Anita! I definitely had an “ah-ha” moment reading your first post. First of all, thank you for sharing your experience with us. The reason is resonated with me is because when I was young I witnessed pretty severe domestic violence between my mom and step-dad. The thing I don’t know if I’ve ever admitted to anyone is exactly what you described: “I imagined I was in a movie and a feeling of pleasantness came over me, I was in an exciting movie.”

As a child, I think your brain tries to make sense of trauma and children may feel “excitement” as a coping mechanism. Not that there isn’t fear- it’s just a different kind of fear. Sometimes fear can feel dreadful (like witnessing an accident) and other times fear can feel exciting (like waiting to go on a roller coaster).

I’ll admit I’ve always felt hesitant to admit that the domestic violence I witnessed felt oddly “exciting” sometimes when I was really young (like under the age of 10). I think this was my mind’s way of detaching from the experience.

I realize it still negatively affected me though. I remember being in college and going to bars and if a couple of guys started getting to a physical fight, my heart would start racing and I’d start to panic and want to immediately leave. Now when I see adults fight it makes me anxious. Anxiety is one thing I’m working on in therapy.