Should we gaze into the abyss of humanity or do we need to protect ourselves from that?

[noname223]

"Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche

When I was a teenager I thought a lot about that. I have experienced a lot of abuse, domestic violence and bullying even when I was very young. I think at the time when I was primary school student I have experienced more traumata than many other people in their whole life. Maybe that is kind of an overdramatic wording.

But all these things that I have experienced made something with me. I did not understand it when I was this young. There was this process of becoming mentally ill. I could not reflect on that when I was a teenager I barely knew anything about mental illness. There was a lot of pain inside myself, unbelievable pain and I did not know how to cope with it. I have told this story in another thread about gore. But when I watched a film scene where someone pulled of his skin I had the thought this is exactly what I am feeling like. At this time I could not express my pain to anyone.

Afer I saw that film scene I was interested in gore. I had suicidal thoughts to that time. I was 15 and my life was hell. So much violence and bullying that I had to endure. I don't know what my first real life gore video was. I followed the news a lot and the IS videos were very often in the media. Though I have never watched one uncensored in my life I think. On the other hand I watched other gore. I had this feeling I am suffering this much and there is so much suffering in the world. I cannot and should not look away from that. In the media there were often blurred images when they showed violence. I was quite interested in censorship (and still am) and I wanted to know what the journalists had to watch in order to explain it to the readers. I wanted to know what the world is really like.

This was me back then. Now I am feeling guilty for having watched other people's suicide or brutal deaths without any consent. I am way more critical about (real life) gore. I think parts of it are often quite immoral. If you are interested in my line of argumentation you can read my thread: "Is watching (real life) gore immoral?
I would recommend to anyone to be careful with watching gore. Especially teenagers should not watch gore. But I think some do that. Maybe especially teenagers are interested in that. I could imagine some of them compensatiing buylling experiences with it like me. The comments on those gore websites are despicable. There is proof that watching real life gore can cause PTSD. It is like playing Russian roulette with your mental health.

I would advice against watching gore if someone asked me. These dead people had parents and friends who have to endure the fact that other people laugh now about the death of their beloved ones. I think you should protect yourself from watching horrible things like that. It can increase your mental problems a lot. Watching something like that can't be reversed. Maybe it will haunt you till you die. Sometimes we cannot forget memories which we would love to forget. Maybe some of the images will haunt you in your dreams. This happened to me. But admittedly not very often. But as I said it is Russian roulette. I doubt the gore has traumatized me. But there are people who get traumatized by that. And I promise you having PTSD is no fun at all.

What do you think about that? Maybe this thread was too focussed on watching gore. You could also argument that reading this forum is like gazing into the abyss. It is probably true spending too much time in a suicide forum can make you more depressed. For me personally I had to learn a healthy way how to spend time in this forum. For example I usually don't read goodbye threads. They make me just too sad and depressed.

 

[WrongPlaceWrongTime]

On the other hand, some might feel the need to get desensitized to gore. There's a good chance they come across it eventually by accident at some point. I do agree the risk of being traumatized by it is there, especially if someone close to the victim is the viewer

It is probably true spending too much time in a suicide forum can make you more depressed.

It can go either way honestly, spending time here has helped calm me down, and plenty have somewhat recovered in part due to interacting with users here

 

[FuneralCry]

To me, just the fact that gore websites exist is horrifying. It really is such a cruel world, one that I wish that I was never born into. There must have been so much pain and suffering that was experienced in order to make the content on them. I do know that it would traumatise me if I ever saw something like that. It is one of the worst things about this life, that we cannot forget what we have seen.

 

[Dr Iron Arc]

Diving deeper into the abyss does have the potential to get someone to completely drown in it yes.

However, someone who does regularly go into the abyss is way more experienced in engaging with it than someone who's never even been close to being this far into the field. That person without the experience really should not be having too much of a say in exactly what the abyss is like and also should not be considered an expert on how to avoid getting too sucked into it. Only someone who's at least spent the right amount of time in it should even be considered to help others who need help escaping or at least dealing with this abyss.

This applies a lot to suicide. Someone who has never experienced the level of suffering that drives one to a place like here can't possibly be able to fathom the environment someone like that is in so how can they be trusted to give proper advice on how to get out? At least when you've been in the suicidal realm long enough, many people can use this as a way to reevaluate if they even really need to CTB by considering all facets of the discussion as opposed to someone who shuts out all dialogue about suicide until if God forbid, one day some horrific thing drives them to it and they have no idea how to process it properly.

A slightly different use of this metaphor could be applied to porn use vs porn addiction. Yes people can get unhealthily addicted to it, but it's apparently also been shown that people who watch porn are at least far more open-minded and willing to do better for their partner than someone who abhors viewing all sexual content would. Of course it means people have to be careful to not let their fancies get the better of them but that should be true of anything that feels good.

Like with the other examples, the responsibility usually lies on each individual themselves to be able to make their own choices and evaluations on when they've gone too deep. Of course this can be too much to ask of everyone so maybe it's not the best thing to count on but my point is just that most people CAN choose to merely spend a reasonable amount of time in a place without falling to all of its consequences and can sometimes become better equipped for it as a result.

 

[Nolan96]

I've had actual nightmares about reading goodbye threads on this forum. I've become a bit more desensitized to them, which, as with gore, sexual extremes, and lots of other stuff, is part of what can be scary about it.

 

[Lost Magic]

I have seen that gore movie faces of death with my so called friends when I was a kid. It was absolutely horrific to watch. I would never watch anything like that again. Saying that watching The Genocide in Ukraine is like watching a snuff movie in a way. Horrible world.

 

[whatevs]

You should, at least once in your life, see what people can do to each other. Favela boys digging into the chest of a rival with a pickaxe, Mexicans chopping limbs and using them to flagellate the defenseless (and mercifully already deep into a shock stupor) still breathing torso, religious fanatics beheading people like they were pigs and chanting triumphantly Allahu Akbar...

BestGore, from the Canadian Mark Marek, used to provide for this necessity without much hassle and with deranged antisocial commentary on the side. It doesn't get any better than that.

Nowadays, you need to enter a paid forum such as Documenting Reality. I don't think I will be getting into gore again any time soon. I saw what I needed to understand what humans are, or can be.