Some people are filled with terror when they venture through haunted houses or brave horror films. Others aren’t even phased; sure, they might jump in fright or cringe at something gory and disgusting, but instead of fear they feel excitement — and sometimes — even joy!

I’m one of those people and I want you to be too! Scary stuff really isn’t that scary. It’s fun.

However, I wasn’t always this cool and brave and fearless and this doesn’t mean I am (or people who have fun being terrorized are) impervious to feeling fear.

Enjoying horror and gore was something that I had to force myself to get into. Now I love it! Torture-porn — stuff like “Hostel and “Saw” — slasher films, zombie movies, monster features, I get a kick out of it all. But as a child it was much different.

The first scary movie I ever saw, “Child’s Play,” had me avoiding creepy dolls until, ironically, my friends forced me to watch it when I was 16.

Once I confronted my fear of murdering dolls and realized how dumb those movies actually are, in the strangest way, I felt empowered. And that’s the great thing about being terrified: if you’re able to stomach and power through something that scares you there’s really only one thing that can happen — you empower yourself.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll never be scared again, but it does change how you view the genre as a whole. Haunted houses become adventures, horror movies become vicarious thrills and sometimes, if done poorly, they can even be cheap sources of comedy.

An important part of adopting this mindset is realizing that almost everything that’s “scary” is something that is either unarguably so fake that it could never happen, or something that could happen, but is so sensationalized and extremely rare that there is almost no chance it could happen to you. This, at least for me, always diffuses scary things and helps distance myself from what’s scary about a haunted house or horrow movie.

If that advice doesn’t help, this might: start off with things that are only semi-scary. Stuff like older scary movies, which for the most part, come off as hokey and campy by today’s horror standards. Watch “Friday the 13th” or even “Child’s Play.”

I can almost guarantee you’ll giggle and laugh at the incapability of those getting murdered to not overpower a doll or a crazy old lady. Don’t forget to bring friends along for the ride too!

I still can’t watch something scary by myself. Having people with me is comforting in a sense and maybe one day I will be able to stomach watching something scary, like “The Exorcist,” by myself.

Until then, I’m going to continue to have fun being terrorized with others and I hope one day you can to.