Weird/macabre obsessions

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Not sure if this counts as macabre but I was really fascinated with mass destruction when I was younger. I used to spend lots of time drawing pictures of explosions and burning buildings. In 4th grade kids teased me that I would grow up to be a pyromaniac. I still kind of enjoy watching videos of the WTC collapse on 9/11.

The Meyers-Briggs Personality profile comes in handy for explaining this one. Most Aspies lie in the INTJ/INFP eighth of the chart, and as David Kiersey says in _Please Understand Me II_, a book every Aspie should read just to increase understanding of alien NT behavior, this means we have a "fascination with the Holy and the Profane". or in other words, our subconscious leads us to the extremes of life, with very little attention paid to the center that most people live in.

Serial Killers...mainly when I was younger, like in my early 20's....but I also later lived in a neighborhood that was haunted by a major serial killer in Houston in the 70's, known as Dean Correll (or the Candyman)...I think at least 2 boys were abducted from the block where I lived (years before I lived there of course)...ironicly, one was right next door to the old Super Happy Fun Land location...

I used to have a good friend/acquaintance....aspie-ish character.....who was a crime reporter for a small town newspaper. Whenever anything bad happened, it was his job to be on the scene. Whenever we saw each other we would huddle up and he would talk about his grisly encounters with this and that...and also serial killers...I always enjoyed talking with him...though he had a funny way about his eyes...and an odd norman bates-ish quality...I visited his house and it was meticulously decorated as though it were right out of the 1950's..down to the tiniest detail...creepily impressive...

I used to be somewhat fascinated with forensic entomology..

I grew up in Pasadena, and some of Dean Corll's victims were in that area as well.

I was a total basket case when the whole Railcar Killer thing was going on. Not because of a fear of serial killers, but because one of his victims had the same first name as a woman whom I had dated and whose infidelity I had discovered. Hearing that name in any context would set me off instantaneously.

I was at home when it happened, and I obsessively video-taped the next 12 hours of news coverage, glued to the TV with grim fascination, secretly eager for something else to be destroyed.

The Mütter Museum in Philadelphia is great for that!



There's also this great Firefox extension, interclue, where you can highlight something, and then mouse over it to get the option to search on google, wikipedia, twitter, and oneriot, and it does that exact search in a new tab. Very spiffy.

Me too. Especially the birth defects, and embryology generally. Even though the birth defects freak me out, I have to check them out...and I find somehow knowing the processes that cause them makes them all the more fascinating. Spent an interesting while browsing photos of holoprosencephaly on the web a few weeks back...totally bizarre.

Also, general anatomy and body parts. I actually work in a pathology lab, and we get to see all kinds of fascinating stuff. (Teratomas are a fave of mine, as I think I mentioned somewhere on here before - look 'em up.) I haven't yet witnessed an autopsy (for various legal and technical reasons, we don't get them very often), but I'd quite like to see one. According to a colleague of mine who has, the most surprising things are how strong the insides of a few-days-dead human corpse smell, and how much of them there is - the intestines and what-have-you are all packed in there pretty tightly!

Speaking of which, if anyone's interested and is in the UK before October 18th, there's a fabulous exhibition on right now:
http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/News/Media-of ... 055671.htm
(The Wellcome Museum is right opposite Euston station in London, and well worth a look anytime if you're into that kind of thing...)

exhausted - my husband thinks bacteriophage viruses are 'cute'. We're both rather odd.

No, that's "boys will be boys"

It's more socially acceptable to discuss blowing s**t up with things. At least in a fictional context. After 9/11 you can't joke as much about bombing the Pentagon or whatnot. Well it's not a good idea for discussing this in the "public sphere"-someone will actually take it serious and arrest you for terrorism or whatnot charges.

And now I set off CARNIVORE or whatnot the FBI and NSA uses. HI PARTYVAN

EDIT: Oh, as for my interests. The normal /b/tarded stuff (child porn, hentai, spam attacks, DDoS, guro, etc) All hypothetically. For the lulz.

