How do you deal with seeing something messed up?

I remember seeing a video of a guy killing himself when I was 13. Shortly after that, I came across some stills from a crush fetish video of some bitch killing a cat. Even now, almost ten years later, I can vividly remember them. I'm sure that anyone who dipped their toes into 4chan can say the same.

Obviously, this isn't the same as witnessing inhumanity and carnage firsthand. And I don't necessarily lose sleep over some jpegs I saw a decade ago. I'm just interested in hearing how other duders cope with seeing something they clearly were not supposed to see.

Bury the memory with alcohol.

But more seriously, I just kind of "live with it". Not in the dickish "Pussy. Just live with it." way, but more the "Well, that's in my brain now. ...Fuck. I still have to keep on living" kind of way. I don't drink, smoke, or do drugs, so I'm not sure how I cope. I just kind of move on. The images are still in there though.

@notdavid: I remember that there are doctors and scientists and community volunteers and schoolteachers and firefighters, and all sorts of people who make the world a better place, and that the world can be a good place, and their positive efforts outweigh whatever inhumanity you might have witnessed in your life.

When I was like 14, the hot way to get porn was through Limewire, right? Well I download this video labeled as porn, but it was really this woman tied to a chair, begging for her life and getting shot in the damn head (I've since learned that it may have been fake, but at the time I still felt pretty fucked up.) Anyway, like  @myketuna said, just cope with the fact that you've seen something you can't un-see, and move on. Don't dwell on it.

@TooWalrus said:

When I was like 14, the hot way to get porn was through Limewire, right? Well I download this video labeled as porn, but it was really this woman tied to a chair, begging for her life and getting shot in the damn head (I've since learned that it may have been fake, but at the time I still felt pretty fucked up.) Anyway, like @myketuna:, just cope with the fact that you've seen something you can't un-see, and move on. Don't dwell on it.

I saw that same video, not looking for porn. I stopped it before anything happened once I saw where it was going, but I always wondered if it was fake or not. Good to know it was.

  just cope with the fact that you've seen something you can't un-see, and move on.

@ajamafalous said:

@TooWalrus said:

just cope with the fact that you've seen something you can't un-see, and move on.

Yeah this. I saw that video of the American get be-headed by terrorists years ago. It honestly kind of slipped my mind until I just recalled it. It was awful.

I just lack the compassion to give a shit.

Not sure if this helps, but after watching a pretty scary movie me and my sis would always watch a Disney or Miyazaki film right after to get our mind in a happier mood. Sooner or later we associated scary films with these children classics. I am now scared of the Lion King movie...

I ended up watching the video of one of the guys being beheaded back in 2003/2004. Knew what was going to happen, but still watched. Till this day remains the most messed up thing I've ever seen. Dealing with it was just knowing that there are bad people out there that do that stuff and there are also people out there making sure that those people are punished for what they do. It's a sad thing that people die or do horrible things, but that's the world. Sometimes you just have to accept it and know that there are also people out there doing good things and to try and do good things yourself.

Seinfeld puts me at ease when something like that is bothering me. It also taught me one of life's most important lessons: "It's not a lie if you believe it".

Repress it...take it out on my loved ones later.

Seriously though, back in the late 90's/early 2000's I happened upon a website devoted to graphic images of the worst auto accident victims you can imagine. Real "hamburger" stuff. Anyway, I saw those photos in my mind for years afterwards and can still recall some. It was nightmarish. Whenever it popped back into my head, I would think of something else or find some sort of distraction to pull me away from the memories. Over time, it's become more blurry in my head, so time heals all wounds or words to that effect.

Compartmentalize and move on. This world has a lot of messed up shit in it. Keep calm and carry on.

Take solace in the fact that if you ever find yourself in a situation which would freeze a weaker person, you might be 1% more likely to soldier on because of what you've seen. (Or not, but might as well derive a bright side from it all.)

@BisonHero said:

@notdavid: I remember that there are doctors and scientists and community volunteers and schoolteachers and firefighters, and all sorts of people who make the world a better place, and that the world can be a good place, and their positive efforts outweigh whatever inhumanity you might have witnessed in your life.

Can't beat this.

Once I finish masturbating furiously, I generally try to put it out of my mind considering there is little I can do about it.

I've seen some messed up stuff in real life too, let me tell you.

