Disaster-happiness-- a correlation with AS?

Post Reply New Topic

I was happy on 9/11 because classes were cancelled for the rest of the day after the planes hit.


I love Auschwitz and can identify with the prisoners AND the guards. I know everything there is to know about Auschwitz; it's one of my obsessions! I used to want to make a place like Auschwitz for my enemies. I fantasized about getting other WrongPlanet members together and we would get equipment, find deserted land, transportation, weapons, supploes, etc. and then raid schools and bus them to the land and hold them, and scare them, not kill them, but make them think that they would be killed if they bullied others. I remember when I was 10 I made an Auschwitz for ants and treated them cruelly, tried to kill as many of them as possible, etc. But then the next day I felt bad and held a buffet for them, giving them tons of food.


I love disasters because I love to be touched by people's suffering. In a state of emergency, it doesn't matter if someone's ears stick out or who is fat, who is short, who has an ugly wart on their nose. Nobody cares what designer labels you're wearing, and people would actually beat you up if you made a disdainful comment about someone's worn clothes. All they care about is skill and attitude, and they will judge you on that, or die.

I'm also very interested in this camp. Having seen somebody really old I always try to look at such a person's hand to check whether there isn't a camp number on it.




When I and my cousin who's 3 years older than me were children, we founded a small graveyard in our grandma's garden - as far as I remember there was a swallow found by said cousin buried there, a dead chicken, an ant, two flies and few other insects. They had their graves we made of bricks for them.

I find fire and lightening very beautiful, but not people getting hurt by them. Cemetaries feel very peaceful to me. I like to look at he iconography and the epitaphs on tombstones and find the oldest ones.

On 9/11 I was pulled out of class along with the other students to watch what was happening on television. A few moments later the second plane hit the building. Everyone else was getting really hysterical and wanted to stay and watch the news. I just wanted to get back to work since it didn't help anything by getting really worked up about it. I don't think I really understood why it was such a big deal when things like that happen all over the world. It's always sad, but I didn't really get why this should get people so much more hysterical. And I know it's because it's on home soil but it still doesn't make much sense to me.

When the tsunami hit I was pretty indifferent. I felt bad that people got hurt and was curious about the phenomenon but couldn't really connect to it emotionally. Same with New Orleans.

After 9/11 I daydreamed about my school blowing up and being trapped in the rubble with some kids and making friends with them. I was also SO excited about Hurricane Katrina. I contemplated going down there and joining the refugees to get free handouts. We were rather poor, so I had nothing to lose. I also had a (very minor) breakdown because I was so lonely and bored and depressed and wished I was OUT THERE in the storm or at the Superdome... Sewerdome, yes, but never mind that! I LOVED the stories of how people barely made it out alive on 9/11-- how one person surfed on a piece of falling rubble and survived, how a group with a Polish-immigrant janitor were trapped in an elevator and managed to make a hole in the cement wall with a squeegee. I wish I had been in that group! And the International Group in the Sewerdome! What camaraderie, what solidarity! They were traveling together, over 100 people from about 20 countries, sticking together, looting together sometimes, the women giving the men sharp objects and the men making a circle around them and the luggage, then the group being escorted out together to everyone's envy and fury, and helping the wounded together in a field before being evacuated to another place. It sounds like my type of thing! I could never find that international group on the internet though.

I was a little disappointed when hurricane Katrina didn’t maintain category 5 status until landfall. It wasn’t that I was hoping for more death and destruction. I just get excited about meteorologically significant events.

I enjoy being awed and mesmerized by displays of natures power. Most of my interests/obsessions have had to do with this. I own a bunch of books and documentaries on major volcanic eruptions (Mt. St. Helens, Pinatubo, Krakatau, etc.). Also, as a kid I used to love building things (with blocks, legos, etc) just so I could destroy them afterwards. I remember playing Sim City and getting the most enjoyment from purposefully sending disasters and burning my city to the ground.

As of now, my most dominant obsession is severe weather (hurricanes, thunderstorms, tornadoes, blizzards, etc). I’ve been enthralled with thunderstorms ever since I overcame my fear of thunder (around the age of 6 or 7). I’m now a true weather weenie who gets terribly disappointed when storms “under perform” or miss my location. I have a few stories. When I was 20 and still living with my parents I once took off in my car to chase a thunderstorm. It was one of those storms that suddenly went crazy after it passed east of the house . I couldn’t bear missing the best action so I got on the highway drove east as fast as I could until I was right under the storm with very strong wind, torrential rain, and continuous lightning practically hitting on the sides of the road . Problem was the storm was moving so dang fast that I ended up driving almost 200 miles east trying to get ahead of it. Anyways, I got back at midnight and my parents were pissed. I had told them what I was doing but I ended up driving much farther than I originally intended (this was before I owned a cell phone).

Anyways, yes, I can relate to being captivated by violence. However, I prefer natural violence to manmade violence and I don’t get thrilled by death itself. It’s more seeing the physical violence and destruction that is thrilling.

Last edited by marshall on 12 Aug 2007, 6:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Hmm, maybe your just that nauseated by the status quo that any disruption of it (especially things getting real) seems like an improvement just for the fact that its change?

