a long time since I produced a horror short for this blog. The following short hit me like a train in November. Obviously, it is a direct result of my trauma from my son being bit in the face by our dog the month before. So, this season, I give to you a glimpse at one of my demons.

The bubbling Christmas music sounded out of place against the rolling chatter and peals of laughter filling the house. The college party throbbed around me. I perched on an uncomfortable plastic chair by the coffee table, surrounded by strangers in ugly sweaters, crowded by a sloppily decorated tree.

I poured another drink down my throat to sedate my nerves.

I glanced around the circle of the gift exchange. The boy across from me balanced the small, wrapped box on his fingertips, like he didn’t know how to hold it. The drunk sorority girl beside him on the battered couch swayed into him.

“It’s just a present,” she said over his shoulder. Her red velvet skirt was too short for winter. She knocked her bare thigh against him, melting snow slicking from her tall, black boots.

He looked down to the box, awkward in his grip, then suddenly right at me. I stifled a gasp. His eyes were startling, some kind of hazel reflecting the Christmas lights hung around the room. I almost flinched, but for an instant, he looked childlike, lost. Something about the connection soothed me, made me forget that I knew no one at this party.

“My family doesn’t do Christmas gifts,” he said to the blonde, offering the green box with shining red bow back to her. “I didn’t bring one for the exchange.”

“But it’s a Christmas party.” Her intoxication elongated her words. She butted her leg against him again, but he did not lean into the touch. She pushed against the gift, pouting. “Everyone gets a present.”

“Don’t worry, Tyler,” the plaid-clad guy in the armchair said from the end of the coffee table. “I always keep a couple spares for the lame-asses who forget their gift.” Popping up from the chair, he vaulted over the coffee table.

Plaid grinned as he retrieved a larger box covered in snowman paper and pushed it across the table. Tyler watched the present slide to a stop before Blondie snatched it up. I looked at the red gift bag dangling from my fingers, glittered paper stabbing up at me.

“Why doesn’t your family do Christmas gifts?” My question startled me, the alcohol loosening my tongue, blurring my thoughts into clumsy speech.

I winced before looking to him, flush burning through my cheeks. What business was it of mine why his family didn’t celebrate Christmas? Maybe he wasn’t Christian. Embarrassment pounded in my veins enough to dilute the alcohol, but he smiled at me, soft and gentle, a glint in his striking eyes.

“I don’t know if it’s a very festive story.” He dropped his eyes, tilted his head, but his resistance felt hollow. He passed the present between his hands, waiting. “Kind of a buzzkill.”

“No, tell us!” Blondie straightened on the cushion, gripping his bicep.

He didn’t look at her. He looked at me. I stopped breathing and hurried my plastic cup to my lips. His mouth quirked.

“Well,” he began. “If you insist.” He planted his present in front of him on the table and eased back on the cushion to address the circle. “When I was a kid, I got bit in the face by a dog. And it was bad, real bad.”

Blondie gasped beside him, pressing her painted fingernails to her mouth.

Tyler turned his face, exposing his cheek. “Part of my cheek was ripped down. I was hospitalized for over a week, had over 120 stitches. It got infected,” he said. He traced a faint line down his cheek and through the break in the stubble along his jaw. Once he pointed it out, the healed skin winked white in the light.

“You can barely tell.” My thoughts spilled out again.

He smiled fast, running his hand over the faint scars. “My parents could afford good doctors. Young skin heals well,” he dismissed. “And my mom made sure I kept out of the sun and used every cream and treatment they recommended.”

“Did it happen on Christmas?” Plaid interrupted, leaning forward on his elbows, clutching his beer.

The circle contracted around Tyler, the festive chaos around us fading into the background.

“No, no.” Tyler waved the question away. “This happened before Christmas. I was pretty healed by Christmas, out of the hospital, stitches out. We were getting back to normal, except my mom.” He paused a moment, wet his lips. “My mom was messed up about it. It was her dog who bit me. Her rescue. And she loved that dog. Sometimes, I worried that she loved him more than me.” A pained smile twisted his face. “But when we got home from the hospital, she put him down herself. Didn’t even take off her shoes, just took him straight out back, and he was gone. Never shed a tear in front of me.”

The entire circle fell silent. All gifts had been abandoned to the table or the floor around us. The party had ceased to exist as we all leaned in for his words.

Tyler ran his palms down his thighs to his knees, exhaling before resuming.

“So Christmas came around. Our family was big into Christmas, made a thing of it. My parents had this big party every year with their siblings and close friends. The main part was this asshole gift exchange. Everyone got a name and bought that person a joke gift. But not like white elephant.” He poked at the box in front of him. “Like well thought out, personal, and often kind of mean.” He chuckled to himself, smiling at the present. “It was only the adults, and we kids were always so jealous. We wanted to buy asshole gifts too, but our parents said we weren’t ready.”

“Asshole gifts?” Blondie asked, cocking her head like a puppy.