Cry myself to sleep....

Drugs. Lots of drugs.

Give your mind a cuteness overload.

If it's something like that crush video you mention, I get angry. With something just disturbing I just kind of accept it.

I dunno, I've just kinda become...I won't say numb because that isn't right. It's not like I don't understand what I'm seeing or that it doesn't bother me. I intellectually know what I see is wrong but unless I can see a clear injustice I can put my anger in there's nothing much more I can do but accept it and go on to look at something else. I don't dwell on bad stuff. Besides, I like so much about life I'm not going to let some horrible images ruin it for me.

I occasionally have vivid flashes of grotesque imagery dredged up, but I've just learned to accept and deal with it as permanent "mind's eye scarring," and not pay it much attention. And I'm sure what I've seen doesn't even compare to seeing and experiencing such things in real life (and I'm thankful I haven't), but it's difficult to purge nonetheless. At least I now know there are certain places on the Internet to simply avoid like the plague, but to learn that, it took morbid curiosity striking for some terrible, unknown reason first. All I can say now is, just don't--it's not worth it.

Growing up with rotten.com desensitised me. I'll never watch those beheading videos though.

A friend of mine in high school sent me a video link. I clicked on it, and the first few seconds were of a guy cutting his penis off. I closed the video as soon as I saw that and did not try to figure out whether it was fake or not.

I saw those same stills and had forgotten about that cat until now.

I drink and beat my wife and children

Saw a video of a guy jumping into a pool, crack his face open and showed the ambulance trying to hold it together. Nothing really bothers me after I saw that.

I've unfortunately desensitized myself to an unhealthy level, but every once in awhile a particularly bad one will get under my skin. When that happens, I embrace the revulsion, because it's a little scary to not react at all to things like that.

I deal with seeing disgusting/fucked up shit a lot easier than with disgusting, mind-bending stuff that happens around me. Earlier this year, we had a serious scandal in Poland with a woman who killed her infant child, then made a big fuzz about the kid actually getting kidnapped. When the truth came up, we had a lot of drama about the case of death, her escaping from courts, et cetera. Despite evidence of the killing not being purely accidental, a serious case of obstruction of justice and wasting public resources, she's still not in jail.

VERY recently, she had a semi-nude photo shoot on a fucking horse in a popular tabloid paired with an interview, where she talks about her experiences in prison, how kind were the other mothers who commited infanticide to her and that NOW SHE HAS TIME FOR HER HOBBIES AND INTERESTS. I was almost catatonic after reading. That's the shit that keeps me up at night.

I deal with seeing disgusting/fucked up shit a lot easier than with disgusting, mind-bending stuff that happens around me. Earlier this year, we had a serious scandal in Poland with a woman who killed her infant child, then made a big fuzz about the kid actually getting kidnapped. When the truth came up, we had a lot of drama about the case of death, her escaping from courts, et cetera. Despite evidence of the killing not being purely accidental, a serious case of obstruction of justice and wasting public resources, she's still not in jail.

VERY recently, she had a semi-nude photo shoot on a fucking horse in a popular tabloid paired with an interview, where she talks about her experiences in prison, how kind were the other mothers who commited infanticide to her and that NOW SHE HAS TIME FOR HER HOBBIES AND INTERESTS. I was almost catatonic after reading. That's the shit that keeps me up at night.

Seeing horrible stuff has never had too bad an effect on me. That's just the world we live in, lots of horrible shit circling around our heads at all times. When it lands on you, that's a different story.

I've seen a few things that have stuck with me: I used to visit Rotten dot com when it started. Friends and I would cringe at the blurry gore filled photos. The imagery stuck with me but I got over that because back then most of those photos were terrible quality with little clarity and detail. Last year when the gay porn serial killer from Canada was posting videos of his evil doings, I visited the site hosting "THE VIDEO" I read the warning and still almost clicked play. After starring at the gruesome still frame of the video, I decided not to watch it and closed the browser. That still frame was enough to remind me I didn't want to see a real person actually tortured and killed. My gf has a degree in Police Science so I'm used to hearing about crime scenes and TruTV is watched by us more then any other network. I'm fascinated like lots of other people in what makes people do these crazy things and sometimes that curiosity leads me to look at more than I really want to see. Recently a female friend sent me a text with a link to photos of the most gruesome stuff I've ever seen. It was a link to bodies hacked, slashed, skinned, and left outside a rival gangs hangout in some South American country. Just that initial viewing of the page opening stuck with me for days. I honestly didn't know what she sent me. If you don't want to have this type of imagery in your memory don't look! It can't be unseen.