What a great topic!! !
I am really interested in disasters! I totally understand Some of your points about being interested in this sort of things. I am not into people suffering, but I just have so much trouble conecting with people.
I get an intellectual rush from this sort of topic. See I am the type of person that is always learning, and when I can pick up more information about interesting topics, I'm game!
As for serial killers- I love the puzzles that they leave you to solve. Have you guys seen the film Zodiac.
BTW I LOVE watching surgery show on TV. I find these thing facinating!

Wow, I can really relate to this topic. I don't like people getting killed and I don't like dead bodies but I'm very interested in things that do cause death and destruction: tornadoes, hurricanes, volcanoes, shipwrecks, plagues, wars. My ex used to tell me I was a ghoul. I was also really into vampires, gargoyles, and anything gothic in high school.

I too look at natural disasters more from a scientific viewpoint. In fact, sometimes it does seem that the human suffering aspect of it is muted to me. I pissed off some guy at my office a few months ago because I started complaining that they changed the Fujita scale and that the tornadoes that were now classified as F-5 really weren't all that powerful as tornadoes go. There was a news cast playing on the break room TV about a town being decimated by a tornado that was an F-5 under the new system. He started bitching at me like I was some inhuman monster. I've got plenty of empathy for others, it's just that when it comes to stuff I'm interested in, I've kinda got blinders on.

I also find that I get really excited if there's the possibility of a pending emergency. I guess it is the over-stimulation; I seem to thrive on it.

Spot17, nice avatar!


I thrive on stimulation too! I get SOOO excited when there are pending emergencies or possibilities of pending emergencies. They were the #1 best antidepressant when I was a kid. I had an absolute BLAST during the ice storm of 1998 in Montreal when I had just turned 10. It was best birthday present I could have gotten! I was right there in the middle of it... not out there, sadly, but in a shelter, at home, at relatives' place, and outside for walks to the store occasionally.

mmm fire

It sounds like you would get a kick out of europa europa. If you look at it without any feeling about the basic story line it is almost comedic.

Anyway, I felt only anger at the audacity of the stupid terrorists, and how my statements about Carter were proved true. Perhaps the worst thing was that this country that people call "the US" did things in such a maner. The US didn't spare an empire that seemed to have SOME sense of honor, but used the worst weapon ever imagined that actually existed in some form. NOW, they could have OBLITERATED the nations that show LITTLE honor with conventional weapons, but instead decide to try the piddly surgical strikes. They didn't even attack the infrastructure!

As for the destruction of the WTC, my own reaction about its affect was *****BIG DEAL*****! Let's just wipe them out and be done with it.

HECK, they CLAIM to be religious, and SOME people are talking about wiping out mecca and medina if they ever do it again. Some speak of the possible effect of such an afront on the muslims, but the moslems did the same thing with the Jews, preventing the temple from ever TRULY being rebuilt. BTW it is interesting that even the BIBLE says the temple won't be rebuilt in its original state because of the wall that was "Given over to the gentiles". ALSO, ever notice nobody ever speaks of hatred towards the jews? They speak of antisemitism, which includes the arabs!

I believe the current theory of AS is that some of us are "hyper-sensititve" in the same situations that others with AS are "hypo-sensitive".I think people with ADHD and AS may be more likely to be hypo-sensitive and in more need of "extream" situations to get the minumim of stimulation to feel "alive".They tend to be drawn to "extream sports" because of this need to kick their adrinalin levels up enough to just feel "normal".From a Darwinian perspective this makes sense to me as society needs a certain number of people who are willing to take risks and have an actual desire to seek out these experiences.I think this may also be something that some people with depression would find helpful.....a sort of "shocktreatment" to kick themselves out of their numbness and divert their tendency to get trapped in their own negative circular thinking.


I think I had some of this in my teens(when it is more common in general population).Only problem was that I also had a huge amount of fear,so the only way for me to act on this was drinking and making myself take chances by convincing myself that if it got to bad....."I could always kill myself.That helped me do things like "hitch-hiking",that I would normally be to paranoid to do.After being involved with a group of gutter punks for a year with constant conflict, chaos,homelessness
,etc....I got sober and all I craved was stability and routine.

I have no interest in natural disasters,wars,famine and perstulance other then educating myself about ways to avoid them or survive them as best as I can.I would be more likely to join a survivalist camp then the millitary(except that would intel being around people...*shudders*I have to much imagination for peoples sufferng to enjoy seeing or hearing about it.

I did think the reaction to 9/11 was out of porportion,just like the shuttle explossions.It bothers me when the media plays up on these as "more important" because they happen to Americans,but barely mention the wars in Darfur or the suffering of te everyday Iraqi people.MN recently had a bridge collapse and people were hurt and killed but it doesnt even compare to the number of people in Iraq suffering the collapse of their countrys inferstructure.This kind of media "over kill" upsets my sense of reality.

Krex, I know, my mother once said I might have ADHD, especially when I was really complaining about sensory deprivation. My sensory deprivation is still a major issue even while taking Celexa which is supposed to help, but all it does is prevent me from going down too far into the black hole of nothingness/sensory deprivation.

No, no, no, and no. The thought of innocent people dying in a freak disaster absolutely terrifies me.

I get marvelously happy when I'm listening to songs about Mankind being devoured and ravaged by the hordes of Satan. Does that count?

Nope. In fact tend to be somewhat sickened and/or frightened by them. Although I admit as a Californian my first instict during an earthquake isn't to panic, but to attempt to estimate its epicenter and magnitude. But also feel awful for whoever is hurt in the bigger ones.