I've just watched a particularly gory episode of the excellent Holby City. Now when I say excellent I'm not referring to the amount of mangled and bloody flesh to which we are routinely treated. The storylines are usually believable and the acting good, sometimes brilliant, (even though we are now minus the lovely Robert Powell - but that's another story). So for me, this usually offers an hour of mostly enjoyable viewing.
Tonight was exceptionally gory and having to turn my head away every two minutes doesn't add much of value to the proceedings. Every now and then I try to overcome my aversion to gore and force myself to watch only to find myself on the verge of vomitting.
This is not as bad as when I was in school when I used to faint in biology lessons. If anyone was unwise enough to even mention cuts, flesh wounds or veins (particularly veins) they would have an unconcious teenager to cope with.
Inevitably life has thrown a few encounters with injury illness and accident my way and until I took a first-aid course in the mid 1970s I always tried to side-step too close an acquaintance with them. Soon after passing my first-aid test - only a matter of weeks - I was unfortunate (with my husband) to be the first person on the scene when a car went off the road in front of us, over-turned and jumped a hedge into a field.
It was a four-seater car with 6 passengers, four of whom were injured - one badly - and that experience stood me in good stead for the following 10 years when I was often the only first-aider in the 8 floor building in which i worked. I found if I simply tackled the injury without thinking about it for even a second, I could deal with most things, though afterwards I would often sit and shake for half an hour or so.
The most awful thing for me is for someone to throw up while being treated. This almost always results in copy-cat nausea on my part. At least I no longer faint, or at least, only when I am in pain myself.
Funny how some people don't turn a hair at even the most horrendous sight, while we wimps can't even watch simulated gore on a TV screen.
Thank heaven God made us all just that bit different from each other.
if someone was to have an accident in front of me I could handle the situation fine BUT if you were to give me prior warning then I would go into panick mode!!! I cannot watch gory films and yet whilst living in Bangladesh and Ghana I have assisted in some gory esposides and thought nothing of it.. funny peculiar isn't it?
ReplyDeleteSomehow real life gore doesn't get to me but TV and movie gore I cannot watch. Go figure.
ReplyDeletePerhaps I'm not such a freak after all since both of you seem to react in the same way. Phew that's a relief. I have quite enough eccentricities to be going on with.
ReplyDeleteThanks Judy and Penny for your input.
I tend to record Holby - then I can fast forward through any gory bits. But I do get a bit cross when the cast gossip over the patients. Guess I treat it too much like real life, and that is probably why the programme is successful.
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the "can't cope with the gore" club Freda.
ReplyDeleteYes I agree, half the lives of the staff seem to be discussed at length in front of their 'captive audience' patients.
Nevertheless I'm hooked.