Triggering movies and books

[Blues in NYC]

Kung Fu Panda.


No. I'm not kidding. I wish I was.

 

[Luthien]

Blues, do you know what it was about Kung Fu Panda that triggered you? Sorry if that's prying, but I find it interesting, and also it might help you to try to understand why, if you don't already.

I'd have a hard time giving a list...for me, most movies or books that have a rape scene are obvious triggers, but then there are other things that trigger me, that I just can't place.
I watched "The Day The Earth Stood Still" recently and was EXTREMELY triggered, but still do not know what the cause of it was.

Physical violence or bondage in movies can trigger me, anything to do with the Bernardo/Homolka murders triggers me, and has for years...Also, anything that deals with spousal abuse, or extremely gruesome murders has been triggering to me lately.

 

[Blues in NYC]

Blues, do you know what it was about Kung Fu Panda that triggered you? Sorry if that's prying, but I find it interesting, and also it might help you to try to understand why, if you don't already.

Yeah. I know exactly what it is that triggers me in that movie. Talked about it with my doc but two hours ago in fact.

The moment where Tai Lung has Master Shifu in his clutches and is about to kill him, Shifu apologizes for his role in pushed Tai Lung so hard and turning him into a monster. For a moment, Tai Lung's eyes go glassy as if he feels something and ponders the apology. Perhaps it may be enough. Then he decides it won't be and basically says "Screw your apology, I want my effing power."

I was put into a very similar situation, minus the apology. I alone intervened in a suicide attempt of my mother's after I attempted to set some boundaries between us. This event occured four days before my 17th birthday. My mother is a very sick woman and was abused throughout her youth. She in turn was extremely emotionally abusive to me from about age 6 onward. Maybe earlier. I'm still recovering memories of exactly what went on during those years.

Anyways, when I intervened, I wanted to let her do it. Just be done with it. Just let her die. Just last night it came out that I've spent the last 20 years TRYING so very hard, expending so much energy to love this person whom to be honest I hate at this point. In her stubborness and denial of her own problems, she has taken so very much from me. And she then stung me with the ultimate blackmail essentially saying: "you try and set up boundaries between you and me, I will kill myself. Abusing you is my god-given right." On that day, I feel like my mother wired me with explosives. From that day forward, I became something of a psychological suicide bomber. All I'd ever have to do--including to this very day--is open my mouth and begin speaking the truth as to how bad her unchecked disorder has damaged me. And my fears are very reality based. My doc and I are taking great caution in how I proceed in reworking my relationship with my parents. I know where a false step could lead very quickly.

Anyways, I wish in a dark corner of my heart, I could have been like that stupid animated leopard and just said "whatever, person who raised me. I'm taking what's mine and leaving. to hell with you and your well being."

Truth is that would have destroyed me though. I probably would not have let myself live even five years beyond that day. So I stopped her. And now that movie triggers me.

But you know what, it's not the only one by far. Just yet another "light" film that pushes some really deep dark buttons for me.

 

[TLight]

Shine.....

It's about a piano prodigy and his abusive and emotionally sick Father. True story of how he had a complete nervous breakdown and ended up playing concerts anyway.....but the guy is sort of a freak still.

He was in Seattle a few times. Wanted to go.....but I was too much of a mess.

I'm considering watching this movie again and doing EMDR on myself.

 

[Blues in NYC]

Shine......

I watched this last night after having a REALLY bad episode. Yup. On my list.

As is Goodwill Hunting too. Too many similarities in both to some experiences I've gone through.

 

[Seeking_Nirvana]

I remember only one movie triggering me so bad for over a week. It's called "Cape Fear". I think it was a re-make back in 1995 with Nick Nolte. I find it so strange that only one movie has ever freaked me out so bad??????? and there really isn't anything all that weird about it because I've watched it again and it didn't have the same effect?

I've watched horror movies most of my life and they never bothered me except that one movie "Cape Fear".

But in the last year or two since I've been off of anti-depressants I noticed that movies about child abuse and torture really bother/trigger me.

