Help: those of you sensitive to gore, mutilation, etc.

That said, I would try to talk this out with a professional -- a psychologist rather than a psychiatrist -- or work with meditative techniques to banish ugly images from your mind. It can be done.

Do try to remember that the image did not happen to you or anyone you know, remember that it might be a fake, and have some compelling things to concentrate on so that image doesn't have ROOM to sneak in.

I have more of a...not a compulsion to look at such things, but I'm less immediately affected. But that doesn't mean I can't be, and it often depends on whether or not the situation is 'real' or not -- the film Near Dark, for instance, is pretty damn gory at many points but I watched it just fine. Flipping through a book about the Japanese attack on Nanking in the 1930s, as I did last week at the library, and noting extremely blunt and graphic photographs of what happened, that was another story, and I had to stop before I started feeling unsettled.

Many years back I was reading an article about heroin use in Seattle, and the descriptions of the trappings of addiction were so vivid that I passed out like you did -- indeed, according to someone who saw me shortly thereafter, I appeared to be having a seizure. The blood had completely drained from my face and when I came to I was completely disoriented, while the world looked like it was two-dimensional -- truly unsettling and I'm glad I haven't faced anything like it since. I wish I could say I've had a strategy or means of dealing with something like this -- in your case, I'm hesitant to suggest something because I've not dealt with anything so extreme. But if you're trying to avoid material on the web, you might want to always set your browser to default to NOT loading up images, that way you can't accidentally stumble on something without at least reading some context (if there is any).

I do agree with Colin to a point but the fact that all bad thoughts and feelings aren't pathological doesn't imply that no bad thoughts and feelings are pathological.

[This is the point where I would normally make a smart-ass joke involving dancing bunnies but if I wanted my audience to swoon I'd buy a webcam and run around pantsless.)

That combined with thinking about Scotty Jernigan and his fatal boating accident (as memorialized in this thread) just somehow put me over the edge this morning.

I am pretty good about avoiding those kinds of disturbing images. I have a strong aversion to, you know, blood, surgery, that sort of thing. And I've certainly had annoying flashbacks to those images but nothing as bad as you describe.

At some point I started making a conscious effort not to follow links that started with rotten.com...

(oh, X-post.)

Added after I saw db's last post -- it seems to me that what you could do when you see something like that again (and AVOID AVOID AVOID stuff like that where possible) is to try to deal with it immediately -- be upset for as long as it takes before you do anything else. I'd add "whenever that's possible", but given that this stuff seems to sneak up on you and whack you over the head at worse times, take the time to sit down and get calm.

Sigh, if there was a "don't think about gory stuff" drug, I'd take it, but I highly doubt it exists, at least without extra side effects/baggage that would compromise something else equally important.

And while it's very easy for me to want to tell folks to not put gory stuff on their site or what not, I'd feel really shitty for doing it, because it's not my position to pad the world in a way that is most comforting to me. That precedent would allow anyone with extremely prudish and squeamish morals to want to do the same..

I do want to thank everybody for all the advice they've offered..

I think I'm most upset because I don't want this to threaten my being able to do an activity I really enjoy doing. I could do without having to drive as a regular work routine (and perhaps, this might be the solution I'm looking for), but I damn well sure I want to have this freedom if I want to go somewhere for leisure that's off any public transportation path.

It pissed me off because I didn't realize that stuff was on the tape, but then again I suppose I still could have turned it off, couldn't I? I guess as that segment was starting up I really had no idea how bad the images were going to be. I think that is when this kind of thing affects us worse; when we aren't expecting it. There's nothing you can really do when something sneaks up on you like that, other than as Ned suggested turning off images. But that seems like such an extreme solution.

Colin, fuck you.

Diamond, what the hell happened backstage at a GoGos show that is so infamous?

Let me propose anatomy art instead, like the "body worlds" exposition of Gunther von Hagens.

"4,500 people have offered to give their bodies to Professor Gunther von Hagens to be used to display how the human body works."

