London crime - fear of being killed

[Anxiouscow]

Hello guys,

I live in South London. The area I live in isn't extremely dangerous, I've not had any reason to believe that my immediate local area is unsafe. However, recently, following the recent increase of stabbings in London, my anxiety has been absolutely terrible. I am really worried about being stabbed for absolutely no reason. I'm researching "gang initiation attacks" and "random stabbings in London," which I know I shouldn't, but my anxiety is overwhelming. I'm just an ordinary guy, I shouldn't be worried about this. But I'm really worried that I'll be out walking my dog, or with my girlfriend, and someone will attack me/us for no reason. I'm a 21 year old male, which puts me in a higher risk category too!

I'm not sure how worried I should be about this because my GAD has made me lose all scale of danger. I'm paranoid when I leave the house. I'm looking for danger all of the time. I can never relax in public, especially when I'm out with my Dad or my girlfriend. I'm always thinking "what if this guy is rude to my girlfriend and I stand up for her and he kills me?" or "what if I walk down the road and someone stabs me for my phone?" or "what if someone stabs me for being in the wrong place at the wrong time?"

Part of me feels as if I'm being irrational. But you see it on the news ALL the time. These things happen everyday! Especially in London, which is rapidly becoming very unwelcoming and unsafe in my eyes. I am going to see a therapist soon, but this time, I'm not sure that what I'm worried about is so wrong.

Any help would be appreciated on this.

Anxiouscow

[ankietyjoe]

Definitely irrational, and the issue is the 'evidence' you're looking at.

I used to live in South London too. 25 years ago I went to a club in Vauxhall where a friend of mine was shot in the leg, and another stabbed on the way home a couple of hours later. In a group of 10 people, two were nearly killed on the SAME night?! Wasn't in the news.

London is no more or less dangerous than it ever was.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Yes, I think you have to be very wary of the media in this. Look at the police statistics instead (didn't they release a statistic knife crime had fallen?) because the media only want the worst.

And the other thing...other places exist outside of London. We get knife attacks all over the UK all the time. You won't hear about them. Why is that?

[LondonRain]

I understand because I live in Lambeth...in a pretty awful area aswell, and hearing the news constantly and seeing these roadman out its no surprise, I'm sure its not just people with anxiety that worry about it.

[SarahNah]

While I don't live in London, I have lived in a part of my city that wasn't the best while my first year at uni. I was always on edge where-ever I went, thinking is this going to be the day I'm going to be the victim of a random attacking.
My boyfriend has never worried about anything in his life (okay he has but he is a very carefree person), yet when we were in a area that wasn't the safest place even he was on edge. It's a normal feeling for anyone. You can't let that feeling take over your whole life? Sorry I don't have alot of good advice but replying to say I understand x

[Lencoboy]

Definitely irrational, and the issue is the 'evidence' you're looking at.

I used to live in South London too. 25 years ago I went to a club in Vauxhall where a friend of mine was shot in the leg, and another stabbed on the way home a couple of hours later. In a group of 10 people, two were nearly killed on the SAME night?! Wasn't in the news.

London is no more or less dangerous than it ever was.

I know this thread is a few months old but it's also worth remembering that back then (1994, I presume) we still didn't have 24/7 rolling news channels in this country with wall-to-wall coverage of headline events, the Internet as we know it today was still only the preserve of just a handful of 'anoraks', and social media (Facebook) was ten light years away from being born.

The media seem to be even more London-centric these days too.

[ankietyjoe]

I know this thread is a few months old but it's also worth remembering that back then (1994, I presume) we still didn't have 24/7 rolling news channels in this country with wall-to-wall coverage of headline events, the Internet as we know it today was still only the preserve of just a handful of 'anoraks', and social media (Facebook) was ten light years away from being born.

The media seem to be even more London-centric these days too.

Bingo

And about a year later I lived in Warsaw for a year and had a gun pulled on me 3-4 times (still very much a new frontier full of Russians back then), so much, MUCH more dangerous than London lol.

[Lencoboy]

I have also often wondered as to whether or not the media being over-saturated with articles about crime can sometimes breed more crime. Whether it's the newspapers, TV news, soaps, dramas, films, you name it, even though the latter three are almost always fictitious.

Especially going by the expression 'violence begets violence'.

[ankietyjoe]

I have also often wondered as to whether or not the media being over-saturated with articles about crime can sometimes breed more crime. Whether it's the newspapers, TV news, soaps, dramas, films, you name it, even though the latter three are almost always fictitious.

Especially going by the expression 'violence begets violence'.

I have often wondered this. I think TV and film in particular can normalise extreme violent reactions to certain situations. In essence, when you are exposed to non comic violence, you have already mentally practiced it. The old Arnie and Stallone films were clearly and obviously comic violence and unrealistic, but I feel films especially these days are particularly guilty of showing gratuitous and righteous revenge violence.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Haven't there been studies of that on teenagers and young adults with horror movies? I seem to recall reading some ages ago.

But why not look at the obvious influences we know already do? When I was growing up we had gang fights and football violence was very common. Nowadays we have a music scene that promotes gang life.

Those pressures on young people push some into that world. And the more they are surrounded with violent nutters who think stabbing or raping someone is fun or cool, or even normal, the more they will just become those people themselves.