Does it happen if the injury you see is to an animal?
I’ve had one instance of seeing something shocking but not gruesome involving a human while I was driving. I’ve also had two instances of witnessing something shocking and gruesome involving animals, while driving. Just curious how those would affect you.
I don’t have VVS, so no adding out for me, but I do wish I could erase the animal ones from my brain.
I did notice a difference now that I have kids, too. Even some minor things, like talking about or picturing a severely scraped knee, and certainly things more serious than that, give me a very unpleasant sort of tingling sensation at the base of my spine. It gives me a very strong urge to Do Something, to Make It Stop.
Before kids, I’d only ever had that feeling once before, when I was getting a tattoo. My body wanted me to get away from the person who it felt like was methodically cutting into my arm, and my brain was overriding that impulse.
There are certainly things I won’t go looking for online, but no, I haven’t noticed I’m more sensitive about, or avoidant of, those things than I used to be.
[quote=“dolphinboy, post:16, topic:992411”]
VVS impacts a significant percentage (>35%) of the population at one time or another, and it mainly affects men. Strangely, I haven’t met anyone else with this issue.[/quote]
You have now. Me. I’ve had it since my early teens, it seems to have peaked in frequency and intensity during my 30’s and 40’s (I’m 73 now), but I still have to be mindful of it. For me the syncopes nearly always include a drawn-out period of intense nausea. They are nightmarish, truly horrible.
I know that my father had them, apparently much less severe than mine; and one of my younger sisters is also a passer outer.
Since I live in rural Montana, I see gruesome animals on the roads all the time. Mostly deer that have been hit by vehicles, but other animals, including turkeys, dogs, and cats that have been struck by cars or trucks. I’ve hit a deer myself, accidentally of course, and had to drag the mangled carcass over to the side of the road. No issue. My wife hit a deer while driving and didn’t kill it, but it was unable to move. We called the highway patrol and they came out and put it out of its misery. I witnessed the entire scene, and didn’t have a VVS event. The difference, I think, is that while the animal was suffering, it wasn’t being tortured, and I saw what had happened to it, so it wasn’t shocking. Had I been watching a movie and they were torturing an animal, even if it was all CGI, I might still feel woozy and would probably leave the theater or at least turn away. If I turn away from something being shown in a movie theater, and I can still hear it, that can still trigger an event. It just depends on the circumstances.
Same, not even for news consumption. I have never yet seen video of the Twin Towers falling in the 9/11 attacks, for example. The prospect doesn’t make me feel faint or emotionally distressed or anything, it’s just, this is a real visual record of real people actually violently dying. No, I do not want to see that or think I ought to see that, even if there’s nothing visibly gory about it.
Seeing already-dead animal or human bodies, on the other hand (not that I’ve seen many of the latter) is not a problem as long as there’s some actual reason to look; I don’t ogle cadavers just for fun. But once you’re dead and beyond the reach of assistance or sympathy, I don’t feel that observing your remains is automatically taboo, the way watching video of real deaths is IMO.
This is me as well (except that I’ve seen a much higher amount of dead humans than most folks). If a person or animal is suffering, I am at the least very uncomfortable.
Weirdly, it’s worse if it’s an animal. If they’ve already met their maker, there is no (longer) any suffering, pain, anxiety, or discomfort on display.
I, too, used to visit rotten, ogrish, liveleak and other such sites and seek out gory real-life stuff, I guess for reality bites type of adrenaline hits. I don’t think any of those sites are still functional / active / accessible the way they were, but I don’t think I would visit them now even if they were. There are “experiences” gained from doing that that won’t leave me, likely ever, for no good reason.
I’ve always avoided the gore and horror, just because I don’t like that sort of thing. (Although I will avidly read about weird or creepy mysteries, things like the Somerton Man, or the lead masks case, and such. That’s not necessarily for the violence, as for the creepy.)
Fortunately, there’s an antidote to the Toxic Internet: the Wholesome Internet. YouTube is rife with videos of children being adopted, soldiers surprising their families, couples announcing pregnancy, that are pretty much guaranteed to make you feel better about the world. My particular favorites are deaf people hearing for the first time, and the color-blind putting on Enchroma glasses. Always start the waterworks for me.
I did, although at first I thought Fred MacMurray was miscast, but he was an insurance salesman, so he worked out perfectly. But his use of “baby” seemed a little funny to my ears. “I’m goin’ to town baby!” “It’s worth $100,000 baby!” “My back’s itchin’ baby! Get me a backscratcher baby!”
Very true. My preferences are for “gentle” YouTube channels and TV shows. On YT, I like science information and people putting together plastic models. I even follow a blacksmith. (Not that I build models or do any smithing, but it’s easy on my mind and turns off the stresses of the day.) On TV, it’s stuff like This Old House, America’s Test Kitchen, etc.
Although nature documentaries never bothered me – I don’t want to see animals slaughtered, but seeing a lion hunt is okay. Somehow, that’s all right – balance of nature I guess.
Contrarily, I like mysteries like the Somerton Man too, not for the murder aspect, but the mystery. In a way, serial killers still fascinate me, although as I said upthread, I’d rather not have the gory details.
I have zero problems reading gory passages in books.
I’m not Stephen King fan but I did read Misery.
I thought, ok, I’ll watch the movie. Oh, noooooooooo! Could not sit through it.
I don’t know if it was Kathy Bates performance or the story come to life and weirding me out.
Gave that DVD away quick like.
(ETA, I can’t watch Kathy Bates in anything now. Just sayin’)