“Like, how mean?” Plaid asked.

“It was about being funny,” Tyler said. “But you had to have thick skin. Like, if you hated something, you were getting that for Christmas. If you did something stupid, you were getting that for Christmas. My aunt fell on the ice one year and got a concussion; my dad bought her ice skates and a helmet.”

The table giggled uncomfortably, unsure where the story was going, not knowing if it was inappropriate to laugh. A smile broke my face, but I took a drink to disguise it, feeling the liquor hum through me.

“So, the Christmas after the bite,” Tyler resumed, “my uncle decided to include me in the exchange. He got me this, like, Phantom of the Opera type mask that covered all my scars, and he painted it to look like a werewolf. Honestly, it was kind of badass.” He smirked, shrugged.

Blondie placed her hand on his forearm, but he didn’t meet her wide, blinking eyes.

“So, your mom was pissed about the mask?” Plaid eased to the edge of the armchair, legs bouncing.

Tyler exhaled in a whistle. “She was so upset.” His tone lowered with his eyes, back to the gift in front of him. “I wanted to be involved so bad. I was the only kid. Even if the mask hurt my feelings, I felt special to get it. I tried to tell her it was fine. I told her it was funny and I loved the mask. But she was livid.” He took a deep breath and let it out slow. “Then my dad made it worse. He told her to calm down.”

We took a collective gasp.

“Oh no,” Blondie said.

He looked directly at me again, and that boyish demeanor surfaced. A boy healing back together after the gnashing teeth of a dog. A child listening to his parents fight. Then it receded behind how handsome he was. My stomach flipped.

“So, what happened?” Plaid encouraged the words with his hands.

“She did not calm down.” Tyler grinned sourly at the present. “She left.” He shrugged, shifting on the cushion. “She messaged that she was taking an uber. But—”

His voiced trailed off, and he found me again. As his eyes watered and glittered, it felt like he could see through me. When his eyes caught mine like this, it felt like he was talking only to me. The intimacy of his sharing. Or it was the rum in my egg nog.

He kept staring into me when he continued. “We never saw her again. She never came home, never called, never got any of her things. Just gone.”

My heart sunk with each word until it burrowed in my belly.

“Wait, what?” Plaid shot to his feet, mouth agape.

“Oh my god.” Blondie grabbed her face.

“I’m so sorry,” I said without thinking.

He kept his eyes on me, calm and clear now. “After that mask, we never exchanged another gift.”

Tears pricked the back of my eyes. The urge to hold him overwhelmed me. My arms insisted I clear the table between us, sweep Blondie from the cushion, and comfort this wounded boy. Yet I just gaped at him with the others.

“Holy shit, bro!” Plaid shouted, swiping fast at his cheek. “What a downer. Now, open your damn present.”

***

The cold walk across campus cleared the echo of the party from my ears, but my brain still thrummed from the cups I had nervously drank after the story. And my proximity to Tyler. Looping my arm through his, he held me close to guide me over the icy sidewalks.

His story had dispersed the circle. Blondie took the hint and stopped slapping her thigh against him, turning her attention to Plaid instead. We rushed through opening the awful gifts unceremoniously.

Our gifts now sat purposefully forgotten on the coffee table at the party. I received a set of straws shaped like veiny penises. He never opened his. The crisply wrapped box remained where he placed it during his story. The story that circulated through me faster than the rum.

I tried not to stare at the side of his face, searching for the scars in the dim light, as he brought us to his room. He kept the lights low, half-hiding from me, except for those shining eyes.

Closing the door behind him, he gathered my face in his hands. He ran his thumbs over my unmarred cheeks, banishing the chill from the night. His eyes, green or gold or maybe blue, caught the light from the window. He kissed me, slow, deep, until my knees wobbled.

“I didn’t finish my story,” he said, low and soft against my lips. “At the party.”

I leaned back to take in his face. Something behind him, something in the shadow by the door shifted. Or I thought it did.

“What do you mean?” I murmured, staring over his shoulder.

He guided my face back to his, drew me closer. “I lied before, when I said I never saw my mom again.”

Anger flared in me, betrayal in how much I had trusted his words and how they felt meant for me, and I jerked back again. The shadow behind him moved, took shape. I closed my eyes, blinked hard, tried to force my vision into sobriety and focus. Taking a step back, I bumped into his bed.

“No, no,” he soothed. Stroking his fingers down my face, he pulled me into him. “It was the first Christmas after. It’s how I knew she was gone, how I knew to stop asking questions.”

This beautiful stranger embraced me, his hands foreign on my back. I saw it behind him. The figure hobbled from the darkness, broken and jerking. Eyes like his found the light and gleamed at me from a mangled face. The flesh of the cheek had been ripped, torn away to expose a line of white teeth. Like it had been attacked by a dog.

“She comes back every year,” he breathed into my ear. Then, still holding me close, he turned to greet her. “Hi, Mom.”