I don't know if this is unusual, but Leviathan, Behemoth, and Lilith from the Bible. I still have this obssession.

I used to read a book on the 100 worst tyrants ever. Hmm. that sounded contridicting there. How about 100 best tyrants ever? Forgot most of them, but Vlad Dracula, Nero, Hitler, and Stalin are the ones off the top of my head.

Also read Top 100 massacres. Remember the Massacre of the Innocents (Herold the Great), persecution of Jews, period, and that one woman who killed many people and bathed in their blood thinking she'll be eternally young. Interesting.

Serial Killers, though not obssessed with them anymore, has been an interesting--though sickening--topic to read up on.

Elizabeth Bathory was her name. One strange character.

I know many of my family members conder ny Frida Kahlo passion fascination morbid, simply due to the graphic nature of alot fof her paintings.

I never really have had an obsession that lasted forever... but I have gone through phases. I liked watching live trials on court TV (now TRU TV) for a long time, but only the ones in which horrible things were done... it wasn't really to see how the outcome was, but how the person reacted to things that were said, and I always felt bad for the lawyers that had to defend them, lol.

I also went through a thing where I watched forensic files every single night, until it got so bad that I was having trouble sleeping at night because everything was always "They never did figure out why they picked this person, as there was no link between them..."

My mother (who I suspect is also an Aspie, and she suspects it as well) used to rent Faces of Death all of the time and watch them.

I've always liked stories about serial killers, and the more bizarre the things they did were, the more I liked them... both analyzing, and fascinated to some extent about how in the world they got away with things for so long.

My whole family has always had a very warped sense of humor as well... most people just walk away when we get going in a humorous conversation (well, we find it humorous).

If you haven't already, you have to go find William Blake's illustrations to the book of Job. Fabulous pictures of Leviathan and Behemoth.

Lilith is also a fascinating, complex character. I have a book about her by Barbara Black Koltuv with tons of wonderful old Talmudic lore in it. I've been trying to write a story with her in it on and off for years, but she always kind of shapeshifts into some other kind of narrative. I don't think she wants to be tied down in words.

The most macabre/weird interest I ever had was with famous 'freaks' and sideshows of yesteryear. I went through a special interest in Nazi Germany a few times, that would include the holocaust.

Not discussions for around the dinner table.

Here goes my confession...

I'm not really sure whether this qualifies as an obsession; I'd say it's rather a recurring thought I cannot get rid of. I can't stop thinking about people's navels. I find outie navels absolutely repulsive, and I can't really feel comfortable with a new acquaintance until years pass and I find a chance to find out whether that navel is a neat, clean, undeformed innie. I know this sounds stupid, and it ashames me to be under this compulsion to check navels (sometimes I think this is a ridiculous form of lookism), but I haven't been able to stop thinking about this.

OK, that's it. I said it finally.

Teratogenic topic

Thanks for pointing me to that term holoprosencephaly. I saw two specimens on the Vrolik Museum website and now I have a diagnosis for them. One is clearly cyclopean, and the other is either alobar or semilobar. The two infants (I believe they were born alive in the 19th century, but died shortly after birth) are preserved in fluid and are displayed in jars.

I will check out the Wellcome Museum online. I would like to go to Europe one day and view the exhibits there. My mother always said I had a morbid streak.

Thanks for the very informative post. Now WP knows I am a bit strange, but relax folks--I am harmless.

Last edited by sartresue on 06 Aug 2009, 9:51 am, edited 1 time in total.

I remember when I was little asking my grandma to let me visit cemetaries for like 5-10 mins. I liked walking around and looking at the kids' graves. I guess that should've been my first sign that I would have goth-like tendencies.

Because I am an obsessive-compulsive scab picker, I go crazy in my head trying to hold back every urge to pick off any large and noticable scabs I see on other people.

In my later years I developed a fascination with shooting sprees, people with mental illnesses, and my new favorite obsession post-apocalyptic scenarios (nuclear war a big fave).

I also might have one or two even darker obsessions/fascinations that I feel are too dark to discuss even on here.