On MST3K, Anxiety, and the Power of Familiarity
Autumn and winter are my favorite seasons. I like the cold. (Specifically, I like being cold and getting warm.) I like the full stretch of autumn and winter holidays. I like the cold-seasons aesthetic. Heck, I even kind of like it getting dark early. But the cold months don't love me back, which is an absolute bastard of a way to be. Like a cheese-lover being lactose intolerant, but instead of gas and stomach pains you lie awake at night wondering if you'll die alone.
I do all the things one needs to do. I get out socially. I get sunlight and take extra vitamin D. I don't drink caffeine after a certain time of day. I say my prayers (which is functionally as close as my ADHD will let me get to meditating or mindfulness). My therapy regimen is none of your business but it exists. And, in a nearly century-old house that's built for a family of four but currently contains me and two guinea pigs, I put on sounds at night. Because if the intrusive thoughts don't get me, the creaking and settling will.
In the darkest of dark months, things just stop working. ASMR used to do it, but now the noises just make me nervous. I used to listen to a British comedy radio station, which had the bonus of running the audio of a Blackadder right around the time I woke up, but somehow even the mix of The Navy Lark and random witcoms wasn't doing it anymore. Then one night I switched the Roku to the little unused TV in my bedroom (my PS4 handles streaming in the living room). The intent was to watch a bit of before-bed Space: 1999, but I remembered that Shout! Factory exists. So I did an experiment: I popped on their 24-hour MST3K channel, put the volume just where I could hear it, and rolled over to go to sleep.
And baby, did I sleep through the night.
Mystery Science Theater 3000 inhabits a weird place in the television zeitgeist. Either you don't know anything about it, or it's an indelible part of your life. There's basically no in between. I remember my uncle bringing over VHS recordings of it from Comedy Central, back when my family decided cable wasn't worth it anymore. And, in fairness, back when I only understood maybe about a third of the jokes. Didn't matter. Robots funny.
I remember going to a live show of Cinematic Titanic one night, and Frank Conniff commented on how MSTies are pretty much the most dedicated fans ever. We were viewers who were dedicated to a show whose every episode was two hours long, and which had been off the air for (then) more than a decade. And with the exception of the first season (not counting KTMA) and the occasional stray Mike episode, I've seen just about all of it. It's all floating around in the brain somewhere. Granted, some episodes stick out more than others ("The Human Duplicators," "Mitchell," and that one "Hamlet" are pretty much always surface level for me). But even those few I haven't seen feel familiar. Because each host has a style of delivery and it's reliable and comforting. And maybe that's what's up.
Because let's be real. Anxiety, or at least my anxiety, is a fear of the unknown. Ruminating on uncertainty. Will I have to have surgery on my leg? How much of it will my insurance cover? How much will I owe on my taxes this year? Will that wind outside blow a hole in my roof? Is that creaking sound in the stairwell just the house settling or an intruder? Is this weird feeling in my chest a panic attack or a heart attack? Are the people I care about safe? And so on, and so on. Not knowing is terrifying, which I know is true of humans in general, but it's a problem for me to the point of causing insomnia. And that's not cool.
So maybe that's what's going on. The introduction of something that's so deeply ingrained in my life brings some certainty to the late-night hours. Even if that certainty is in the form of three people talking over terrible movies.
It's not a fix for everything, of course. It won't take away the uncertainty of the future (or the present). But I think there's something to the idea, no matter how old you are, of finding something that unwavering and reliable to turn to when life won't offer you that security. Maybe it's a favorite book or comic series, or a favorite long-form anime. Maybe it's a certain band whose every song you know. Maybe it's the same as it is for me: knowing that Tom Servo will have a song ready, that Mike will do that "toot-tee-toot" thing whenever silly slow music plays, that certain words just sound funnier in Joel's voice.
We're coming out the other side of winter, and the days are getting longer again. And before long I won't be awake for nearly as many dark hours, and this will potentially be less of a problem 'til winter kicks in again. And in fairness, one TV show didn't "fix" my anxiety. But it lets me experience certainty - weird, unhinged certainty, but certainty nonetheless - for a few hours a night. Not the sort of reflection I expected to have when my uncle brought over that tape of First Spaceship on Venus when I was nine years old, but I've learned not to question a good thing.
About the Author
0 comments