Christina Bergling

https://linktr.ee/chrstnabergling

Like my writing? Check out my books!

  • Followers – You never know who is on the other side of the screen. Followers is a mystery and thriller that blends women’s fiction with horror.
  • The Rest Will Come – Online dating would drive anyone to murder, especially Emma.
  • Savages – Two survivors search the ruins for the last strain of humanity. Until the discovery of a baby changes everything.
  • The Waning – Locked in a cage, Beatrix must survive to escape or be broken completely.
  • Screechers – Mutant monsters and humans collide in the apocalyptic fallout of a burned world. Co-authored with Kevin J. Kennedy.
  • Horror Anthologies

Horror and Trauma

Posted: November 13, 2024 in horror, real life, writing
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Horror is a genre about trauma. Whether it is the fictional trauma being inflicted on the characters or the zeitgeist of fear it confronts for us.

At Colorado Festival of Horror 2024, I participated in two panels on the horror genre and trauma. Both sessions were so compelling and cathartic for me that I needed to share some thoughts here.

Horror can be a way of coping with trauma both by ingesting it and by creating it. In both cases, horror allows you to interact with or process something scary or hurtful in a “safe” environment. You are on your couch; you know the screen or the page cannot really hurt you. You can experience all those emotions knowing how it will safely end. Not unlike exposure therapy.

For me, it is definitely that, but it is also more. The awful things I see in horror help normalize how I am feeling, make me feel less alone in my pain. Horror also provides a worse-er scenario, which helps me keep my reality in perspective.

People often have “comfort horror”, stories they revisit in times of stress or pain. From the outside, it may seem odd to find solace in something terrible. However, when you unpack the movie and discover what resonates with you, you will often find it hits on something personal. Maybe it lets you control the situation. Maybe it lets you re-experience things knowing how it ends. Maybe it shows you a character like you surviving or being vindicated. But something in that horror is a salve to your wound.

For the panel, I had to think about my comfort horror movies. And why they are therapeutic to me. I came up with:

  • Scream: Aside from this being my first horror movie and introduction to the genre, Scream definitely hits something for me. When I stopped to actually consider it, I realized it is the deceit, the betrayal. Sidney’s friends lie to her, work against her, try to hurt her, but once she figures it out, she survives. And kills them all.
  • You’re Next: The same as Scream, You’re Next introduces a final girl who is being lied to and used. Yet when she fights for her life, it is her intelligence that keeps her alive.
  • Revenge: Rape revenge is pretty self-explanatory. I usually find this subgenre very triggering (Irreversible, Last House on the Left, etc.). Yet this one was different. I attribute the distinction to the female filmmaker (Coralie Fargeat). After Jen is assaulted and left for dead, she returns almost supernaturally in her vengeance.
  • A Nightmare on Elm Street: Nightmares and night terrors brought me to the horror genre. Seeing scary things outside my mind made me feel more normal. There was comfort in not being alone, in seeing what my mind mapped every night on external landscape. Watching Nancy confront her nightmares and ultimately defeat them in a way I never have soothes me.

Reading horror hits me even harder. In the past few months, I have been crying my eyes out over multiple books. American Rapture by CJ Leede, I Was a Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones, Lone Women by Victor Lavalle, The Angel of Indian Lake (the entire trilogy) by Stephen Graham Jones, The Reformatory by Tananarive Due, Maeve Fly by CJ Leede… to name a few.

More than watching or reading, more than anything, creating horror is how I deal with my trauma. I have always written about my pain from journaling to blogging to essays to stories and books. It is more effective for me than any therapy I have tried (and I have tried many). Sometimes, the trauma is the inspiration, sometimes the thread, sometimes the whole damn story.

Tour my horror library with me:

  • How to Kill Yourself Slowly: The first thing I ever published. I wrote this satirical essay for a nonfiction class in college. All my trauma packaged up into one catty rant.
  • Savages: My first and perhaps my best book. Going to Iraq as a contractor deeply affected me. It changed how I saw humanity. I worked that out in this book.
  • “The Last Christmas Dinner” in Collected Christmas: A character based on my mother and maybe what she should have done one unappreciated holiday.
  • “After the Screaming Stopped” in Graveyard Girls: My post-partum story. This one was hard to find a home for. No one wants to look at how ugly and scary those new mother emotions can be.
  • “Personas” in Colorado’s Emerging Writers nonfiction: A deep dive into the many faces and roles of me.
  • “Under the Rapids”, Ink and Sword, Issue 4: I almost drown white water rafting when I was in my 20s. This story covers what I can remember.
  • “Awake” in America’s Emerging Horror Writers: West Region: I had hip surgery to repair a torn labrum. This story confronts how helpless I felt under anesthesia and after the operation.
  • “Hairs”, 96th of October, Autumn 2023: I lost my hair to Alopecia multiple times in recent years. In this story, I start there and make it oh so much worse.
  • Followers: Questioning how safe we are on the internet. This book has roots in online stalkers and one I briefly had in Iraq.

