H
Hanebo
At the time of writing this it’s been almost a week ago that I challenged myself to permanently overcome my life-long fear of shocking imagery showing death.
Last summer I watched a notorious video of a man being tortured to death, and though I initially thought it didn’t traumatise me the following months would have almost daily thoughts about the videos contents reappear in my mind, yet aside from disturbing me they didn’t truly seem to interfere with my psychological well-being. Nevertheless, I wanted to get rid of this sensitivity regardless and so chose to watch the video two more times as a form of exposure therapy. Coming across comments online that argued there are way worse videos, I couldn’t restrain myself from extending this experiment to include these as well.
The next day I looked up these videos and they depicted the most horrific acts of torture i've ever seen (they were part of an execution process by criminal gangs), and realising how much this shocked me, immediately decided to repeatedly watch these videos to desensitise myself to them. The least shocking of the two I watched about 4 times, and the one that shocked me the most I watched 10 times in a row. All in all, it may have been 45 minutes to a little over an hour of exposure in total. I don’t want to go into the details for the sake of ensuring nobody looks these up for themselves, but the videos are often recognised to be among the worst gore to be found on the internet.
The hours after this were characterised by a complete inability to concentrate, nausea (extending into the day after), and a feeling of being stuck in a nightmare. Depression, which I virtually never have, set in not long afterwards, perhaps partly as a result of the adrenaline crash. I felt an overwhelming urge to contact friends and family to tell them how much I loved them, which I ended up doing. From this point on I decided to take up breathing meditation twice a day while forcing myself to think about the videos to come to terms with them. Instead of desensitising me, it's almost as if the challenge has made me more sensitive, and simply reading about executions or fatal accidents increases my anxiety and makes me restless.
Initially I thought I was feeling better the next day, yet the following days were characterised by symptoms that i can’t help but to read as indicators of something being genuinely wrong, especially in relation to how optimal my physical and mental health have been for years now. Periods of overwhelming sorrow and demoralisation alternate with almost random periods of feeling basically normal, which both can last hours. My heart feels continuously heavy inside my chest, and a sense of nausea sometimes re-emerges for a while. Surprisingly enough, my appetite has not been significantly reduced and i generally have been sleeping well. However, yesterday evening i almost had a panic attack out of nowhere, something i've never had before. A sudden sense of impending doom, increased trouble breathing, increased heart-rate, and the videos reappearing in my mind. Slow breathing kept it from becoming worse and it eventually ebbed away (with a hint of this feeling returning at night after i tried to go back to sleep after using the bathroom at around 5AM), but i was close to losing control.
This is what inspired me to seek contact with people who might have some insight into the extend to which shocking videos can screw with your brain, and whether the symptoms I’m experiencing fall under a normal response that can be sat out as my mind slowly processes what it has been exposed to, or are possible signs of something more serious that would require professional help.
Last summer I watched a notorious video of a man being tortured to death, and though I initially thought it didn’t traumatise me the following months would have almost daily thoughts about the videos contents reappear in my mind, yet aside from disturbing me they didn’t truly seem to interfere with my psychological well-being. Nevertheless, I wanted to get rid of this sensitivity regardless and so chose to watch the video two more times as a form of exposure therapy. Coming across comments online that argued there are way worse videos, I couldn’t restrain myself from extending this experiment to include these as well.
The next day I looked up these videos and they depicted the most horrific acts of torture i've ever seen (they were part of an execution process by criminal gangs), and realising how much this shocked me, immediately decided to repeatedly watch these videos to desensitise myself to them. The least shocking of the two I watched about 4 times, and the one that shocked me the most I watched 10 times in a row. All in all, it may have been 45 minutes to a little over an hour of exposure in total. I don’t want to go into the details for the sake of ensuring nobody looks these up for themselves, but the videos are often recognised to be among the worst gore to be found on the internet.
The hours after this were characterised by a complete inability to concentrate, nausea (extending into the day after), and a feeling of being stuck in a nightmare. Depression, which I virtually never have, set in not long afterwards, perhaps partly as a result of the adrenaline crash. I felt an overwhelming urge to contact friends and family to tell them how much I loved them, which I ended up doing. From this point on I decided to take up breathing meditation twice a day while forcing myself to think about the videos to come to terms with them. Instead of desensitising me, it's almost as if the challenge has made me more sensitive, and simply reading about executions or fatal accidents increases my anxiety and makes me restless.
Initially I thought I was feeling better the next day, yet the following days were characterised by symptoms that i can’t help but to read as indicators of something being genuinely wrong, especially in relation to how optimal my physical and mental health have been for years now. Periods of overwhelming sorrow and demoralisation alternate with almost random periods of feeling basically normal, which both can last hours. My heart feels continuously heavy inside my chest, and a sense of nausea sometimes re-emerges for a while. Surprisingly enough, my appetite has not been significantly reduced and i generally have been sleeping well. However, yesterday evening i almost had a panic attack out of nowhere, something i've never had before. A sudden sense of impending doom, increased trouble breathing, increased heart-rate, and the videos reappearing in my mind. Slow breathing kept it from becoming worse and it eventually ebbed away (with a hint of this feeling returning at night after i tried to go back to sleep after using the bathroom at around 5AM), but i was close to losing control.
This is what inspired me to seek contact with people who might have some insight into the extend to which shocking videos can screw with your brain, and whether the symptoms I’m experiencing fall under a normal response that can be sat out as my mind slowly processes what it has been exposed to, or are possible signs of something more serious that would require professional help.
