Anxiety/panic Triggers From Tv Or Media Am I Nuts?

[Randombits]

I don't watch the news I frankly haven't since childhood I found it depressing and biased then. I read on current events often and I can see how those upset even normal people let alone any one dealing with surviving those kinda of events.

My question is on TV shows or even tumblr Twitter Facebook posts. Does anyone else ever have them trigger the anxiety?

It took me a bit to figure this one out on myself because well I don't watch TV at all don't own one. I get my geek fix of Dr Who Sherlock Agents if shield and a handful of others during the winter months when I work less outside and need distractions that are mindless via iPad. Needless to say I am always the last to know about TV trends.

My Facebook has been blown up recently with Orange is the New Black posts. Not knowing what it was I googled it saw no interest went about my life. This week in what's been non stop freak outs I had an epiphany that maybe it was a trigger.

My ptsd is from an unlawful assault by cop and detainment for 20 hrs. Having read a synopsis to know the show is basically about an educated successful bisexual woman who ends up in prison thanks to the actions of an ex girlfriend.... Well that's kind of familiar territory WAY to familiar and sure enough I remove it from my sight and I've had two ok days.

Anyone else ever encounter something in fiction popular fiction no less that triggered them?

And anyone have any idea how to tell a bunch of family members colleagues and close friends that live all over the globe "hi I need you to text me life stuff because I'm hiding from the internet social scene because your new favorite show sends me into a panic"?

The cop out of I'm just nuts seems easier

 

[JEKBreatheandBelieve]

Yep, definitely can relate to that. There was a thread about that a little while ago that someone posted. I try to avoid the news too especially anything to do with accidents. There have been several things posted on Facebook that have triggered me. I thought about asking my Facebook friends to try to be aware of what they posted, but I didn't want them to know about my PTSD and thought it might seem too crazy to ask. So I just deal with it. I tell myself it's not happening to me and move on to the next thing. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't.

 

[Ti Vu]

Yes. Definitely. The news, Law & Order: SVU, CI, or anything like it, and pretty much any social media website, triggers me and makes my anxiety and panic skyrocket. I avoid them like the plague.

I feel really disconnected from everything I loved before all of this and today's world events, but I guess I've found nature? If that makes any sense. :)

 

[Me Myself and I]

I had to deactivate facebook because of that!! I no longer watch news, nor any strong movies (lately I am finding them very triggering) and the anxiety kicks in right away!

So I can very well relate. They say I can't keep doing this because this is life (there is the good and the bad), but honestly I'd rather avoid as much as I can and live in my calm nice reality when I can, rather than have my anxiety and panic attacks triggered.

 

[Me Myself and I]

but I guess I've found nature? If that makes any sense. :)

It makes perfect sense!!! :p

 

[Laura 2]

Welcome @Randombits

Gosh, yet another trigger that I honestly thought I was alone in...Yes, there's loads of tv I cannot watch and radio I can't listen to.

I had a stroke which was misdiagnosed and ill-treated, then because I was disabled I was hate crime stalked for about a decade to date. The terrifying stalking drove me out of my home.

So, for starters, I cannot watch ANY British medical or crime/police dramas or documentaries. I am TERRIFIED of NHS staff now because of the way their colleagues have been involved in defensive cover-ups, (legally proven) negligence and abuse towards me. Equally, the police treat stalking like a joke. There are some really good officers but sadly their colleagues' chronic dismissiveness, power-trippy/intimidating (towards crime victims!), couldn't-care-less attitudes coupled with with manipulation, gaslighting, and appalling head-f@cking lies have made me just as terrified of them all. And the barely concealed blame-the-victim attitudes of all public services in practice are shameful and utterly scandalous.

I can't watch or hear UK news or current affairs programs - they're full of politicians who haven't a clue about what our public services are really like or lie through their teeth about how wonderful the UK is etc. and full of talking heads who are so smug and clueless and spin everything beyond anything that approaches reality.

Essentially, IMHO, all media is pure spin - it's just that most people haven't experienced the awful failures that we have (or if they have they seem to delusionally think it's only them, it was a one-off mistake/bad attitude towards them and that the NHS, police, other public services etc are still wonderful.)

So I watch/read US news online as well as US programs which are mainly historical or scifi or so far removed from a Brit's current day experience that they can't press my buttons. (Also there are other types of programs that I can't watch but they're even more difficult to write about.)

You are not nuts!! You've sustained injuries - injuries that few outside the PTSD community can bear to know about. My suggestion is that you approach your family and friends with plain, simple truth: "I have PTSD and the program you like provokes flashbacks for me so I won't be watching it. But I'd like you to tell me about it." sort of thing.

 

[desiderata310]

Nope not nuts. I don't watch TV or movies anymore because there are simply too many triggers. I stopped watching long before my DX because I just knew that watching violence and such was just far too upsetting. I would shake, cry, and have to leave the room/change the channel. At least I know what to call it now. I get my fix with things like Sherlock and House.

 

[once normal]

Yup, same here. I run into it all the time. I can be watching something even silly and it triggers a flashback/ panic attack.

Sometimes, even flipping television stations, I see something that quickly that sets things off. \

Honestly, i don't let it stop me. If I want to watch something, I take the chance. I guess I'm lucky because most of the things that trigger my episodes are stuff that I don't want to watch. Never really been in to crime shows. I'll watch the news on occasion and don't seem to have a problem with it.

When things trigger from a TV show, I immediately do my exercises. "STOP": -- I try to rein in my mind and get through the problem. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But the more I practice, the more it has been working.

 

[KwanYingirl]

Only comedy for me and home improvement shows. My clients will talk about current events or let me know the weather forecast. I ask them to spare me the brutal stuff. I do go to the movies but I read the synopsis first and then decide. It's weird how much I know without even trying like Brazil won their soccer match!

As for Facebook, I pay little if any attention to it. Too many sad animal stories just bums me out.

 

[Randombits]

Thank you all for sharing!

Oddly other than child abuse or child murder news I can handle the worst of the news no problem and not handling child related stories has always been a problem I love children even ones not mine by blood and struggled to have the now two bio ones I do. (Trust me if I talk about what I went through to get my daughter which I'm totally fine with and then people find out what caused my PTSD that's where I'm used to being looked at like I'm nuts)

It's just this one new show that the situation of it is to close to home for my mind I guess. I'm the weirdest person with Facebook I really only have people I care about on there and as such I'm pretty open on mine. I'm pretty open about the PTSD in my life now anyway because both my physical and mental injuries don't show and in a lot of ways I'm beyond high functioning but in others I'm barely functioning. So I try getting that across as well as I refuse to hide that it was my own local law enforcement responsible. My county has actually made national news several times recently for gross misconduct by our sheriffs dept.

 

[Joan]

Definitely...I so relate. My trauma also was at the hands of law enforcement, but in another country. I cannot watch many shows, I am pissed out how many people post pics of guns on facebook...the news is alarming. Even when kids play with toy guns it is alarming to me. So yes, "fictional" situations can be very triggering...so understandable....does not even have to be very similar to what happened, can just be one little thing in the whole story.

 

[Sammyiam]

I can't even watch some of the adds on T.V, started when I was really young, I used to run out of the room screaming whenever the news came on. I just can't watched T.V really, or very little. Every so often I enjoy watching the All Blacks on T.V, which is what I'm doing while writing this, but not all the time. I get very stressed with anything bad or people hurting each other, or pretty much anything!