Not included on this list are works where I borrowed other people’s traumas. Their experiences served as inspiration for me, but hopefully my resulting work can be therapy for them.

“Hairs” and “After the Screaming Stopped” are the most literal examples of me writing out my trauma (aside from maybe Savages where I put myself in a story to change my mind about the world). In both, I took the literal trauma–severe hair loss and post partum depression–as the premise. Then I stretched it, elongated it into something grotesque and horrendous.

And at the end of both (of them all), I felt better. The trauma felt processed and exorcised.

I understand that horror is not for everyone. It is full of terrible things that can be triggering or make people uncomfortable. Even people who do enjoy the genre may not interact with it the same way. However, for me, I have found a way to make it therapeutic. It speaks to my traumas in their native tongue, soothing and hushing them so that I can claim more of myself.

Christina Bergling

https://linktr.ee/chrstnabergling

Like my writing? Check out my books!

  • Followers – You never know who is on the other side of the screen. Followers is a mystery and thriller that blends women’s fiction with horror.
  • The Rest Will Come – Online dating would drive anyone to murder, especially Emma.
  • Savages – Two survivors search the ruins for the last strain of humanity. Until the discovery of a baby changes everything.
  • The Waning – Locked in a cage, Beatrix must survive to escape or be broken completely.
  • Screechers – Mutant monsters and humans collide in the apocalyptic fallout of a burned world. Co-authored with Kevin J. Kennedy.
  • Horror Anthologies

New Novella

Posted: November 4, 2024 in writing
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October was a hell of a month. And not in the normal spooky, festive way. Sure, we crammed in a yard full of skeletons and Telluride Horror Show 2024 and horror movie bingo amidst the traumas, but it was truly a struggle.

All of that to excuse the fact that I am woefully behind in providing an update.

I have a new novella (working title: Red Walls) under contract with Graveyard Press for publication in early 2025!

When parents seek revenge against the monsters who hurt their daughter, they never expect real monsters.

I am thrilled and excited to be working with this new publisher and also to finally release a new book out into the world. It has been far too long since Followers.

During COVID, I wrote until I had a backlog of three manuscripts, so I have been in editing hell since then. This is a huge step toward unburying myself from that period.

Additionally, the crowd-funding anthology I was accepted into made their goal, so that book will also be coming out soon. I also have a short appearing in another killer KJK Publishing anthology coming in the new year.

I have more related news that I will release when it’s official. Stay tuned…

Christina Bergling

https://linktr.ee/chrstnabergling

Like my writing? Check out my books!

  • Followers – You never know who is on the other side of the screen. Followers is a mystery and thriller that blends women’s fiction with horror.
  • The Rest Will Come – Online dating would drive anyone to murder, especially Emma.
  • Savages – Two survivors search the ruins for the last strain of humanity. Until the discovery of a baby changes everything.
  • The Waning – Locked in a cage, Beatrix must survive to escape or be broken completely.
  • Screechers – Mutant monsters and humans collide in the apocalyptic fallout of a burned world. Co-authored with Kevin J. Kennedy.
  • Horror Anthologies

Colorado Festival of Horror 2024

Posted: September 24, 2024 in film festivals, horror, horror movies
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Friday the 13th was made for horror festivals, and Colorado Festival of Horror (COFOH) took full advantage this year. I spent last weekend participating in all it had to offer.

COFOH is now in its fourth year. My first time was their second year, when they featured Art the Clown from Terrifier. Then I volunteered last year, sitting with the creator of Final Destination and members of the cast of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The festival definitely has been growing and evolving each year into a destination event for horror lovers.

The weekend is put on by genre lovers, and their passion shows. It is also still small enough that there is a community feel. It is welcoming and approachable, with fun events like karaoke, a cosplay contest, and a Little Shop of Horrors sing along.

This year, I participated even more by sitting on three different panels.

Meet Me in the Dark: We discussed the relationship between trauma and horror movies and how horror can be therapeutic. This conversation resonated with me both because I consume horror as therapy and also create it as an outlet. So many of my stories are my own trauma stretched and processed. We covered our favorite “comfort” horror movies, mine being ones like Scream and You’re Next where everyone lies and hurts the final girl but she emerges stronger and a survivor.

Turning Trauma into Art: This session was the workshop extension to Meet Me in the Dark. Instead of covering horror that comforts and helps us, we expanded to discuss the art and horror we create to deal with our own trauma. I discussed works like my post-partum horror short. Then we went through an exercise of word association with different feelings and crafted art from those lists.

Where is the Monster Line: Joining authors from Horror Writers Association Colorado chapter and Denver Horror Collective, we discussed our favorite monsters and villains we love to hate. Then we dove into what makes a villain sympathetic, interesting, or relatable versus what crosses the line into abhorrent.