I decided not to watch any violent or abusive movies anymore. It just adds to the fear or anger IMO. I either want to cry or kill a child molester and neither one of those feelings needs to come into consciousness. It just keeps the fear and anger alive within me.

Tammy

 

[dust]

Naomi Klein - Shock Doctrine... had me back in la la land.

 

[ningamer]

Evangelion - Asuka's mind rape scene and Shinji going berserk was extremely triggering

The Care Bears Movie - There's nothing in the actual movie that triggers me, but there's song called "care a lot". It's supposed to be happy, but when I hear it I'm reminded of bad parts of childhood...

 

[NarcSis]

There is a scene in No Country for Old Men that gave me the most horrible flashback - I thought I was going to end up in a padded cell. Won't even go near that movie now.

Here's my thing - I'm a horror movie Fan, I had always been up until my trauma; now the screaming, the terror, its difficult for me not to FEEL these feelings vicariously. They are all triggerring to me and predicting what TV show or movie is not going to show something with terror/fear in others is pretty much a crap shoot. Throw in kids in terror and I'm pretty much a goner.

No more horror movies, war movies, violent crime movies, dramas for the most part and yet, get this - I have no problem watching HBO's True Blood. Vampire and Zombie movies are still mostly okay for me. I don't get it.

Blues doesn't like Kung Fu Panda - I understand. I triggered watching Madagacar Escape to Africa! My husband thought it was funny.

 

[78704]

this thread is old but really relevant for me right now.

Braveheart was a major trigger movie for me. I watched it when it first came out with a friend. we walked out to the car afterwards and i was feeling weird, kind of off and disoriented. almost as soon as i got in the driver's seat i sat there and i screamed and effing beat on the steering wheel. i wailed on the inside of my car. freaked her out pretty badly. i never knew what was 'wrong' with me or why i did that until recently.

it was the implied rape scene in that movie that triggered me. the one where the baron or whatever takes away the new bride to rape her before her wedding to her husband. she has to go but doesn't want to but can't say no. that messed me up. it hit way too close to home. then all the violence thruout the movie afterward. at the time, Bravehart was one of the most violent films of it's time and used innovative filming techniques to caputre and cut between violent battlefield scence.

so yeah, rape by coercion combined with new film technolgies to put violence in your face - and i felt pretty violent and dissociated after that movie.

it's taken 15 years but only recently do i know i'm not crazy anymore.

Blow was another movie that completely freaked me out. it was also supposed to be 'innovative' and 'groundbreaking', but when the movie cut abruptly and with no warning whatsoever to the scene where the daughter is being prostituted for drugs, i got up and walked out and got physically sick. i felt physically nauseous for several days afterward. i have never seen the rest of that movie and i never will see it again. I don't even try to watch 'hardhitting' or 'gritty' movies anymore. another poster said she watches oldies. me too. cat on a hot tin roof is one of my favorites, even though it has dissension, but things get tied up in the movie and that helps me.

I also can NOT watch SuperNanny on TV. watching screaming, flailing, freaked out kids in dysfunctional homes with dysfunctional parents makes my gut cramp up and my legs cramp up and my head hurt, and just deeply deeply upsets me and freaks me out. i grew up in a house with a lot of screaming all around, and like an earlier poster said, any filmor tv show that just has violence and dysfunction in the same room with kids, let alone directed at them or which they're involved in, makes me actually so freaked out it's hard for me to go to sleep at night. as if i just watched a horror movie or something.

That's my list: Braveheart, Blow, and SuperNanny.

 

[BloomInWinter]

Mosquito Coast.
The Prince of Tides.
Ghost.
Any disney from my childhood times.
Flipper, the original series...Scooby Doo, same.

Any with terrified kids.

*nausea*

 

[shell]

All horror movies.

When I was 16, I watched a movie When a stranger calls, for 2 years after I had nightmares, was afraid of the dark and couldn't even go to the toilet in our house without freaking out at night. A certain scene in the movie was triggering a rape I had forced from my mind. At the end of the movie he was in her bed and she didn't know. Rang too many bells, without me even knowing why.