"Professor von Hagens' aim is “to convey awareness for health and a better understanding of bodily functions by offering visible entertainment anatomy instead of school anatomy.” This is “edutainment,” a combination of education and entertainment, designed to convey the vulnerability and transience of our corporeality."

sorry to hear about your troubles on the road. Though I can be very squeamish (as you know) about gore, it's only affected my driving once. And that was probably only because I tried to drive immediately after the gory event happened. (I'd witnessed a bad accident, pulled over by the side of the road to give first-aid, and then, after the ambulence had arrived, driven off after). In that case, as soon as I felt the nausea and disorientation coming on while driving (I'd only driven a few miles from the site by then), I pulled over again, but this time into a gas station, where I sat in my car, breathing as slowly and deeply as I could, staring intently at things around me to put different images in my mind. When I felt strong enough to stand, I got myself a cold drink (non-alcoholic) and a magazine, to help me along with the "new visuals" idea. Also, I called my destination on a pay-phone, explained to them that I would be a bit late, went back to my car, then didn't start driving again until I was sure I could do so safely. I drove in the slow lane with the windows down. I made it to my destination ok, where I immersed myself in other, more pleasant distractionss (it was a birthday party) -- and except for nightmare that night, I was ok thereafter.

The best thing to do if you are supersensitive to gore is to avoid gore. Sounds obvious, I know, but it needs to be repeated. It's not easy, but there are ways to mimimize the amount of gore you see. And Donut, sorry to be blunt here, but if the band in question has a name that namechecks Lovecraft ... don't you think that's a pretty good hint that they are going to be gore-heavy at somepoint?

If gore gives you a nightmare or two, or makes you shakey for an hour or so, that's probably ok, and -- as others have pointed out, a sign that you are probably just human, and not deranged -- but if you find that weeks after having seen some gore you are still so shaken up about it that you can't function in day-to-day things (driving, eating, sleeping, etc) then you might want to follow ThatGirl's advice and seek professional help, because it might not be gore that's the problem, but something deeper, like anxiety. Gore paranoia might just be one manifestation of a deeper problem. A specialist could give you specific exercizes to help reduce your anxiety and/or could prescribe some medication. Try the non-meds first, but don't feel like a wimp or a failure if you find you need medication.

take care. and I hope you feel better soon
*virtual hug*

I'm afraid I don't have any useful advice to offer, but I just wanted to chip in to say yeah, objectively those images are pretty grim and I think it's really cruel of them not to have a splash page warning people. I am never really affected by still images though, less still haunted. It's odd. I once took part in a psychology experiment that involved the display of various images (parties, starving children etc.) and was asked to rate how each made me feel, emotionally. I felt like a psychopath when I had to decide whether to pretend to feel happy and sad. You can't turn on my emotions like that.

xpost -- thanks, Jess.

It is obvious for everyone else, right?
Gore, mutilations, etc is a way to present the human body and it's association with violence can deturn the spectator's attention from the knowledge that can be found there. Learning about anatomy art can "desensibilize" one to those "shocking" images by adopting a more rational point of view @ them, it helps to reconcile one with vis animal origins and to face vis mortality ( fight death :-) .

I'm guessing this is all just a combination of things.. diet, weather (I'm far more prone to feeling like this when it's warm), bad luck, timing, etc.

Stripey, thankfully, accidental images like what I mentioned above don't haunt me for too long too vividly. If I were to witness something in real life, though, I don't know how I'd deal with it. I think I'm more prone to revisiting bad images from the past than most people, but almost all of the time, I can quickly refocus. Or only the rare combination of all of the above that pushes me over the edge happens only every seven years or so...

This is the number one reason I don't see movies, by the way -- at least non-animated movies. (although certain animated movies don't help, either). Colin, while I won't argue that my reaction is a perfectly sane one in this case, you have to admit that the breadth of my sensitivity, in relation to how I avoid images via not seeing movies, is not normal. Though I think this is just a bad side effect of my being very sensitive in general, which I feel is mostly positive.

Off to get V8 and bananas!

It really sounds like "anatomy art" is just a "fine art" way of presenting the same images. I wouldn't be surprised to hear Teen Chthulu arguing the same rationale for why you should look at the images on their site: To get face-to-face with mortality etc., etc.