I also volunteered with the celebrities again. My husband and I sat with Thom Mathews (Tommy Jarvis of Friday the 13th Part VI).

Befitting the theme and the weekend, other Friday the 13th people were in attendance. Tom McLoughlin (director of Friday the 13th Part VI) and Vincente DiSanti (creator/director/actor of the Never Hike Alone movies and a frequent Telluride Horror Show attendee).

We got to meet Pam Grier as she introduced a screening of Ghosts of Mars and provided new insights into the film’s merits.

And, perhaps most importantly, we sat beside the delightful Tiffany Shepis and helped her create and recruit for a spatula cult (IYKYK). The Spatulatti spread like wildfire.

The weekend was a bloody whirlwind that left me exhausted, but my black, little heart was full. I needed this time with fellow horror lovers. I felt involved and included, like I was contributing. At this point in my horror life, I probably should be!

Christina Bergling

https://linktr.ee/chrstnabergling

Like my writing? Check out my books!

  • Followers – You never know who is on the other side of the screen. Followers is a mystery and thriller that blends women’s fiction with horror.
  • The Rest Will Come – Online dating would drive anyone to murder, especially Emma.
  • Savages – Two survivors search the ruins for the last strain of humanity. Until the discovery of a baby changes everything.
  • The Waning – Locked in a cage, Beatrix must survive to escape or be broken completely.
  • Screechers – Mutant monsters and humans collide in the apocalyptic fallout of a burned world. Co-authored with Kevin J. Kennedy.
  • Horror Anthologies

Publishing Adventures

Posted: September 23, 2024 in horror anthologies
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The publishing industry continues to evolve. When I first started with the first edition of Savages, self-publishing, indie publishers, and all the Amazon-ing was starting to explode. And in the past 10 years, for better and worse, things have continued to change and evolve.

This week, I am trying a new author adventure! Crowd funding.

One of my short stories has been accepted into an anthology. The publisher (Tundra Swan) is running a Kickstarter campaign for this anthology.

This is my first time participating in a publication that is being crowd funded. (The anthology is getting published either way but with cool perks with the Kickstarter.) I’m excited and nervous and curious above all things.

Cross your fingers! If you want to go on this ride with me (and maybe get matching shirt perks), go ahead and back the Kickstarter campaign. We’ll see how this next adventure goes.

Christina Bergling

https://linktr.ee/chrstnabergling

Like my writing? Check out my books!

  • Followers – You never know who is on the other side of the screen. Followers is a mystery and thriller that blends women’s fiction with horror.
  • The Rest Will Come – Online dating would drive anyone to murder, especially Emma.
  • Savages – Two survivors search the ruins for the last strain of humanity. Until the discovery of a baby changes everything.
  • The Waning – Locked in a cage, Beatrix must survive to escape or be broken completely.
  • Screechers – Mutant monsters and humans collide in the apocalyptic fallout of a burned world. Co-authored with Kevin J. Kennedy.
  • Horror Anthologies

Where Have I Been?

Posted: September 10, 2024 in real life
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It has been a long time, and this blog is not the only thing I have neglected. My health the past few years unmoored me, but life sprinted on ahead. It feels like we have returned to pre-pandemic pace, but I am not the same person as before. I am broken and hobbling. I have lost the stamina to keep up with my own life.

That’s not to say I’ve been doing nothing. I have been doing plenty. Just not like I could before.

For months, I have been working on my three WIP novels. I have drafted and revised and put them through critique group and revised again. Now, two of them are out on submission.

Let the torture begin.

Query composition. Inadequate summaries. Form rejections. Miniature panic at every email. I wait for the guillotine to fall while hoping my hardest.

I’ve written more shorts. Some rejected, some accepted.

Ironically, I have done more speaking and vending events than I have in a long time. Readings with author groups, booths at Prides or oddities festivals, even podcast appearances.

I have been trying. Maybe I even have been accomplishing it. Perhaps I am the duck, gliding smooth along the surface while I’m kicking like hell underwater. But man, I still feel like I’m drowning.

The health stuff has slowed me down physically, obviously, but it has changed me mentally too. Bipolar has always been a thing; depression has always been a thing. So long that they became consistent companions, expected experiences.

Now, they have changed. What used to squeeze and suffocate me now leaves me feeling vacant. What used to torment me now numbs me. It feels like it is all happening to someone else and I am simply observing.

And I know how worrisome a symptom that is.

(Even now, the words trickle from my fingers rather than pour from my mind.)

So I continue to trip and stumble. I continue to try. Career, family, writing, existing. I just keep paddling and swimming.

Christina Bergling

https://linktr.ee/chrstnabergling

Like my writing? Check out my books!