I heard of soldiers and flashbacks from being in war and I totally understand it on a different level. I used to be a pressman and witnessed guys caught in the presses on several occasions. Once a guy was standing there with both hands stuck between water rollers, his thumbs were the only thing sticking out. The guy was crying and squealing at us to get him out as we ran around disassembling the press to release his hands. Overall he was trapped less then 4 minutes but it seemed like an hour. He lucked out although his hands were smashed there were no crushed bones. He didn't return back to work.That stuck with me for weeks. I worked 7 straight 12 hour days on a press and believe me, you get a little tired and sloppy near then end of that week. Near mishaps were frequent. Another time we were printing Hearst Car repair guides. These books are printed on really thin paper, the kind of paper you see in Bibles but cheaper and dirtier. We were having a hell of a time getting the job running on the press. At the time we were 8 hours into the night time shift 6pm to 6am. Tired from battling this f'n paper for 8 hours till we got the job running. I had just finished the first layering bundles on a skid when I see my pressman shutdown the press. I'm thinking "WTF now?". As I bind the last bundle and turn to ask the guy what's going on, he's standing there holding 2 fingers so they don't fall off. The flesh and skin is hanging there and the bones are there in front of me. The guy used his fingers tips to rub a "hickey" of the plate roller. One of craziest things to do but it was a common practice at that time. His hand got pulled into the press(between the ink roller and the plate) and he yanked it out while the press was running. The crazy thing is he somehow managed to shutdown the press properly while holding his hand together. Seriously, he slowed down the press, turned off the ink, turned off the water, stopped the press and release the tension on the paper while holding his hand together. I would have hit any of the emergency stop buttons. This whole scenario pops in my head all the time, especially now as I'm writing about it. It's been around 17 years since that happened and I still have flashbacks of turning around wanting to say "WTF NOW?" only to see that. I remember getting the shop foreman and calling 911 after that it's blur. Although I understand flashbacks, I can't relate to soldiers and seeing fellow soldiers killed around them wondering am I next. The stuff I've seen is nothing to what those guys see.

Sometimes talking about stuff with a close friend helps you deal with stuff like this. When some of the stuff I've seen bothers me, I just try to have a conversation about another interest to clear my head.

I remember accidentally stumbling onto a video of a guy tying a noose around some womans neck in what appeared to be her living room, standing her on a chair and kicking it out from under her. I only got as far as the kick though before I couldn't watch more. It's probably very fake but it looked real to me at the time, and I didn't want to see more than I had. I'm not as desensitized as others on the internet are, and generally shy away from anything containing someone coming to injury. Hanging around on /b/ from time to time though has made it impossible for me not to see pictures from bombings where children are missing a leg or the everything below the waist and such things. It sticks with you more than I wish it would.

Things don't really haunt me, I may be totally disgusted for a few minutes after seeing it but the mental image doesn't really stay with me. I mean, if I think about stuff specifically I can recall it, but things don't just appear in my mind at random like it seems other people say happens to them. Guess I'm lucky.

@notdavid: There's some great advice in this thread. Compartmentalization is the key. I've never seen a crush video but I remember reading about them in Time Magazine and felt a kind of sick horror that such a thing existed. I've also done some reading about the torture methods Hussein employed during his regime; visited the Holocaust museum in Wash DC; read about Rwanda genocides and so on. It's like opening a door that cannot be closed and it doesn't mean you should keep yourself ignorant of what goes on in the world. All you can do is treat the people you run into well, and know there are millions of others like you who are doing the same. And stay the fuck away from 4chan!

The same way I deal with all issues in life. I don't allow myself to think about certain stuff. Sure they sometimes pop into my mind, but I've really gotten good at just not thinking about negative stuff. This, more than any medication, is what got me out of depression. I'm 100% sure of it. You are the gatemaster to what you allow yourself to think about. I didn't need any self-help book to work this shit out--I just did it.

This does take practice I should say, you won't be good at it right away.

Go out, do stuff, don't go to 4chan.

