Anyone get a thrill from creepy/scary special interests?

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Just wondering if anyone has any special interests that others would regard as scary or horrifying that they view as thrilling and exciting to pursue.

One that I've had for a while is with the Emergency Broadcast System and the Emergency Alert System...alerts made on TV and radio about impending emergencies. Various users on YouTube (including some who have AS) make mockups of these alerts or post tests from the television and radio, and I watch them as if they are actually occuring. Nuclear bombs, nuclear plant disasters such as Chernobyl and the cold war have also always excited me. Two of my favourite movies of all time include The Day After and Threads: two nuclear disaster movies made at the height of the Cold War in the early 80s.

I adore things like plane crashes. I will spend hours browsing wikipedia and watching videos about them. Recently I've gotten into train wrecks and other types of disasters, especially where chemicals and other substances are released that require evacuation. Basically, I like panic and social chaos, even if I'm in the midst of it. There was a tornado up near my parents' house a few months ago and I sat giddlily glued to the tv, watching the emergency messages as they came. I got also got excited during 9/11 because there was actually something on the news that was so significant that it affected nearly everything in the world.

I know that all of this may seem a little callous and sadistic. I think of everyone involved and their loved ones, but I don't let it get to me.

For all of these kinds of scenarios, I view them like if I'm watching an action movie or something, even if they're real. Because of concern of what others will think of me, I keep them extremely hidden. The only people who know about these interests are my parents and my best friend (she finds plane crashes and disasters exciting too!).

I also find gory horror films exciting...as do many people, surprisingly. There's nothing I haven't seen and what most people find disturbing I can tolerate easily. My ex and I bonded over the Saw movies: a psychological horror/thriller series that involves killings with gory results.

I just want to see how common this is on the boards and perhaps why I and others do this. Is it a coping mechanism of sorts? Are we just thrill-seekers and just like coupling adrenaline with our special interests?

My interests (like horror films) are often described as "dark" and "creepy" but thats mostly by those who don't really know me and family members that don't (or don't want to) understand me.


On one occasion as I was talking about the musical "Sweeney Todd" with my parents (who have always encourage me in my interests) at a family gathering my aunt after over hearing our conversation interrupted with "thats yuck,why would you watch something like that!" she still to this day rolls her eyes and gives me a "look" when ever I try to have a conversation about my interests.

I've been intensely obsessed with the Columbine High School shooting that took place on April 20th, 1999, in Colorado. I did all kinds of research on the event and on the shooters' backstories. I've also been thinking about what it would be like to be trapped in a room with a couple of deranged gunmen, like how many students were trapped in the library with the gunmen and were pretty much easy targets for them. It was a tragedy, but it's nonetheless fascinating for me.

My special interest, as I was child, was watching reports about real disasters or accidents on TV or their reconstructions. This month I enjoy watching a tv-show about how all buildings and constructions will slowly destroy, if all people will disappear. Misanthropic thing, but I like.
I like dark music, too. Many people say: Hey, stop listening to it, you will fall in depression.
I wonder, why they think so.. this music helps me.

I have this running joke about cannibalism and reference to cannibalism, and how elements of cannibalism keep showing up in religion. It's not what I'd call a special interest, but just a really funny joke.

http://www.nobeliefs.com/communion/communion.htm

http://www.unwind.com/jokes-funnies/miscjokes/cannibaljokes.shtml

http://www.neweracolorado.org/%E2%80%9Cyoutube.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=77&Itemid=89

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdtFk_V6A4M[/youtube]


What is common, Arens believes, is not cannibalism but belief in cannibalism...
Stories about cannibalism in the Caribbean spread in part because Spanish kings allowed only cannibal tribes to be enslaved. Naturally this inspired the conquistadors to declare just about every inhabitant of the New World guilty.

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/655/is-there-really-such-a-thing-as-cannibalism

Well, I think we know who the REAL cannibals were!

At times I have developed special interests around things that I've actually found quite worrying or quite scary. One of those things is the London Underground (tube) which most people wouldn't think of as scary, but as a young child I was terrified of being taken on it because of the noise of the trains and the blackness of the tunnels. When I got a bit older I liked to study tube maps and I became interested in the underground. This helped me a lot to overcome a lot of my anxiety about travelling on the tube.
Another thing that I found scary and very worrying, but developed a kind of morbid fascination with and became very interested in is ghosts and the paranormal. Although it hasn't been a conscious process, I think becoming interested in these things has been a way for me to cope with my anxiety about them and it has made them seem not so worrying. And when I think about it, it makes sense as a coping strategy because often the more we find out about something the less menacing it seems.
I don't know if this is true for anybody else here, or perhaps I'm just really strange.

I like disasters as mentioned in the first post. It gives me a thrill, for some reason. >:]

I like reading about death and decomposition (forensics and corpses in general), and find books on deformities of unborn babies fascinating. Plus my favorite parts of biography books is the celebrity or historical figure's death.

My mother likes most of the same things too, plus she likes reading about true murders.

I've always been attracted to things that many would consider to be morbid or creepy. My taste in music is very dark - I listen to a lot of depressive black metal, funeral doom, Goth, etc. and although I do have much wider tastes I tend to relate better to music of this nature. I love watching gore and splatter movies - some friends accuse me of having sick taste in films and I just don't really "get" most mainstream stuff at all. I also find myself really fascinated by certain stories that hit the news, anything to do with serial murders, outbreaks of deadly diseases, child killers or cannibalism particularly capture my interest and I find myself really engrossed in reading every article I can find when something like this is in the media. I often find myself telling jokes that are deemed to be offensive or insensitive and I don't understand why people are offended and then I feel really stupid for saying anything at all.

Interesting topic.

I've always been a little morbid - but, I often think of that as just an ability to be objective.

I like murders (what a fascinating subject), animals (as a child I was quite interested in animals killing one another, amongst other things) and so forth. I don't really care whether others think it's 'scary' or not. I mean, I like roses as well. They're not scary.

I've just finished studying a unit that including Forensic Chemistry at uni. I loved it. It included murder. It included analytical methods: how to test residues and samples for blood, fingerprints, fuel residues (arson cases), fibres (rapes and homicides) and so forth.
I like crime shows a lot too and find criminals and different sorts of people unintimidating and interesting.

I love thinking about death. I also really like studying World War 2. I seriously would read the chapter of a history book on it even if we wouldn't get that far in the book during the schoolyear.

Some things are a bit too creepy for my tastes though. I am morbidly afraid of poison.