(That said, donut beeyotch, if you have some aversion to getting medication, of course you shouldn't: it's your choice! but people who tell you "ooooh don't let them get you on the meds!" are on a soapbox, there are several very mild medications that might help. If it were me, I think I'd look into hypnosis, or just do short-term therapy about it - but then again, I work in the mental health profession & love therapy, think everybody should have some, etc)

I mean, maybe this is particular to my experience, and maybe DB doesn't mind the more analytical, anatomical depictions of human flesh rent asunder. On the other hand, the idea that I (or DB) can't handle such images because of a lack of basic anatomical and physiological knowledge seems a bit, well, assumptive.

They're complicated issues, these, and I do respect people having the position that they don't themselves want to be medicated. (It's my position, too, surprisingly [to me], having dealt with some pretty immobilizing depression at points: I just wanted to work things through on my own. It probably took me twice as long as it might otherwise have done, but that was my choice.) What grates at me is this "O no! They are trying to numb yr feelings!" etc. That's not what psychiatrists are trying to do, and to suggest so is the same sort of lefty paranoia that usually gets my ass handed to me on a spit when I indulge in it.

(x-post: I'm not defending the pharmaceuticals industry, believe me, I'm well aware of what they're all about. The record industry is also quite shitty, but that doesn't mean that records suck and should not be bought by anyone)

while we're doing full disclosure: since I left the practice of law, the pharmaceutical industry has been paying most of my bills, and I've made a lot of money representing both medical and insurance companies. I'm not talking about mysterious cabals and conspiricies to control people's minds, but about known and publicly disclosed business strategies. Meds are cheaper and more profitable than talking cures, and can control symptoms quickly and efficiently enough to get people able to work again. That's no conspiracy; that's capitalism. It's a bummer that it's not necessarily good for people's minds and souls, though.

DB: your reaction is not "normal" only in the sense that the combination of circumstances that lead to it isn't normal. But that combination isn't likely to pop up a lot, and I'd think you were weird if you had just said "oh, well".

Thanks for the disclosure Colin! You're right of course, Big Pharm stands to benefit from for example the inexcusable overprescription of fluoxetine for "PMDD" (pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder - they give you Prozac for eight days a month, as if that could POSSIBLY help anything). It's just that I know lefties who'd rather see, for example, truly troubled children suffer than give them meds that happen to come from big evil corporations, and that bothers me, a lot, because I work with kids who once couldn't concentrate hard enough in class to earn anything higher than an "F" but are bright kids, and have been able to get their lives in gear with a little help from some pharmaceuticals.

To this day whenever I give blood and I can see the tube filling up with my own hemo I have to restrain an anxious giggle. It's a little on the disturbing side.

(Of course the plus side is that, since I'm dead inside, I don't actually feel too bad about this.)

(Sometimes I think public safety is overrated but then I wonder if I'm not just being flippant.)

I certainly wouldn't jump on any meds, whatever you do.

Have another sausage, pal. You're not nearly angry enough.

Being freaked out by gory things is "pretty odd"? ffs..

Being freaked out to the point of pulling over and calling 911 at the memory of a gore scene is pretty odd.

I've done pro bono criminal defence for juveniles, so believe it or not I have done work with kids like the ones you're talking about. I will hereby publicly state that I know that some forms of ADD are real and can be treated with meds -- but I would hope that you know and would concede that's it's become a blanket diagnosis for just about ANY kid with behavioral problems and the drugs get given out quickly without a whole lot of thought as to the appropriateness of the therapy.

And, to me, this part of the conversation has never really drifted off topic from the thread -- that is, you and I both know that many kids with disciplinary and behavioral problems live in absolutely horrible surroundings, confronted daily by images and experiences -- some mediated through tv, video games, and the Internet, some actual and really fucking there -- and I don't think that medicating kids so that they can live through shit like that as if it's no big deal, so that they can see and experience horrible things and NOT want to scream or pass out or throw a chair through a window all the time, is healthy for the kids or an effective way to reduce violence and horror -- or even juvenile crime -- in a society.

I'm not asking you to agree with me, I just want to be sure you're not reducing and dismissing my argument unfairly.

Even though I screamed it, you didn't seem to hear me: I don't think that all anxiety reactions are pathological, especially when things are pretty fucked. Dead friends and horrible pictures in close succession are pretty fucked.

I have no (known) allergies. I rarely get sick. I never sleep and the only thing going for my eating habits is that I never overeat. To me, this implies that overeating in general is more of a problem than what people are actually eating.

