The Crime Victim Who’s Obsessed with True Crime Shows

After I was injured in a school shooting, I found unexpected comfort in binging grisly TV shows and podcasts. And I’m not the only one.

Photos courtesy Taylor Schumann | Edited by Farah Mohammed

I sat on the couch under a white knitted blanket, my swollen hand propped up on the armrest with ice packs keeping the pain at bay. My husband, Eric, was holding the remote and clicking through the TV guide trying to find something that we both wanted to watch. We were on round four of binging Friends from beginning to end, and while he had been a trooper, he was kindly pleading with me to watch something else, anything else.

But anything else felt risky. Friends was familiar. I had already seen every episode. I didn’t have to worry about surprises. There wouldn’t be sudden loud noises piercing through the TV speakers. I didn’t have to feel nervous when I pressed play. And I was nervous. It had been six months since a gunman had walked into the college I worked at and, out of misplaced anger and frustration at the world, pointed a gun at me and pulled the trigger.

I was battling scenes of horror and darkness inside my own mind, r…