'frightened myself' versus 'frightened me'

[Cooliegirly]

Lately I have been thinking about the monsters that frightened myself as a child.

I'm supposed to change "myself" to "me" because using "myself" after "frighten" is not standard grammar. But, I still don't understand why. Why is"myself" not grammartically correct here?

[Conchita]

To use the pronoun 'myself' in your sentence, the subject and the object would have to be the same. You would need a reflexive verb. Since the subject is 'the monsters', they have frightened you (not yourself).

Of course, you can frighten yourself (it can happen :) !), yet it's not the case in your example -- when I was a little girl, I used to try to frighten myself by pulling the most horrible faces in the mirror (now there's no need for that any more :lol: )!