Hey now Julz, don't be so hard on yourself over there. You're not pathetic at all. A lot of people get attached to fictional characters, and they get very emotional about what happens to them (including me, and I'm in my 30s!). If storytelling didn't emotionally affect us all, no authors would sell any books and movies/television wouldn't be so popular. Stories are supposed to capture our hearts and imaginations. I think everyone has that *one* character in a story who really speaks to them and sticks with them. You're human! No shame in that.
And no shame for me, I did indeed cry my eyes out when I first saw Warrick's death. I knew it had happened in the series, but I was living on my own with no television when it first aired, so I initially missed it. Then, a year or so later, I had access to television again and those episodes came up in a CSI marathon. There have been a lot of shows where a main character gets killed off, but often times the writers/directors 'soften the blow' a little bit by having the death happen off-screen, or they shoot the scenes so they're 'easy' on graphic details and such. I was surprised the CSI team went so graphic with it. Warrick's death was *very* brutal, it would have honestly been hard enough to watch that particular death if it had been an ancillary character or a guest, but seeing that happen to a character the audience had come to know and love for years? That was EXTREMELY difficult to see. I think a lot of CSI fans felt that way, you're far from alone in that.
First time I saw it, I did feel like I had been hit upside the head with a tire iron, it was so painful and sad. I honestly had to break out the paper towels for my tears/snot, because tissues were NOT enough to handle it in that moment. I decided to cut the marathon short, I just felt like I needed a buffer zone to process what I had just seen. My mother (in her late 60s) flat-out stopped watching the show altogether after Warrick died. I think it just turned her off for good, because he was her absolute favorite and she felt it was way too brutal. I recovered eventually and watched the rest of the 9th season, but it took me awhile (especially since Grissom himself left just a handful of episodes later, in the ultimate double-whammy of sadness)(incidentally, I cried like a baby when Grissom left as well).
I have the DVD box-sets from 1-10, but I wholly admit I outright skip the episodes surrounding Warrick's death, the episode of his death, and the subsequent funeral. When I'm watching Season 8, there's just that building sense of dread as it draws closer, and I prefer to jump past it. So don't be hard on yourself about that, you're not the only one.
I can only imagine how I would have felt if I had been eleven years old when that episode aired. I was definitely way more emotionally affected by shows/movies when I was that age, and some of that stuff really does stick with you forever. There's a particular death in the movie "The NeverEnding Story" that utterly decimated me, to the point I had nightmares for weeks afterward and, to this day, I have never been able to go back to it (if you've seen it, you know which death I mean. If you haven't, you probably want to avoid it because it really is one of the most depressing films ever). I could give you a whole list of character deaths like that, I've felt that way many times over the years (including books I've sobbed over, to the point I have to psych myself up to read them again, since I already know what's going to happen).
So, suffice it to say, I don't think you should be so hard on yourself about it. You can do what I do: Just watch the episodes where Warrick and Nick are awesome partners-in-crime-solving together, and pretend Warrick will live forever