Play the first few levels of Loco Roco.

@stryker1121: In all honesty, I know it doesn't seem worth it, but keep that attachment and do not stray far from it. Too many times it makes us jaded and we need to stop that hardening of our heart. Try not to expose yourself to more than you can handle, and understand that the knowledge you have obtained is proof of the extent mankind has gone to. This will not only stop you from achieving such a degree, but also allow you to better understand the reasoning's behind some people in the world. A lot of hatred people find for others comes from ignorance or simply being jaded towards the subject.

I go play with my dog.

Even if I have just learned about the most horrific thing in the world, she can always brighten my day ^___^

I think about it.
Then I think about it some more.
Then I think "it's weird that I think about that." Suddenly, it's gone.

Our brains are kind of douchebags. If we try to repress a thought or emotion, it'll come back at us even stronger. Oddly enough, if we accept those thoughts and emotions, they lose their power. I guess it's kind of a self-desensitization.

@ck1nd said:

@stryker1121: In all honesty, I know it doesn't seem worth it, but keep that attachment and do not stray far from it. Too many times it makes us jaded and we need to stop that hardening of our heart. Try not to expose yourself to more than you can handle, and understand that the knowledge you have obtained is proof of the extent mankind has gone to. This will not only stop you from achieving such a degree, but also allow you to better understand the reasoning's behind some people in the world. A lot of hatred people find for others comes from ignorance or simply being jaded towards the subject.

I don't disagree with this and am a firm believer in "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." It's actually a good thing to feel horror and disgust at the ways of the world, as it shows you're not hardened or jaded to atrocities that have been going on since the dawn of man. I'm Jewish and will check out neo-Nazi websites cuz I also believe in "know thy enemy."

However, I will not willfully visit sites like rotten.com or certain pages on 4chan that revel in human misery "for the lulz." That makes me sick and pissed off and I can't deal with those kind of people. So I don't, and will happily live in my "ignorance."

@CaptainTightPants said:

Give your mind a cuteness overload.

This definitely helps. Caturday, too.

But honestly, you just have to try and forget about it. Force it out of your mind.

As some have said the world is fucked up. Just got to try and not let it get to you.

Keep rolling every round until you make your saving throw. You take ongoing sanity damage until you make it.

You just have to bury it and move on. Realize what you saw, and how you can learn from it. Take the good (what you learned), put it in the forefront of your mind, and shove the horrible to the back of your mind. You'll never forget it, but don't let it eat away at you. It sucks, but it all comes with growing up.

@CaptainTightPants said:

Give your mind a cuteness overload.

Yep. Cuteness overload for the win.

Now...how do you deal with it if you chose to produce the something messed up, if the crush video is yours? Try jumping of a bridge maybe.

The one that always stuck in my mind was the one of two punk teenage kids, russian IIRC, killing a man with a hammer and posting it online. It wasn't the most graphic one I have seen, but the way the guy was begging to be left alone because he had a family and the way he convulsed after they had hit him a few times as those two pieces of human waste laughed with such glee got to me.

To be honest, there really is no getting over it. It's going to be a part of you until you are too old to remember or you see worse things. Honestly though, I was rather glad I seen it in the grand scheme of things. I always had this worry in the back of my mind that maybe the crazy people were right about violent games and media desensitizing people to violence. After watching stuff like the above mentioned, and far worse, I can safely say that those people are wrong on so many levels.

Since then I have seen videos of people being burnt alive, having their bodies cut into chunks while they were alive and screaming, and videos of babies getting their heads run over by buses as they fell off a curb. But none of that really bothers me. It's the ones when you can hear or see the bad guy getting off on hurting the other person when it bothers me.

if it's people doing shit to one another or something i get mad, sick stuff i get grossed out.... honestly i try to avoid it, kinda ruins whatever good mood i may have at the time.

I've managed to avoid watching those things even after hearing all about them. I don't want to look at that shit.

I heard about a Mexican cartel chainsaw beheading video and just had this morbid curiosity to watch it. Needless to say it was pretty fucked. When I was 14 or 15 I saw a video of a guy getting his head slowly cut off in the middle of the woods. The visuals weren't even the worst part of it or any videos of that kind, it's the sound that fucks with you. Even in movies, no matter how realistic the effects are, the sound of someone or something dying is fucking gut-wrenching.