…she asked herself as the crows gathered on the roof.
It was a foggy November day and our protagonist (me) wasn’t able to do anything but sit and puzzle and listen to podcasts. That day was years ago but never really ended. Before that, or inbetween while waiting for new episodes to drop, it was crime thriller audio books. On the rare occasion that reading is possible, it’s crime novels and thrillers, too. Why is that? Is it because I am the stereotypical fairly privileged white girl? Maybe. But never have I ever had a Pumpkin Spice Latte from ****bucks nor do I own a Stanley Cup. So there’s gotta be another explanation. It’s not because I am addicted to dark stuff. I used to like horror movies, even the gory ones. Nowadays occasionally, yes, but I’m happy to skip the graphical display of violence. No, what drove me towards crime is my constant companion: deression. One that makes it difficult to concentrate – a common symptom of us heavy-of-hearties. Barely existing requires all energy so there’s not much left for even the simplest of tasks. Passive consumption is the way to kill time when you don’t have the power to kill yourself.
When your life is void of happiness and joy, it is impossible to consume any feel-good media. Romcoms, comedies, Hallmark Christmas movies – impossible to watch. Impossible to enjoy, not even my favourite comedy shows (British, of course) or the podcasts that used to make me lol. My world is dark and gruesome and it needs to be reflected in the art I consume. If you want hopelessness and despair, just turn on the news, you may think. But that’s too real. As in it affects me too much. Of course I know that true crime is real, too. But it’s already happened, it’s a story that is told and there’s a narrator, thus a distance, and I become a passive consumer, not a potential witness or contemporary. If I crawl into bed with a Harlan Coben, if I listen to a Jillian Hoffmann thriller, if I mindlessly immerse into the fictional world of serial killers and murderers, I can put my own issues aside and be engaged because thrillers are thrilling and page-turners. Also, there is often a PI to follow who’s even more depressed than me, but has an even worse lifestyle so I feel a teensy bit better about myself. Same with true crime – it might sound horrible but when they analyze the perpetrator’s motives, psyche, background, there are quite often similarities to my own history. So I’m like “hey, at least I didn’t kill anyone”. Whatever makes you feel better, I guess.
Before I stayed at Buchenbach (psychiatric clinic), I thought I was wrong for being so drawn to the dark side of the human race and everything gruesome. That simply can’t be normal. Boy, was I wrong. It is normal. I mean, I am still wrong in that I am just wrong and anything but normal but at least this is. At the clinic they had – amongst the standard royal and Schlagerstart gossip yellow press high gloss magazines – a CRIME magazine subscription. I used one of said magazine issues to commit murder on a particularly annoying fly. Its blood is stuck between the pages 10 and 11. How Edgar Allan Poetic. It’s honestly reassuring to notice that at least among other mental cases, I’m not out of the ordinary. So yeah, I spend my evenings mostly doing one puzzle after the other while letting someone tell me tales of gruesome murder and other crimes. And forget myself, at least for a very brief, very relieving moment. You can’t compare suffering. But it helps to focus on that of others, real or not, sometimes. As long as you don’t get emotionally involved. Which doesn’t happen when you’re deep in depression death valley, where vastness reins and emotions are numbed. So is it healthy? Probably not. But there are times when you don’t have a choice. It’s either crimes or being killed by your own intrusive thoughts. I made my choice. Pro personal life. The others are dead already, anyway. And I might live, after all, maybe, who knows. I’d like to believe that.