#why earth this episode triggers me into this idk I'm weird

[tearlessrain]

so out of curiosity does anyone else keep like... a couple pieces of Intentionally Unpleasant media in their mind bleach arsenal? because the traditional “cute fluffy animals” strategy works fine for me if I’ve read one of those ghost encounter threads on reddit at 1am or made the mistake of watching literally any documentary about ants, but I’ve also found there’s a certain threshold or category of upsetting where it kind of digs into my mind and lingers for hours or days, and in those situations trying to go directly to happy cute stuff just feels weird and wrong. I instead have to counter it with something else that’s also upsetting, but in a different way.

weirdly my main go-to for this is The Man Who Fell to Earth, a movie you’ve probably heard me complain about before if you’ve known me for any length of time, because it’s fucked up and depressing and I hate it, but it just happens to be unsettling in a specific way that my brain is like “I’m not enjoying this but somehow I am kinda vibing with it.” it’s like it makes me a variety of uncomfortable that I already know how to come down from, or that’s familiar enough to do a full 180 and be oddly comforting in its unpleasantness. first time I discovered this was after I saw cloud atlas in theaters, which really fucked with me for some reason, and on a whim I was like “well I hate the brainspace I’m in right now, maybe if I watch a movie that’s also jarringly unpleasant but leaves me in a wildly different bad brainspace they’ll cancel each other out” and it actually worked. I suspect it’s the psychological equivalent of that “if you bang your shin on the coffee table, bite your finger” thing. I hardly ever do it because I don’t want it to lose effectiveness and I fortunately have rarely needed to, but it’s useful af in those rare cases.

honestly though actual bleach is caustic and hurts/kills pretty much everything it touches which is why it works, so it kind of makes sense on a metaphorical level.

#the man who fell to earth is really the og example of my tendency to seek out things that make me uncomfortable for reasons unknown #but only a specific kind of uncomfortable #as you can imagine this gets me into trouble because it's basically psychological russian roulette #and BOY did I lose when I watched outlander #I stg that one episode somehow triggered ptsd I don't even have it was not good #even more weird because that type of disturbing content is usually fine for me it was just this one case #anyway that was the one other time so far I had to go for the nuclear mind bleach strategy #'it can't be that bad' I said #'half the people you know who watch that show are middle aged white suburban moms' I said #'I've probably read worse this will be fine' I said #ironically I have read worse but it still was not fine #I eventually gave the show another go but the protagonists both became completely insufferable in the french season so I stopped again #idk maybe it was just too heterosexual #I really need to stop going on massive semi-relevant tangents in the tags some people probably don't have xkit to hide these #side note ants are fucking demonic and so are those bees that can roast wasps alive insect documentaries are terrifying #'I will accept any context as long as I can look at david bowie' - my brain probably #I employ the same strategy with random depression spirals and a few particularly dark hurt/comfort fics #seriously though I'm pretty sure my cookie-baking quilt-making GRANDMA has watched outlander why am I like this

[daggersandarrows]

I'm about to say some things that I'm fairly sure *someone* is going to hold against me, but ehhh, I'm saying it in good faith, I hope this will help someone.

I've seen plenty of sentiments about how it's perfectly okay to just stop watching or reading or engaging with a piece of media when it becomes more upsetting than enjoyable, and that's a really good thing to know. It's the reason I've left a lot of fandoms over the years and it's vastly improved my mental health.

However. I think it's also important to know that it is okay, and a lot of times even beneficial, if you can be self aware about it, to consume media that upsets and/or triggers you. I know that's a weird statement up front so let me give some examples.

That bit in c1 where Vax and Scanlan are scoping out Whitestone, and Vax pretends to be Scanlan's abusive father? Automatic nope. I had to stop watching. Vax is a comfort character and to put it extremely simply, it was just plain upsetting for me to see a character (and actor) I loved so much very accurately portraying something so cruel. And the thing is, it's not too difficult to acknowledge, once I'd removed myself from the situation, that the reason it was so upsetting is because Liam's a great actor. On top of that I can acknowledge how it speaks to Vax's character--it's one of many examples of him being straight up fucking ruthless in a way that's not always called for when someone close to him is threatened in a way that comes back to bite him (Rakshasa anyone? Also Matt's NPC being genuinely shocked and upset in the given example).

Keyleth has an uncannily similar speech pattern to someone who was very cruel to me when I was a kid. That's why you don't see much meta about her here--it's still not something I'm over, and while I'll defend her to the ends of the earth, she's not really a character I can fully engage with at the moment. I'm not in a good place for it. And that's okay. I can acknowledge that without character hate. There's nothing wrong with her speech patterns or how Marisha plays the character. This is a me issue.

One of the main cast members has a name belonging to my abusive sociopath ex boyfriend. That's actually why, despite having been recommended the show for a long time, it took me months to actually start it. Once I did start it, though, I made a conscious effort to replace my association with my ex with the association of the cast member, and I'm happy to say that while sometimes it is still triggering, most days, my ex doesn't even appear in my head when I hear the name.

It's okay to be upset by things. It's okay to be triggered. Voluntarily learning to cope with what upsets you is a great thing and honestly the reason cr has taught me so much about myself. And that's not to say that I haven't reacted badly to some stuff because I definitely have, especially in the heat of the moment, lashing out or placing blame where it wasn't deserved, but the more I consciously self reflect and the more I poke at why a certain thing upsets me, when I'm in the place for it, the better I cope the next time around. The better I feel in general. The more I know myself. And yeah some days I definitely have to just tap out. Some days I'm caught off guard by something I didn't know or didn't realize would be such a huge trigger and I end up having a panic attack and muting the episode. That's also okay.

Idk, fiction is just such a good place for self exploration if that's the sort of thing you're into when you consume fiction, and I feel like a lot of that is wasted if we don't acknowledge that it's okay to be upset.

#critical role