I am a movie lover. I adore movies and music and all things creative. But I have to limit myself drastically on the films I can and cannot watch. Same with YouTube videos and such.

I have a list of movies I would love to watch, that are highly rated masterpieces but because of the horror/psychological thriller/supernatural etc elements, I have to avoid them.

Walking around my house after maybe.. 6pm, is borderline traumatic. I stay in my room and going to the bathroom on a night is an ordeal and 99% of the time leaves me out of breath and on the verge of panicking.

I've always been like this. And horror films/thrillers make it ten times worse. I've only watched one horror film in my 20 years and I still have nightmares. And I have seen numerous horror film posters and such, but even the mention of the name of the film sends me into a panic.

I hear the name at lunch time and I will be fine there and then, but I know for a fact that in the evening, it'll pop into my mind forcefully with no prompting what so ever.

I could just avoid these films.. but it's gotten to the point now where I was watching YouTube videos of this guy exploring abandoned places and some had scary elements, but I'm fine with the odd bit of horror background music as long as nothing drastic comes of it.. But my anxiety has been so bad over the last month, I've had to get my friend to skim through the video for me before I watch it just to check. I haven't watched a film in about 3 months because of my anxiety...

It's honestly ruining my life at this point - yeah, that sounds dramatic, but I can't watch films, watching videos is difficult and I have to be careful with music videos even. It's ridiculous and I have no idea how to help or stop it.

I do breathing techniques when I panic and when I walk around the house, I know everything in my mind isn't real.. but it feels it and my physical/instinctual reaction is that it's real. Even though I know logically it isn't. I honestly don't know what to do or try.