Well....uh... my decision still stands. Taking the bus to work tomorrow!

Still planning on doing Vancouver this weekend: car, train, or bus.

as for the problem it's a blood phobia. it's very frustrating. it's the opposite of most phobias in that it does not induce a panic attack - but the opposite. the heart does not speed up, it slows down, thus you faint. i've fainted a few times, i've gotten debilitatingly (is that a word?) dizzy countless other times. when i tell psychiatrists/psychologists about it they say, oh that's not so uncommon. yet how come i'm the only kid in the school who had to be taken to the nurse's office everytime something gory came up in class? psychiatrists are totally fucking useless except occasionally as drug pushers - but that's another thread.

the foremost authority on blood phobia it seems is Lars-Göran Öst in sweden. i wrote him and he wrote me back personally (how cool is that!). i think the answer would be behavioral therapy which might be found here: www.aabt.org. but as i said, the therapy would be different because it has to increase your blood pressure, not calm you down. I know UCLA has a dept., but i've refrained from going because i'm sure it's an expense of money and time. but i always figured if i was planning to have a kid i'd go through with it.

as for taking drugs, i don't know if they'd come into play for this. but saying they're all good or all bad is retarded. it's like anything in life. it might be good in a variable amount for a variable length of time for certain problems and it might be really harmful in some situations. however, the fact that most everyone (i've come across) in psychiatry and psychology are totally clueless or fucked up themselves, doesn't help the situation any.

I just learned about bud dwyer and I won't be watching that video

can you folx watch tht stuff? e.g. saddam hanging etc

i had never heard of bud dwyer, but i just now watched it.

ugh

the saddam video was worse

i've seen budddwyer.gif and the film of tom pryce hitting a field marshal @ 170mph at the south african grand prix in '77 and i regret both.

I have heard about that years ago but WATCHING it would never occur to me. Fuck.

I think watching it would make suicide one step closer to seeming a doable thing.

gif advert for one of those shitty malware spam video sites showed a man crossing in front of a high speed train, what looked like a child following him, looked like he was gonna get hit but it cut out just before. kind of always wanted to know what happened but don't actually wanna see it.

I accidentally saw the Dwyer thing as a looped GIF due to clicking on what I thought was a benign link on the Encyclopedia Dramatica (or whatever it's called, the thing that's basically a rotten.com wiki).

The Wikipedia article is disturbing enough:

A number of television stations throughout Pennsylvania aired taped footage of Dwyer's suicide before a mid-day audience. Due to a major snowstorm throughout Pennsylvania that day, many schools were closed and many school-aged children bore witness to the suicide. Over the next several hours, however, news editors had to decide whether to air the graphic images or to change the footage for evening news telecasts.

I think watching it would make suicide one step closer to seeming a doable thing.

― rubisco (Abbott), Monday, November 3, 2008 5:15 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

no, it makes it look harrowing and final. not that i would suggest watching it, mind

xp the clip is readily available on google video o_O

I've seen so many fucked up videos from the internets because of douchebag friends, especially when I was in high school. Generally I just find them mildly distasteful but people being beheaded is just the worst.

And people enjoying watching shit like that or finding it funny is o_0

this buddy of mine once came home late at night and heard his perpetually stoned roommate in the other room going, "wheeeeeeeeeeeee.....SPLAT!" over and over again and he went in there and the dude was watching wtc jumper vids.

I have the same reaction to this stuff that I have to ppl who gleefully tried to get me to wach Faces of Death, which is in its purest form "fuck no what is wrong with you".

yeah, I accidentally saw a firearmsuicide.gif by looking at the "an hero" page on encyclopedia dramatica. it ws... less gorey than I expected but watching the life stutter out of someone is still v.disturbing, even if .gifs lend all things a veneer of 'irony'

my driver's ed teacher in high school showed us the car accident stuff from faces of death~

NEVER watched a beheading video; I did watch the saddam one but it ws so shaky and blurry as to be slightly incomprehensible

someone (at work) (!!! lawyers) fwd:d me a vid of a saudi arabian dude being thrown out of a car and twenty foot into the air; horrible

I am really seduced & disturbed by horrible imagery...real and imagined (ie cartoons). Like the time I spent hours on guro.chan. Why? I started and couldn't stop. It's the worst. A few weeks ago I spent a night looking at photos/vids of harlequin babies? Why? I thought the hair that bit the dog would treat my initial shock? I don't know.

