Auntie SparkNotes: I Thought About Murder During a Makeout
Dear Auntie,
Let’s rewind to a week ago when I was hanging out with a guy I met over a social media app. We met up and hung out at his apartment, watched a movie, cuddled a little bit… and then spent several hours macking in the back of his car like the two thirsty college students we are. I’m not proud of myself, and I’m hoping not to descend to such a hopelessly desperate level as to make out with practically a perfect stranger again, but I was extremely horny, and lately I seem to be exceptionally good at making bad decisions. That aside, what started out as a fairly ordinary make out sesh took an abrupt turn for the downright disturbing.
Even though he was obviously having a good time, I found myself getting quite bored. It wasn’t that he was bad or anything, I just quickly realized I was no longer in the mood for what I thought I had been. I didn’t want to be rude and break it off so soon, and I was enjoying myself at least enough to justify staying, so I went along with it for a while. We’d been in there for at least an hour when I found myself on top of him with my hands on his chest and the thought went through my mind: I bet I could kill him. I bet I could just start strangling him and he would be too shocked to react in time. Or I could pull out my pocket knife and stab him in the throat until he bled out. I even went as far as to wonder about places I could dump his body and then hide his car. We’d literally met that night, and I’d given him a fake name. There was nothing strong enough to connect me to him. I felt certain that I could have gotten away with it. Easily.
These are actual thoughts I was thinking while I was making out with this guy, Auntie.
What’s more, once I started thinking about it, I wanted to do it. I suddenly felt more passionate about killing this guy than I did making out with him. I could hardly keep my hands off his throat because they kept straying. I had no reason to want to kill him. I wanted to commit murder for the sake of murder. And that feeling stayed with me up until I finally told him I needed to get home and then never spoke to him again.
All the next day I felt absolutely terrible. I spent hours just laying curled up in bed hating myself. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, didn’t want to look anyone in the eye. I felt like a total monster. Yet, for better or for worse, by the next day I was totally fine. Completely over it. It was barely a twinge in the back of my mind. Like, hmm, yeah, I really wanted to kill someone the other night, but I better get cracking on my homework now.
The thing is, I have struggled with depression and anxiety for a good many years now, and I do have a perhaps too intense fascination with what might be considered pretty macabre subjects, but jeezum, I’ve never wanted to straight up COMMIT MURDER. I keep telling myself that I’m only 18, and at some point I’m sure I’ll just grow out of all this nonsense, but—have I gone too far? Should I seek psychiatric help? I’m absolutely terrified of admitting this to anyone I know because I have no idea how they’ll take it, but it’s killing me not to talk to someone about this and figure out what is going on in my very messed up head. In spite (or especially) due to the fact that I felt so disgusted with myself after then got over it so quickly. Please help!
Oh, Sparkler. Like you’re the first person in the world ever to distract herself during a less-than-thrilling makeout by playing an internal game of Hey What If I Stabbed This Guy?
Because seriously, you’re not. I can virtually guarantee that you’re not. It is a truth universally acknowledged that the human brain craves stimulation—and when it doesn’t get it from the situation at hand, it will freely and willfully take itself on a little field trip into more entertaining mental territory, whatever that may be. And if there’s a dead body somewhere in that territory? Well, hey! Even better!!! There is a reason why one of the most popular primetime television programs of our age is quite literally called How to Get Away with Murder; it’s a subject that people find endlessly fascinating, and always have.
And while of course it’s not fun when a whimsical mental diversion becomes an intrusive thought the way yours did, that is also a thing that happens to almost everyone with some frequency. It’s just not a particularly far distance from imagining what would happen if you did some horrible, socially-unacceptable thing, to feeling like you are utterly compelled to do that thing, and to realize that the only thing keeping you from doing it is an excruciatingly thin wall made of nothing but your own will. It’s terrifying! But it’s terrifying in a totally normal, natural, human way. We all get these occasional glimpses into the power we have to do harm, and it’s always unsettling. And in your case, that glimpse was layered on top of the regret you already felt for a choice that made you feel not-so-great about yourself. You set out to have a fun, no-strings-attached makeout, and got a gutful of boredom, desperation, and self-loathing instead. Even without the intrusive murder fantasy, this wasn’t exactly shaping up to be a fun evening for you.
That said, if those thoughts start to get in the way of your happiness, health, and general well-being, you can of course seek help for them. (Truly troublesome intrusive thoughts, i.e. the kind that mess with your life and won’t go away, are often linked to OCD, which means that therapy and medication can help combat them—and if you did seek help, you can trust that a mental health professional will not be shocked by anything you tell them.)
But if this just happens to you from time to time, and if you find yourself feeling untroubled by the whole thing a mere 24 hours later, then that’s probably because you do know, on some level, that it’s just not a big deal, and that there’s a big difference between being fascinated by the idea of murder and actually wanting to commit one. This was a thought that stopped far short of ever becoming an act. It’s not dangerous, and it’s okay to let it go.
Of course, it’s also okay to channel it into the plot of your new, bestselling thriller novel, Death by Snapchat. You are your own master.
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