Firstly, hello and glad to be finally getting something out on this platform. Bear with me and the title, no I did not have a relationship with Dahmer, idolise him or any other serial killer for that matter but they do and always have fascinated me, and I’ll explain.
So, I recently finished watching the highly talked about and controversial Netflix TV series about Jeffrey Dahmer and it led me to start examining why I am always excited to watch the latest documentary/true crime story that comes out. Jeffrey Dahmer is played by Evan Peters of American Horror Story fame and if you are aware of that show, you will know that it’s an anthology show with much the same cast returning throughout the 11 season long run but each season, telling a different story means that the actors are always being given completely different and interesting roles to play. Evan Peters along with the rest of the cast is brilliant, simply amazing in the roles they play throughout, and he is again the absolute best man for the part of Dahmer. He also bears an absolutely shocking resemblance to the real Dahmer which gives it a great look too. The show is as you can image harrowing, the subject matter is absolutely off the scales of weird and its very shocking to watch the things that Dahmer does. It isn’t easy to watch and not bingeable, knowing the events really took place and that Dahmer did kill these men in this way is what makes these scenes so hard to watch. I loved it……. Gonna let that hang there.
I couldn’t wait for the show to drop, was excited by the trailers and sat down on release day to watch the first episode. I found it riveting. I could only watch one episode a day as it was that shocking and hard to get through but as a TV show it was brilliant and it wasn’t just down to Peters performance, the supporting cast, setup and overall tone was fantastically done. Well worth a watch as a piece of television (taking the fact these are real events out of the equation), it was brilliant.
For a long time, I have been fascinated by serial killers, the motives behind them and why they did what they did. I’ve always been someone who felt guilty for squashing spiders when I was younger and now refuse to do anything but release any spider that offends my family in the garden. I will go out of my way to not step on ants and such so it has always fascinated me the learn about these (mainly) male serial killers and just how far some people will go. I have read books, watched TV shows, listened to interviews and consumed as much information about them as possible in a bid to learn as much about the extremes that a human being will go to or what we are capable of. Bundy, Pee Wee Gaskins, Dahmer, Gacy, the Yorkshire ripper, the night stalker, BTK and so many more besides have all piqued my curiosity at some time or another. I think the most frightening thing about it all for me is that someone else just like me (male, adult and sentient) can be capable of such things is so compelling for me. The pee wee gaskins book was the hardest thing I have ever had to read, when in his own words he describes the rape and murder of a pregnant mother, and her 3-year-old daughter first made me put the book back on the shelf for 6 years until I picked it up again and restarted and then finished the book. The experience of reading the book was a learning process for me. Reading him quoted as saying “Once you do these things, you are completely free” has stayed with me ever since. The fact that he truly believed that he was free and that nothing was off the table was just so frightening to me. Dahmer had no-idea why he did the things he did and was relieved when he was caught, he didn’t have any anger toward any of his victims and stated he would drug his victims first, so they didn’t suffer. He would then go on to do things that you couldn’t possibly ever imagine doing to another human being under any circumstances.
It has often perturbed me that I am drawn to seek out these people and learn about them, I don’t find it in any way glamourous or anything weird like that, perhaps I feel I need to subject myself to it in memory of the people who were victimised perhaps or maybe its to show myself that I’m actually not a bad person with my regular everyday character flaws and questionable habits 😉. I previously worked as a surveyor for transport for London and I loved that job. I was in a different part of London everyday and would just watch the people going by about their business. I’ve often caught myself wondering about people’s motives in normal situations, considering their reactions and always, always giving out empathy and understanding about why someone has behaved the way they have. I’m very quick to forgive and often to my detriment I’ll let things pass that I perhaps shouldn’t. Maybe these two facets of my personality are linked. I seek out an understanding of the very extreme behaviour of individuals to maybe extend my empathy over more normal/everyday encounters. Often when I am beating myself up over say my upset over the current levels of care I’m receiving from the NHS, and I ask myself am I expecting too much? Or being over demanding its these things that tell me “No” I am a very reasonable person and quite often it’s my reasonableness that lets me down. I have to tell myself “No Rob! Anger is an acceptable emotional response to this” or “Yes Rob its ok to cry at this” and so on and so on. I’m perhaps searching for a better understanding of myself through the extreme behaviour of others…… interesting.
Right, I’m going to round this off for now. I want to say that the response to the last few blogs has been fantastic, I like to wait until I have something to write about and something that gives you guys a bit more of a window into what’s going on with me and I like to try and structure what I’m writing and that takes time. I hope you enjoyed this blog too. If you did, please hit the heart button at the bottom as with all social media Buy me a Coffee runs on ‘likes and engagement’. I’d appreciate it. I also want to say a massive thank you to all the members of the ShutYerGob community the past two months has just been the best. Support is way up and it just means the world to me so thank you! You guys’ rock!
RobGoblin