I hate that I find this stuff hypnotic although I am reassured by how I find it abhorrent.

I've done this my whole life...my biggest fear at age seven was an illustration of the Jersey Devil that scared the shit out of me. (Even the other night I walked my dog and his shadow was like an outline of the Jersey Devil....I had to RUN home bcz I had successfully scared myself & had little kid "go in my loved one's room ASAP and not leave their presence" reflex.) But I stared at it all the time.

At age 10 I got the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books and the illustrations terrified me, kept me awake at night, but I looked at them every day.

Last year I watched Skinny Puppy's "Testure" video (bcz I found out it had clips from "Plague Dogs") and then watched it 20 more times until I was shivering.

Does anyone else have this problem?

i hope never to watch a beheading video

srsly; I can't even comprehend wht it wd even be like

and occasionally i worry that my chosen profession has already hardened me to this stuff. seeing people dismembered or whatever isn't yucky to me because of the gore (been there, done that), but because it's *actual people*. then again, someone's got to be able to cut faces open or else no one would be able to have surgery. so, you know, it's a balance.

Watched the Dwyer film...I was under the impression your head exploded everywhere. That is fucking quick and crazy and, man...

I was under the impression your head exploded everywhere.

search youtube for "FLIR suicide"

this thread sucks

I watched the Dwyer video years ago without really knowing what I was about to see. So insane.

i had the dwyer vid on vhs back when i was in high school.

i'd recommend you all go out, do some acid, and watch the original broken videos (with the live torture version of Gave Up) on repeat for 8 hours.
coping with thsoe piddly internet gifs will be a cakewalk after that.

I would prefer not to?

so why did I just watch a video of a disinterment on youtube?

in short, two workmen smash open the front of an old lady's tomb vault (similar to these), drag out her coffin, open it to reveal what looks like a sod-encased mummy wrapped in tattered clothes, use their shovels and gloved hands to deposit all the bits and pieces of her into a bag marked GARBAGE (in Portuguese), and unceremoniously shove the bag into a tiny cubbyhole vault. all the while the lady's loved ones are crying in the background. the family of the deceased apparently authorized the release of the video.

I don't normally seek out gross shit, but even so, the internet has desensitized me to the point where gory, out-of-context images don't disturb me a whole lot*. there's always a part of my brain that, as a sort of defense mechanism, screams out "fake!" or "photoshop!" even when the material is obviously real. only when a gory image is placed within a clear, human interest type narrative (as in the disinterment video) is it capable of haunting my nightmares. hopefully this proves that I still have a soul.

*exception: photos of birds with broken beaks!

I saw the Tom Pryce video today. in clear detail. I was somewhat bothered by the fact that it didn't unsettle me anywhere near as much as the time I saw the Vic Morrow 'death' footage (which is admittedly mostly implied) or the Budd Dwyer suicide.

I find no visceral thrill or humor in these, either, not like people who gleefully watch Faces of Death. Half the time I watch these I feel nauseated and frightened afterwards, but I still feel compelled to watch and I'm not sure why. after seeing the Morrow video I stayed up three hours reading articles in the situation and feeling rage over the fact that the director didn't go to jail.

Part of me thinks it's trying to come to grips with my increasing fears of mortality over the last few years by seeing it from third person...another part of me thinks it's because I've never seen someone expire in real life (closest I came was making it to hospice a few moments after my grandma passed) and I'm terrified of the day when that will happen, and perhaps subconsciously, this is my way of trying to prepare for that? I don't know.

anybody else have this type of problem?

actually there was a time where I saw a man facedown in a pool of blood in the road, victim of a hit and run. he wasn't dead yet but he died two days later, but I couldn't get that image out of my head for a week, or my mom's shrieking "oh my God, that's a PERSON!!!".

seeing something like that in person feels surreal. pools of blood, having to call 911 and explain the situation (I was having difficulty giving the cross-streets).

fwiw if you have a distaste for gore the one thing you must never youtube search for is 'airshow disaster'