I know I shouldn't have- why oh why did I watch Broadchurch

[Evelight]

I've always been prone to imagining disaster scenarios and freaking myself out a bit- I remember as a young teenager with my dad away I would imagine getting the news that he'd been in an accident, play it out in my head. Bringing up two kids in an urban area and all the horror stories on the media doesn't help much. Nothing particularly horrible has ever happened to any of us, but the relentless message that anything can, at any moment, is out there.

A couple of weeks back, KNOWING I WAS BEING FOOLISH, I watched Broadchurch. That very night I had horrible "waking" nightmares about my kids walking through the bedroom as I was asleep, calling out "mom". I bingewatched through the first season over the weekend then regardless.

Two weeks on and I still feel ill. Last night DD's friend (aged 12, v. sensible lovely girl, BFs since they were 5) stayed over. It was all I could do to stop myself through the night from tiptoeing into her room and making sure they were both there and breathing. As I eventually fell asleep, I was imagining her (the friend) dying in her sleep for some reason and us being accused of it. (which is ridic because that isn't even Broadchurch).

Does this happen to anyone else, and how do I deal (apart from not watching Broadchurch-like shows ever again I promise)

You are over anxious and should stop watching tv drama which contains upsetting content..

Are you nervous by nature? I am and avoid triggers.

By the way I didn't get into Broadchurch but I did watch True Detective, don't watch that, you'll never sleep.

I agree about being over-nervous, but I would like to know how to not be, I guess.

and honestly, I would like to know how other (non-nervous) people -esp. parents- manage to avoid being upset by things like Broadchurch and stuff on the news. I read that the guy who played the father of the murdered child researched a lot about how parents who have been through that behave, as he wanted to be very respectful and sensitive to them- I wanted say seriously- why would a bereaved parent even put themself through the ordeal of watching a show like that???

Lol at taking TV stuff seriously. None of it will ever happen in our boring little lives, same chance as the lottery.

Yy to True Detective. Amazing writing, acting etc, but so harrowing. TV audiences seem to get off on young women and children having harm done to them, I find it disturbing.

I can't compute OTOH, but I think that statistically, the likelihood of having a child killed/go missing is rather higher than winning the lottery... interesting comparison though.

Remember it's fiction.

Parents affected by real devastation of losing their child to a murder probably don't watch that kind of tv.

I mean, in my own extended family, there have been two child deaths in the past twenty years, one in a car accident, the other meningitis. No lottery winners though.

Well otoh I've had one lottery winner in my family, syndicate so not life changing.

Watch broadchurch series 2. That should cure you. It's practically a comedy.

No you shouldn't watch that shit, it can be mental torture. I wanted to watch it as I heard the writing/story/acting was amazing and i do love a good British drama, however I heard in summery what it was about and decided to steer clear!

TV can be very powerful. I had a panic attack the other week after an advert about meningitis unexpectedly came on

Xpost we with you OP

I loved broadchurch, thought it was brilliant but both DH and myself cried at certain bits because as parents we can imagine the heartbreaking pain you must feel if you found yourself in that situation. Certain episodes of CSI really upset me too if I can relate to some of the storylines.

I think that you are suffering from anxiety though and may benefit from a visit to your GP. After I had a MMC with our second baby I suffered terrible anxiety and I kept thinking that DH and DS were going to die. Every time they went out in the car I convinced myself they were going to have a horrible accident and a police officer would arrive to tell me the horrible news, I would play out the whole thing in my head and would pace the house until they came home safely. Another thing was my horrible dreams of my DS falling down a well and drowning right in from of my eyes and I just couldn't help him. We regularly went for walks to feed the ducks around our local reservoir that had a well and I just couldn't visit anymore. It would never ever happen as the well was very well secured but I just overthought everything and created accidents that were near impossible to ever happening! I don't know if this is similar to how you feel but I know it's an awful way to feel and hard to get past.

I can't really remember why it stopped but it did last for a good while. I think it was when I was pregnant again with DD at about 28 weeks when I finally believed she was healthy and would be joining our family for definite.

Hope you can work through this OP