Watching a movie on TV about a person dying,

[Tinker28]

I am watching a home TV movie about a girl dying around Christmas, I'm finding it hard to watch considering my HA is making it hard to cope watching. Does anyone else avoid watching these types of shows and why do we do this? I'm very fearful siting here watching these type of movies. It's a Halmark movie.

[nursegreenwhippet]

Yep - I get that, also just as I feel ok someone in real life gets something terrible or dies! The clients where I work confide or come in and tell me all about what's happening to them or someone else and then I hang on to that for ages - great!

[Candyknitter]

One time I was already feeling fragile and I watched a drama called Housewife 42 about a woman's struggles during WW2, and she also suffered from anxiety (unsurprisingly!). Just watching her struggle really bummed me out, I actually started to feel a panic attack coming on!
Now when I'm on a downward slide I stick to happy films and read trashy mags about gossip and celebrities etc. keep things light and superficial.

[HoneyLove]

Movies like that are going to stimulate an emotional response from people. The result of that is a chemical reaction in your body that sets off stress hormones. For someone who suffers with anxiety extra stress hormones are not helpful, since we're so overloaded with them already.Your brain doesn't realise that the emotional reaction you're having is just the result of a movie, so it will act the very same way it would if this was a real happening in your life.

So the answer is simple, don't watch things that will upset you, there's nothing wrong with that. Some of us are just more sensitive or more able to empathise with the pain of other people.

I don't watch or read very much that upsets me, not even the news on most days. We're exposed too much negativity and trauma through all kinds of media daily, I don't need that in my life. Instead I fill my life with positivity and humour, things that make me happy and make me laugh. It's much healthier for you. It doesn't mean keeping your head in the sand about the nature of life or important issues in the world, but it just means not taking on board unnecessary trauma every day.

[cpe1978]

I would add someting to what Honeylove says. Personally I think it is really important not to go out of our way to avoid things. It just keeps us focused on the anxiety and altering our lives to accommodate our unnecessary visitor. For me it is about recalibrating our reaction to things.

Everyone feels upset and an emotional response to things they see. Afterall, certainly in the media that is the response they are looking for.

For me, getting better from anxiety means having a normal response to these things and so for me (and I stress my opinion only) avoidance is not an option.

[Rennie1989]

I struggle to watch scenes of drowning and burning alive, I think it comes down to the fact that I have a massive deal about breathing. So I avoid them. I also cannot watch films on apocalypses, space-related and plane crashes, they just make me feel a little uncomfortable.

My mum always used to say to me 'It's only a story!' when I watched Casaulty with her as a kid and watching scenes of people getting really hurt or very unwell. I still hear my mum say that today :P