Apocalyptic film, dramatic events, 9/11 and the attraction of dire events

I've been reading various works on PTSD, over the past few years, and doing so slowly (when I've got the time and the inclination or enthusiasm). There are so many theories and perspectives on PTSD, or - rather - on trauma, and its connection to events. One fascinating aspect of understanding trauma/ traumatic events and their impact on and within individuals and societies at large is the near mesmerization and fascination experienced by some individuals and at times (seemingly) entire societies when encountering truly brutal/ shocking/ traumatic events on social media, in film, on the news networks. I wonder if this fascination explains as well the great popularity of reality television. My guess is that it probably does. Anyway, I can point to my own experience in this area. On Spetember 11, 2001, I watched television, after my husband tracked me down at the university, and pulled me out of class to relay urgent messages from my mother. My mother had been attempting to contact me, once she herself had been contacted by some of my siblings, who advised her to turn on her television to catch the news feeds on the attack on the World Trade Centres and the Pentagon. She had reached my husband, who then went to inform me. I'll explain here, some of the backdrop of her urgent need to connect with me: I live in western Canada, the only one of ten kids in my family to move out of the U.S. The remainder of my family live in Ohio, wight he exception of two brothers living in the Pacific Northwest. I have always been concerned about my family's well-being, especially as I live so far from them. The events of 9/11 added to my anxieties about their welfare, as I - along with many in North America, and likely elsewhere - sensed that the events of that day were likely a harbinger of things to come. While I watched the televised coverage of the World Trade towers burning, people jumping or falling from windows high in the towers, the collapse of the towers, the attack on the Pentagon, and all subsequent events, I felt complete dismay, great grief, and shock. I as well thought that I was observing events that were cataclysmic, in the scope of U.S. history,if not the history of the western world. As a historian, I have been trained to think of events such as those of that day as having far-flung, long-lasting and unknowable legacies, as well as long-past origins and critical factors going back decades at least. I found my senses keyed up, 'hyper', and I could not - it seemed - stop my thoughts from replaying the televised images, nor could I stop my fascination with all that was going on. I recall watching hours of television afterward, and really having to try hard to pull myself away from the news feeds. I used the internet as well, watching possibly hundreds of personal cellphone and camera videos that had been posted by individuals present in New Yrok city, and in Washington, and in Pennsylvania. I asked my family members, in the year afterward, of their specific recollections of all that had happened, how they felt, what they did, and so on. I know at various points I found myself having nightmares of being in New York, at the World Trade Centre, as the planes hit the buildings, as the buildings collapsed. My husband observed several times that I really needed to stop watching coverage, and stop dwelling on the events. Since 2001, I've occasionally (more often in the years immediately following 9/11, far less now) searched online for videos from the events, photographs, and documentaries. I think there are at least two reasons for this fascination on my part: one is that I am a historian who happens also to be acutely interested in historical crises/ trauma/ survival. The second is that I am somehow 'comforted' by the invigoration that results from revisiting the neurological and cognitive (?) pathways created by my own traumatic experiences, without actually visiting those very private traumas of my own life. I can look and observe the traumatic events of - say - 9/11, without having ever been very personally and literally THERE, in New York, in Washington, in Pennsylvania, or even in the U.S. In one monograph I have read, quite recently, by Allan Young, he discussed and summarized several theories of trauma, and memory. In some of his summaries, as well as in other contemporary sources, mention has been made of this phenomena among people who have PTSD: this clear fascination with, and near-obsessive-like attraction toward dire and shocking events. It is -in my own perspective - as if PTSD sufferers cannot help but be drawn to observe, to watch, to feel the sensations brought by sudden catastrophic events - televised, in Hollywood film, on Facebook, or YouTube. Are PTSD sufferers ghouls? What is going on? One theory is that once one experiences traumatic events, and develops PTSD (and I do understand that this is an artificially all-encompassing label for a wide range of sensations/emotions/neurological circumstances), one's mind/brain 'needs' to replay the sensations of hyper-alertness/ foreboding/ catastrophic-awareness and even excitement. There is no stopping that very innate, very fundamental drive or attraction toward this replay. I'm going to read more on this, since I don't quite 'get' this yet, and don't want to even try to explain this all here. Those researchers who have posited this theory have explanations which are complex, understandably so, and I don't want to set out an explanation here without understanding it better myself. More later!