  • Followers – You never know who is on the other side of the screen. Followers is a mystery and thriller that blends women’s fiction with horror.
  • The Rest Will Come – Online dating would drive anyone to murder, especially Emma.
  • Savages – Two survivors search the ruins for the last strain of humanity. Until the discovery of a baby changes everything.
  • The Waning – Locked in a cage, Beatrix must survive to escape or be broken completely.
  • Screechers – Mutant monsters and humans collide in the apocalyptic fallout of a burned world. Co-authored with Kevin J. Kennedy.
  • Horror Anthologies

Drowning Inside

Posted: February 8, 2024 in real life
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My mind has been completely hijacked. As usual, by itself.

I have had body dysmorphia and an eating disorder since probably the late 90s. Hell, they were standard issue being raised back then. But it all masked very nicely under being “healthy” or “losing weight”. I even went to get treatment for it years ago and managed to run the therapy sessions. I am so painfully high functioning with it that it took going completely bald for it to break me.

And it has broken me. It has taken over my mind in a way it never had opportunity before.

It feels like the past decade has been tagging one physical suffering for the next. I had a miserable pregnancy, rough birth, and terrible recovery that ate a couple years. Then I tore my hip, which took over two years to just get properly treated. I had a major surgery, and the fix only lasted a few months. Then I got sick. With whatever all this has been.

As that (allegedly) recedes, it leaves me feeling a bit like a broken husk.

My appearance has always been a source of fixation and distortion, creating a rift between my sense of self and physical vessel. It never looked how I wanted (not that it could with my cracked lens), so I hated it. Now, as my body has literally turned on me and itself, it feels like it is all backlash from the years of abuse I delivered to my flesh.

The health details and symptoms and side effects are incidental. Things have been managed enough to alleviate the daily misery and anxiety, leaving me in the aftermath. Better but not good. Between survive and thrive. Relieved enough to focus on the undesirable and annoying.

My eating disorder, my dysmorphia had been flowing like a current all along. I was aware of it, but no one else needed to be. It was pacified with enough restriction, dieting, starving, and compulsive exercise. I never realized how deep it ran until I was staring at a bald gremlin in the mirror, until my body dissolved into foreign landscape.

My body does not feel like mine. Ironic, since I always drew such an illusory line between myself and it. It does not look, feel, or function like mine. No longer in the killing me way but in a way that constantly grates on my nerves. I feel every thread in my clothes, every fold in my skin, every ache in my joints.

I feel consistently and constantly uncomfortable.

And with that static in my brain, I can’t think of much else. My body feels like a sinking ship. It feels like the water is rising, cresting my chin, flirting with my mouth, and I am about to be suffocated by my own flesh. And my mind is compelled to catalog and broadcast that in real time every moment of every day.

I want to work. I want to write. I want to experience. I want to escape. But my mind has been completely hijacked by these relentless sensations.

So I am working on it in specialized therapy. Therapy I could have used 10-20 years ago. I’m not new to therapy or treatment. I know how this works. As we trench up these pervasive, deep rooted, dusty issues, their true form and extent are revealed. The carefully constructed walls and masks are revoked, and it all get so much worse. The monster feels untamed and bigger than ever.

But that is the only way to actually deal with and change it.

I haven’t had to do a full, retrospective unpacking since my bipolar diagnosis over two decades ago. I have been spoiled into complacency, coasting by on functionality. Opening these wounds has me vulnerable, insecure, off balance. That fucked up, lost kid again.

I’m old enough to know THIS TOO SHALL PASS is the truest thing someone can say about life. But I’m also dumb enough to forget it every time the situation swallows me. Last year, I was barely struggling through. I would have given anything to get this far. Pragmatically, I can understand this is another step, another transitory thing. Yet my emotions mire me in the suffering.

I want my life back. I want my mind back. I want to reclaim all the space this is taking in me. Even if it’s just enough to get lost back in my stories again.

Christina Bergling

https://linktr.ee/chrstnabergling

Like my writing? Check out my books!

  • Followers – You never know who is on the other side of the screen. Followers is a mystery and thriller that blends women’s fiction with horror.
  • The Rest Will Come – Online dating would drive anyone to murder, especially Emma.
  • Savages – Two survivors search the ruins for the last strain of humanity. Until the discovery of a baby changes everything.
  • The Waning – Locked in a cage, Beatrix must survive to escape or be broken completely.
  • Screechers – Mutant monsters and humans collide in the apocalyptic fallout of a burned world. Co-authored with Kevin J. Kennedy.
  • Horror Anthologies

Surviving 2023

Posted: January 2, 2024 in real life
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I would open by commenting on what a rollercoaster of a year 2023 was. However, saying that four years in a row now takes the impact out of the sentiment. 2023 was a lot, but it appears this is just the tone since 2020.

Last calendar year concluded with me freshly hairless and mired in autoimmune and medical issues. That adventure devoured a lot of this year too. However, I saw progress in treatment and coping, shifting it from something smothering me to something standing menacingly beside me.

I have hair regrowth. I don’t feel like shit every moment I’m awake. Gladly, I take these victories.

