u/decadentlizard

I have hemophobia (fear of blood), and I’ve been using TV shows as a form of exposure therapy. There are scenes where I have to look away because it gets too bloody, but usually I’ve never had to outright skip scenes entirely.

Recently though, this show has had a couple scenes I literally cannot handle. It feels like the gore has gotten more intense lately (am I imagining it?). The bite scene with Abigail made me so nauseous the first time I watched it that I almost threw up, and I just cannot watch it.

Then the (season 9 spoiler) >!recent cardiac massage scene was also way too much for me.!< I was physically writhing in pain watching it and had to look away the entire time. Even thinking about that scene now makes me writhe in pain again, I can't even imagine it.

Does anyone else have scenes that are just too much for them to watch? I know my phobia makes it harder for me, but I was curious if anyone else has scenes they can’t sit through.

I really appreciated how 9-1-1 handled the PTSD scene in Season 9 Episode 8.

The scene with the veteran in the grocery store was one of the few times I’ve seen derealization portrayed in a way that actually felt real instead of exaggerated or turned into some horror trope. The way the environment slowly stopped feeling safe and familiar, the panic, confusion, and his brain slipping back into survival mode while everyone around him kept acting normal felt really accurate.

I struggle with depersonalization, which comes from the same disorder category: dissociative subtype PTSD. Derealization and depersonalization are both forms of dissociation. For some people the world stops feeling real, for others like me it’s more that I stop feeling real.

For me it can feel like there’s this second person inside me that takes over whenever I’m overwhelmed or triggered. It runs completely on rage, fear, or distress. I’m usually still aware of what I’m doing, but it feels like I have very little control over my actions in those moments, like I’m trapped watching my body react while internally begging myself to stop. That’s why the veteran’s scene hit so hard for me. He was so overwhelmed and locked into survival mode that you could tell he barely had control over what he was doing either.

I’ve experienced derealization before too, and it really can feel like you’re back inside the trauma again. Your brain gets so overwhelmed that it stops processing the present and reality correctly and you literally think you're back in that moment. The veteran literally believed he was under attack and back at war, and while not everyone experiences it that severely, it was very on par with how it looks like.

Most media treats dissociation like insanity, possession, or some “split personality” thing, so I appreciated seeing a mainstream show portray it as what it actually is: a trauma response. It felt human instead of sensationalized.

I know most people probably just saw it as an intense scene, but as someone with dissociative PTSD it genuinely meant a lot to me seeing it handled that way.