30 Mundane Yet Very Sinister Things In Disguise That Harm Us All

Things around us, from obvious ones like the food we consume to pretty surprising ones, like the thoughts we think, have a tremendous effect on our emotions and mood. Just think of all the negativity that bombards us from TV screens and media, and it will become blatantly obvious why we often feel so down for seemingly no reason.

In the past couple of years, crime series and documentaries have gained a huge popularity among viewers. In fact, in a single week "Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story" surpassed "Bridgerton" and became Netflix's second most-watched English language series behind "Stranger Things." If you have not seen the series just yet, let me just tell you that Dahmer was a serial killer that murdered 17 men and boys over more than a decade, mostly gay men of color.

So to find out what watching disturbing material like The Jeffrey Dahmer Story says about us, we spoke with Helen Marlo, a licensed clinical psychologist and Jungian psychoanalyst who provides psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, and consultation. Helen is also a Professor of Clinical Psychology and the Department Chair at Notre Dame de Namur University.

Marlo said that certainly, this material can amplify negative moods. “We can feel grief, despair, traumatized, anxious, and hopeless, just to name a few,” she explained.“However, viewing others’ material can be a titrated, less direct way of helping us come to terms with our own negative emotional states,” she added.

Marlo argues that “while this material may trigger negative emotions, we may have the experience of being sadder or more anxious, but wiser.” Simultaneously, “engaging with this material can be a way we try to psychologically organize, understand, and make sense of suffering, hard realities of life, existential issues in life, and challenging aspects of our own stories.”

Therefore, viewing this material can help us become more empathic and thoughtful of this dark side of human nature, Marlo explained. She added that “viewing this material can also help us sublimate or channel other feelings of injustice, vengefulness, and aggression in a socially acceptable way that is often lacking in an unjust world.”

And “it can provide us a sense of mastery or a changed outcome including one where good prevails over evil.”