Need to talk about reading and writing about emotionnal distress

[Givrali]

Ficition always was a safe place for me. My father said as soon I could read I was always being seen a book with me.
But with years my reading get more and more dark and violent to the point I'm reaching what I consider the worst things I'm able to find. Also I started writing and my very first story was about horror then turning to fanfiction about violence. I'm 31 now and I'm afraid about how far I came to my writing when I'm distressed. When reading non-fiction books I rather choose books about child abused by their family talking about their childhood and what they became after this.
What I can remember about how this descent to horrifing stories is at some point I felt familiar with the distress feeling by the character so I kept digging further into violence. It was like they talk about my emotions rather than having their own story. But there is a huge difference between what actually happened to me and what I'm reading and writing. My life was far less violent and people who hurted me weren't doing this with the intention of making me feel so hurt.

Here I'm wondering how commun is for people with PTSD to find familiarity and a sort of confort when it comes to violent fiction and non-fiction. I'm very unsure how this affect me and I'm always scared people would be negatively judging me for this way to deal with what I lived and still living as my past is still very present in my daily present life.

 

[arfie]

it is ocd normal for me. with much encouragement from my therapy support network, i have worked for decades to use this compulsion as a form of channeling for the rage and grief of my broken life. i believe that approach has paid off. i still feel the compulsion on a fairly routine basis, but i can mindfully set it aside while i perform random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty.

i quite solidly believe that opening myself to the guidance of my therapy support network was an essential ingredient in this progress. my grief and rage is not a safe neighborhood to travel alone. the safety of numbers has saved me from falling of psychotic cliffs more than once. sources of reality checks advised.

 

[Lost in the Woods]

It is interesting that we are all the same yet so different. I have been a big life long reader. I will read anthing that doesn’t have an embossed cover, I do have some standards. I have an extreme aversion to violence so I don’t read violent things. Your comment made me think about that. I had never realized that about myself. I have known for a couple decades that I can’t handle violent movies. Even though I know the movie is fake it stirs me up and I feel an emotional reaction physically. Books have always been my hiding place. People are less likely to speak to you if your attention in on the book. Sometimes the book is an escape but if my emotions are up it is difficult if not impossible to focus on the book. When I go to someone’s home the first thing I do is discreetly look at what books they have. If they have no book, very common these days, I feel uneasy, like I am hanging out with people who only live half a life.

 

[Sideways]

I love a good horror film.

And Nordic/Scandi Noir is one of my favourite genres for books - which is dark and violent by definition!

I don’t think it’s got anything to do with my trauma. Every now and again, something (usually a theme, but occasionally a scene) triggers me. I turn it off, or switch books, because reading and movies are something I do to wind down.

Like the car wreck phenomenon, there’s a fleeting compulsion to continue staring, feeling a need to see it play out to its horrible end. But, that never got me anywhere but stressed. So I quit doing that. Tbh, I thought it would be harder to do than it actually is. You just realise you’re no longer enjoying yourself, and hit stop, or close the ereader. There’s too many movies, and too many books, that I could be spending time with instead.

I have watched some movies that I knew would be triggering for me because I wanted to see them (Spotlight is one I remember vividly). But there was a whole process for me in that, it wasn’t a ‘chilling out’ exercise.

For the most part, though, I often read and watch movies that happen to contain a lot of violence, and it’s just something I do to relax. Many types of violence (gun violence, drunk violence, bar brawls, police violence, etc etc) aren’t triggering for me. And any catharsis I get from that is likely the same as anybody else is getting. Humans seem to be like that.

 

[Lost in the Woods]

One of my favorite book titles of all time is Nietzsche’s Human, All To Human. I see human nature as being deeply flawed and I am always amazed by the depth of those flaws.

 

[Givrali]

I deleted everthing I was trying to write because I can't trust anyone else than my best friend. I saved what I initially wrote in a safe place to me. With my dissociation issues informations are separate in such a way I can forget that it exists in the first place.

To go back in the subject the answers of that post made me think a lot and, even if I can't remember already what I wrote, I think I understood something.

Shouldn't be a revelation to me but yeah, I really trust no one. To me nowhere and no one is safe. Anf I still believe the worst not just could but WOULD happen even if not to specifically to me.

Such a complete mess, I prefer to not correct my message further of I'm not going to respond at all.
I corrected a bit more. Have to post right now before confusing myself further because internal conflict. And once again.

(black humour) isn't my head a messy head ?

 

[Givrali]

There are locks in my head, I think by reading enough I could find what they are hiding

 

[Givrali]

sorry if my way of expressing is messing around but I often need to separate things. I know my mind lock this things for my well-being but it doesn't feel right so I keep digging to find out what it is. Maybe it's just a misplaced post as whole since I understood I reading and writing to understand what's going inside of me.

I knew it again and agian but keep forgetting every times. Sorry for this useless post

 

[Teasel]

Not a useless post st all. You exploring this in whichever way suits you is valuable.

I relate to choosing media that deals with trauma too. Particularly when I'm having a tough time.

 

[Givrali]

Anyway, daily life feels so harder to me to deal with than the very worst I ever read about (things I didn't dare to mention in this post)

Fiction is always easier by far

 

[Givrali]

rereading everytings tomorrow or later. it's time to get prepared to go to sleep so I call it a day ^^

 

[Applecore]

Ficition always was a safe place for me. My father said as soon I could read I was always being seen a book with me.
But with years my reading get more and more dark and violent to the point I'm reaching what I consider the worst things I'm able to find. Also I started writing and my very first story was about horror then turning to fanfiction about violence. I'm 31 now and I'm afraid about how far I came to my writing when I'm distressed. When reading non-fiction books I rather choose books about child abused by their family talking about their childhood and what they became after this.
What I can remember about how this descent to horrifing stories is at some point I felt familiar with the distress feeling by the character so I kept digging further into violence. It was like they talk about my emotions rather than having their own story. But there is a huge difference between what actually happened to me and what I'm reading and writing. My life was far less violent and people who hurted me weren't doing this with the intention of making me feel so hurt.

Here I'm wondering how commun is for people with PTSD to find familiarity and a sort of confort when it comes to violent fiction and non-fiction. I'm very unsure how this affect me and I'm always scared people would be negatively judging me for this way to deal with what I lived and still living as my past is still very present in my daily present life.

My suicidal ideation was the same thing, and I just mentioned it in my last post. It was an extremely violent fantasy. It was never to be carried out, with time I realized why: because I couldn't do that to my mother, as it would destroy her. So I found love through violent fantasy. And now I love bike rides in nature and kittens on Youtube, among many other things.

Habits can become addictions, they can cause problematic behaviour, and we can wean ourselves onto something else to displace the addiction. If your fascination with violence spills over into your behaviour in any way, starting with unreasonable or counter-productive expressions of hostility, then I would say that's a warning to you that the fascination is becoming problematic and it could end badly for you.

What non-violent things do you love, and can you increase your involvement with them?