When you learn something horrifying, do you feel a need to tell someone?

I just bumped my brain against something that utterly horrified me. I'm talking flinching-wincing, ice-in-the-veins, want-to-scream, need-to-run, feel sick level of horrifying. (My horror threshhold is unfortunately lower than the norm, so this is not uncommon.) As usual, my first impulse was to go and shock some other unsuspecting person by forcing *them* to know about it too. Then I kind of felt like a jerk because this other person already knows Too Much Bad Crap anyway, and didn't need yet another pile of horror dumped on him.

That got me to wondering--is this a universal response to something shocking and horrifying? When you read or see something that you know is going to haunt you at night, do you also immediately inflict it on someone else? Why on Earth do we do that?!

Edited to add the variable of whether or not you have been traumatized.

Tucker

:kick:

I tell as many people as I can, as efficiently as I can, because such is the basic nature of a journalist.



Oh, and BTW: :hi:

You need to get on YIM more often for great justice! :hi:

Tucker

If you feel the need to share, I'd be happy to listen.
I guess I tend to share mind-jolting news with others because I appreciate when they share their news with me. It makes me feel useful... :hug:

yesterday my daughter called me in hysterics because of a particularly awful thing she had seen on the road involving a pet. It was so bad I could not share it with anyone at work and it was really difficult. I am usually pretty chatty at work and I thought a lot about telling someone, but there was no benefit to anyone to have this picture in their mind. I dreamed about it all night.

as bad as it is to ask for it, I really want to know now!

:shrug:

Since birds' testes are deep in the abdominal cavity, this is major surgery. They sell caponizing kits, with the scalpel and rib-spreader and sharp hook and the loops of elastic to hold the roosters down because anesthesia's too expensive to waste on chickens. And there were pictures.

Tucker

i'm pretty traumatized that someone in that thread thinks people are not just imagining that but imagining freakin' lyme disease, uh, they do know there's a TEST for lyme disease

and anyway if people could just make threads appear in their skin by thinking hysterical thoughts imagine the power of the human mind -- because it seems like major violation of second law of thermodynamics going on there, just think about something and get worked up enough and *poof* it appears

but the rooster thing is kind of sad too altho in fairness sometimes anesthesia is quite risky to use on birds and maybe if the roosters weren't caponized they'd be in the pot all that much the earlier since you can't really keep a lot of roosters together w.out major chaos

so maybe just think of it as a surgery that at least gives the rooster a longer life?

since that sort of is what happened to me when i was younger, ha ha, but who wants to talk abt that, it's a downer

seriously, tho, while there's life, there's hope, you know?

i don't buy capons at the grocery store and i would rather this not happen but you can't just turn it over and over in your mind

Obviously it's bothering you a great deal and sharing burdens is something that friends do. A good friend would be glad to listen and to help you cope.

And oddly, the moment when I consciously and deliberately decide to shut my mouth, I feel better.

the stiff upper lip thing is not all bad although i went thru a phase as i suppose everyone did in the 80s of trying to share the experience of my trauma, then i realized, hey, what is this accomplishing except making more people feel bad abt something that can't be helped?

some traumas since then, such as having a tree crush our house w. us in it, yeah, we talk abt that pretty boringly often but only because it had a happy ending, what is the point of talking abt the times you can't sleep because the wind is blowing, all that does is reinforce a bad over-reaction, you talk abt the funny stuff, such as the crane operator trying to get an entire oak tree out of your house without dropping it on another house

eventually, eventually, eventually eventually eventually . Eventually eventually eventually, eventually eventaully, eventually, eventually eventually sobo;bglsihbbbh iuhhbf uhiuhguh suhshgih f uhsdghs u hu hulhs g sgu uh eventually eventually, eventually eventually eventually eventuallt, evenetually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually, eventually , eventually eentually.


Edit: Looks like you hit a sore spot. :(:(:(:(

Redstone