In all honesty, health issues and other losses were consuming for a long time. Writing and even more the business of being an author took a backseat to survival.

And much of it was survival. More so than I was willing to acknowledge at the time. On the other side of the storm, I can truly see how dark the clouds were.

Yet I still accomplished things. Part of it was therapeutic. The rest might have been compulsion.

I did get published this year:

“Hairs” is a special piece. I poured in all my Alopecia pain and trauma and made it horror (as if it wasn’t already). It was cathartic, and I needed it.

What I want, however, is another published novel. Not this year. I have three novels written–in various stages of editing. This is largely because I escaped into writing. I lived in the story then plunged into the next without a breath or a glance so I didn’t have to feel my life.

Again, survival.

With this editing backlog, I did skip NaNoWriMo this year. Since I was more functional by November, I repurposed the time for editing–NaNoEdiMo. It was ridiculously more challenging to quantify content reviewed and reworked versus pages written. I set my goal to go through two of my WIP novels–and I made it!

That progress leaves Invisible Girls ready for final polish (though I still have doubts about querying it), Monster Lane (for which “Opportunity” is a prequel) ready for critique group, and Savages 2 next in line.

Nothing may be “done”, but the progress must be acknowledged.

Now, I find myself torn. I want to write new works (I have a short and a novel knocking at my brain), but I need to get these WIPs out. And I’m not very good at alternating between the tasks.

I just end up with three unedited novels.

Perhaps the largest accomplishment of 2023 is that now, finally I feel capable of working again. I wrote, and I edited. Next, I can find my way back querying and promoting.

I had to set much aside and give myself a lot of grace to make it through the last year (+). What I find now is the optimism to be able to do more than just survive.

Christina Bergling

https://linktr.ee/chrstnabergling

Like my writing? Check out my books!

  • Followers – You never know who is on the other side of the screen. Followers is a mystery and thriller that blends women’s fiction with horror.
  • The Rest Will Come – Online dating would drive anyone to murder, especially Emma.
  • Savages – Two survivors search the ruins for the last strain of humanity. Until the discovery of a baby changes everything.
  • The Waning – Locked in a cage, Beatrix must survive to escape or be broken completely.
  • Screechers – Mutant monsters and humans collide in the apocalyptic fallout of a burned world. Co-authored with Kevin J. Kennedy.
  • Horror Anthologies

Tales from the Drive-in: Post CoFoH Podcast

Posted: October 19, 2023 in film festivals
Tags: , , , , , ,
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Last month, I went to Colorado Festival of Horror and made some friends! Listen to us talk about the festival, horror in general, and my writing!

Christina Bergling

https://linktr.ee/chrstnabergling

Like my writing? Check out my books!

  • Followers – You never know who is on the other side of the screen. Followers is a mystery and thriller that blends women’s fiction with horror.
  • The Rest Will Come – Online dating would drive anyone to murder, especially Emma.
  • Savages – Two survivors search the ruins for the last strain of humanity. Until the discovery of a baby changes everything.
  • The Waning – Locked in a cage, Beatrix must survive to escape or be broken completely.
  • Screechers – Mutant monsters and humans collide in the apocalyptic fallout of a burned world. Co-authored with Kevin J. Kennedy.
  • Horror Anthologies

Telluride Horror Show 2023

Posted: October 18, 2023 in film festivals
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I just got home from my 7th Telluride Horror Show (yes, I’m counting the 2020 fest streamed from home during the pandemic). A younger, drunker Christina used to cram in every possible screening and skid out of the weekend on her face the shell of a human. This old, post-illness, recovering Christina took an more moderate approach. But even with uncharacteristic rest and self-care, I did manage nine movies over three days.

And I had a great time.

The Movies

Favorite of the Fest

I attended my first Telluride Horror Show in 2017, and Never Hike Alone premiered there on that Friday the 13th. I loved the movie and started following and backing Womp Stomp Films. I had been watching hoping to see the sequel grace Telluride again. When another Friday the 13th premiere was announced, I was ecstatic.

It did not disappoint.

Never Hike Alone 2 takes threads from Never Hike Alone and Never Hike in the Snow and ties them up in a gruesome little bow, delivering the splatter we want with added depth. Never Hike Alone is a narrow narrative that brings us back to Camp Crystal Lake with foolish solo hiker, Kyle. In Kyle’s misadventure, Tommy Jarvis reenters the scene. Then in Never Hike in the Snow, the world expands, stepping back to before Kyle and an earlier murder, painting a picture of what serial loss does to families and the community over decades. Never Hike Alone 2 then hands the narrative baton from Kyle to Tommy. We see a chunk of the events in Never Hike Alone from Tommy’s perspective, weave in the grieving mother from Never Hike in the Snow, then jam on for a bloody climax.

Loved

If this year’s films had common theme, it could easily be “bad shit happening to children”. I don’t know what the fact that two of my favorites were the worst offenders says about me. But the Horror Show came hard for one of the remaining taboos in horror.

When Evil Lurks

In 2018, I saw Terrified at Telluride Horror Show. Loved it. This year, Demián Rugna returned with When Evil Lurks. Like Terrified, this is another story involving demonic possession. However, the manifestation and the world it happens in are different, unique. The movie starts twisted and depraved before punching the audience right in the throat. It got a touch shaky toward the end but not enough to unravel the story.

The Coffee Table

THE talk of the fest.

The Coffee Table is billed as a black comedy. NOPE. It is just black. Black, oppressive discomfort that captivates you in every frame. I kept waiting for the tilt, the turn into comedy, but it never came. However, the film is so well made, so compelling that I ultimately did not need it. I was unpacking it through my nightmares and into the next morning.

Infested (Vermines)

Arachnophobia traumatized me as a child. Scenes of spiders under toilets and in bowls of popcorn still live in my mind rent-free. Which is why I had to go see Infested. While the ending got a little loose and the commentary a little clunky, it is a fun watch. I jumped; I cringed; I imagined my earrings were little spider legs.

Liked

Not every movie punched me right in the feels (or stomach). Plenty of them were entertaining without being perfect.

Where the Devil Roams

I have been following Adams Family Pictures since The Deeper You Dig and Hellbender at previous Telluride Horror Shows and again at Six Feet Under Horror Film Festival. I adore their dark, quirky style and adorable family. Yet Where the Devil Roams didn’t land as well for me. While the filmmaking and effects have evolved, the storytelling is a bit convoluted. I spent too much time being confused.

Frogman

Frogman is wild. It is apparent that the filmmakers are new to found footage in the amount of shaking and static applied. While the movie could benefit from an aggressive edit, the characters have great chemistry, and it is a super entertaining watch. When you can keep your eyes onscreen.

Suitable Flesh

There is nothing like a Lovecraftian body swapping tale. I forgave a lot of ridiculousness because the events happen in Arkham. Suitable Flesh is not a watch for quality but instead for wild, spinning sex scenes and gratuitous violence.

Eh

While every movie was not a hit for me, none where a total miss either. I didn’t see anything I hated. However, there were some for which I had critiques.

If the fest had a secondary film theme (besides child trauma), it would have been continuity issues. Multiple films came to wobbling conclusion violating their own rules or leaving something unexplained or just ending.

It’s a Wonderful Knife

Christmas for Halloween is always rough, but there is often a holiday movie at the fest. It’s a Wonderful Knife plays off (surprise, surprise) It’s a Wonderful Life with a slasher twist. However, the movie comes across a bit sloppy and Hallmark-y. It is a bit disappointing after seeing Tragedy Girls from director Tyler MacIntyre.

Vincent Must Die

Vincent Must Die has a great premise. People just start randomly assaulting Vincent with building violence. However, it seems like the filmmakers didn’t know how to consummate that idea. By the end, I felt like they were trying to say something significant and I had just missed it.

The Fest

Telluride is GORGEOUS! The weather year to year is really roulette, but this year, we landed on perfect, idyllic autumn. Abundant sunshine (according to my weather app), aspen leaves so bright they looked on fire, even temperate nights.

We went on our annual hike, this time selecting a loop around Mountain Village. For being a “popular” trail, it was horribly marked, and it took three apps to navigate us successfully. Since we started at the mid-point of the gondola, it included a bizarre trek through the village, shops, construction zones. However, it was gentle and beautiful. I feel more intimately familiar with Telluride now that I have hiked up grassy blue runs and over frozen snow machines. Like being behind the scenes of the resort.

At this point, this pilgrimage is steeped in tradition with our “family”. I have been going to the Horror Show long enough that our annual trip feels like home. We know the places. We have tips and tricks. I have friends and connections who I look forward to seeing each year.

With explosive growth over the years and post-COVID, the culture of the Telluride Horror Show is changing. Everyone is still super nice. Filmmakers are still very accessible. It is just less rowdy. Gone is the wall-to-wall mass of humans at Last Call, fogging up the bar windows. Tamed are the late night screenings, cheers and whoops exchanged for more pious observation.

Telluride Horror Show is growing up. The same part of me that misses drinking misses the more rambunctious energy. But the same part of me that requires sobriety realizes this is probably for the best.

Christina Bergling

https://linktr.ee/chrstnabergling

Like my writing? Check out my books!

  • Followers – You never know who is on the other side of the screen. Followers is a mystery and thriller that blends women’s fiction with horror.
  • The Rest Will Come – Online dating would drive anyone to murder, especially Emma.
  • Savages – Two survivors search the ruins for the last strain of humanity. Until the discovery of a baby changes everything.
  • The Waning – Locked in a cage, Beatrix must survive to escape or be broken completely.
  • Screechers – Mutant monsters and humans collide in the apocalyptic fallout of a burned world. Co-authored with Kevin J. Kennedy.
  • Horror Anthologies
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